Tom Dixon.

Tom Dixon. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1996 308 pp $7325 cloth; $3950 paper.

The relationship between the fields of management science and organizational communication is tenuous and frequently contentious. The few recent scholarly works that have sought to integrate the pair fields have not been all that well received (see Tompkins, 1992) With the continued emotion toward participative organizations and the ever-increasing impulse toward managing meaning in our work lives, our ne to integrate these brace fields has never been more important. over and above the two fields seem to remain for the greatest part on "nonspeaking" terms.

Entering the fray now is Tom Dixon and his of the present day book, Communication, Organization, and Performance. As the title implies, Dixon has sought to integrate communication studies and organization studies below the rubric of "performance." Dixon's synthesis is lucky for three reasons. First, he has same effectively integrated relevant organizational communication and management science literature, for example, accurately tracing the scholarly close attention of "performance" through the formative work of Pacanowsky and O'Donnel-Trujillo (1983) next to the first he has crafted a well-supported and well-developed "recipe" for work in today's highly participative organization, which hinges forward the management of meaning. Third, Dixon's work is particularly provocative and determines us toward a useful way of considering contemporary courses of organizing, both conceptually and practically.

That said, readers will not be delighted with Dixon's work unless they can vanquish two key problems that mark the work and that need to be discussed prior to reviewing the book's easy in mind First, the reader, after taking a cursory glance at the make contenteds page will probably see the work more as a textbook than as a theoretical contribution, and it certainly turn the thoughtss like an advanced text in many ways. I could easily imagine, say, an advanced graduate scholar looking at the first hardly any chapters (which are on Taylor, Weber, and Follett respectively) and saying, "Been there, done that," and not giving the work a worthy read. It was not until I was well into my reading that I realized that the "text" format was necessary for Dixon to cause to grow his ideas into a meaningful and useful [i]modus operandi[/i] The second, and exceedingly vexing question is that Dixon never really run overs us exactly what he means from "performance." He mentions the word mostly in chapter titles and subheadings and single rarely addresses performance directly in chapter contentment Unfortunately, the full contribution of the work is only apparent if the reader comprehends Dixon's particular connotative intent for the name "performance." I readily admit that I did not understand Dixon's meaning until after I had finished the part What I eventually realized was that Dixon wants us to grasp a somewhat unconventional meaning for performance.

When we descry the term "performance" attached to the words organizational communication, we usually comprehend single in kind of three meanings. The first possibility is the conventional and practical meaning: "Jack performed the part of the team's organizer." The inferior possibility is the more cultural connotation of performance as a dramatic enactment: "Jack performed as a comic foil to Susan's attempt to memorize the team to take the issue seriously." The third possibility is the productivity connotation: "Jack performed better than his associates because he was able to establish a novel system of communication." Dixon wants us to envision a fourth and les belonging to all connotation for performance, one similar to that in Tuckman's (1965) famous analysis of small groups: "Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing." That is, Dixon's volume concerns how members of today's highly participative organization can work together just as effectively as undivided of Tuckman's highly effective clumps would "perform." What Dixon has crafted, here, is an innovative and provocative theory for by what means people can perform well in today's organization. one time I understood Dixon's intent for the word performance, insinuating as it was, everything otherwise fell into place.

With the knowledge that Dixon has crafted a theory for to what extent we can work well together in today's meaning-intensive organization, the composition of the book makes consummate sense. Dixon begins in chapter 1 through necessarily establishing our need to understand and analyze the highly participative character of today's organizational environment. Then, in his vexingly jesuitical manner, he steers us toward the ne to "perform." Dixon integrates communication and organization together with the word "mediate," as in "communication can mediate organization" (p 10) That is, we have to use communication practices to shape, mold and form an effective organization and to counteract unhealthy organizational crushings and trends. While that is certainly not a of the present day idea, and Dixon accurately drew forward Barnard's (1968) work in developing his point, what is modern in Dixon's theory unfolds in the remainder of the book

Dixon integrated communication and organization by dint of illustrating our need to disentangle mediating frameworks to guide for what cause we interact together at work: "Organizational theory requires a schema that generates efficiency [i]or[/i] part of to the other the techniques of task definition, integration between the walls of individual identification with the team and the institution, and human consideration and trust by the agency of genuine communication" (p. 10). like schemas become the mediating frameworks from one side which we can perform (i.e., communicate and organize in highly functional ways). Further, the three points above - efficiency, identification, and "genuine communication" - illustrate Dixon's effectiveness at mixing advanced in years and new, at integrating classic and contemporary scholarship into a fresh and intriguing model. These points also indicate that Dixon's work is a delicate balance of criticism and practicality. He is keenly aware of the consecutions of today's organization but wants us to propel beyond these consequences to an organization in which we can work well, or perform, together.