I know that for this week we were only given three chapters from the Corman and Poole’s (2000) Perspectives on Organizational Communication: Finding Common Ground but I would like to reference a few pages towards that end of the book that help frame my discussion questions. I hope this is alright.
At the end of the book, we are given the choice of three paths, (1) “projecting our discipline as one that should embrace common ground”, (2) “embrace productive dialogue yet maintain the tensions between different perspectives”, or (3) “select one perspective, work within it, and argue against all others” (p. 211). The book suggests that “positivists search for commonality, critical theorists search for conflict, and interpretivists are interested in diversity and the process of social construction” (p. 212). On this note, I ask a few questions.
(1) Thinking about your research and/or teaching, which paradigm do you work from and if not one of these paradigms can you suggest an alternative view?
(2) How might your research and/or teaching be different if you worked from a different paradigm?
(3) Aside from our paradigmatic commitments, we might also think about how the different perspectives fit together. Are there specific things that you can suggest that might help create common ground between the different perspectives?
(4) The book ends with no clear resolution on who’s right or wrong or what path to take, but what the book does say is that it’s the process of inquiry and criticism that helps us attain good scholarship. My final question is on the idea that debating and defending our perspective is just as important as researching a particular area in communication, what do you think of this statement?
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