The rhetoric of identification and the study of organizational communication

Abstract

This essay argues that scholars of rhetoric and communication broaden their conception and application of Kenneth Burke's “rhetoric of identification.” The first part of the essay offers the individual‐organization relationship as an exemplar for understanding and examining the rhetoric of identification. The second section derives a tentative typology of identification strategies and tactics and applies it in a critical assessment of corporate house organs. The essay concludes with an interpretive explication of the process of identification in contemporary business organizations.