Toward a Theory and Practice of Organizational Listening

Abstract

While there is an important and growing body of research literature on listening, it is predominantly focused on interpersonal listening. Meanwhile, in contemporary industrial and postindustrial societies, organizations play a central role in society and the lives of citizens. People need to interact on a daily basis with government departments and agencies, corporations, and a plethora of nongovernment and nonprofit organizations. Despite theorization of the disciplinary practices of public relations and corporate, organizational, government, and political communication as two-way communication involving dialogue and engagement with stakeholders and publics, a transdisciplinary literature review of these fields reveals that little attention is paid to listening. In addition to identifying this gap in the literature, this article reports empirical research that shows organizations listen sporadically, often poorly, and sometimes not at all. To address this socially and politically significant gap, this analysis makes recommendations as a contribution to a theory and practice of organizational listening.

Notes

¹ 360 degree refers to a comprehensive staff evaluation method that collects feedback from an employee’s manager, peers and supervisees.

² ‘Stakeholders’ is a term proposed by R. Edward Freeman (1984) in his book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach to draw attention to those affected by or affecting organizations beyond stockholders. Stakeholders can include employees, suppliers, distributors, retailers, and local communities.

³ The term “publics” (plural) is used by public relations scholars (e.g., Grunig & Hunt, 1984) and sociologists and political scientists such as Nina Eliasoph (2004) to refer to the range of groups and individuals with which organizations need to interact.

⁴ Ministerials are letters sent to a government Minister, department, or agency by a Member of Parliament or Congress on behalf of citizens.