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theses

Across scholarly and professional accounts of organizing for interdisciplinarity communication is understood to be the foundation of its achievement, yet these accounts typically present a cursory view of communication principles and processes. Increasingly, interdisciplinary spaces are presented as the solution for facilitating interaction and integration across disciplines in higher education. This dissertation examines the case of a newly designed organization that privileges communication in distinct ways in order to achieve interdisciplinary practice enabled primarily through the design of a physical and administrative structure, and the generation of new routines and rituals.

This research is a single case study that uses qualitative field methods for data collection including observations, informal conversations, and interviews, as well as document and artifact analysis to investigate the research questions posed. The theoretical and methodological framework, which informs both data collection and analysis, is derived from Communication as Design (CaD) (Aakhus, 2007; Jackson & Aakhus, 2014) and Grounded Practical Theory (GPT) (Craig & Tracy, 1995, 2014). Both offer a productive way to articulate, critique, and ultimately inform practice through the investigation of the communicative tensions and dilemmas that arise, as well as the premises that shape the communicative action of members of a practice (Aakhus, 2007; Craig & Tracy, 2014). In taking a ‘design stance’ and using a practice lens to develop the case, this dissertation frames the achievement of interdisciplinarity as a communication design practice and attends to the constitutive nature of organizing by examining how the ideas and principles of practice (i.e., interdisciplinarity) are turned into physical, administrative, and social structures and how these are embraced or resisted in various ways generating new conditions that must be worked out.

Findings reveal how there are different practical theories at play regarding the kind of communication that best enables interdisciplinary practice, and these differing perspectives open a disagreement space concerning the design of communication. A key empirical outcome of this case is the articulation of the discourse about communication needed to achieve interdisciplinary practice. In response to problems and tensions arising in practice, the discourse in this case shifts from a thin theory of communication offered by the founders to a struggle for a shared understanding of interdisciplinary practice and the nature of communication for its development. Findings highlight the importance of surfacing the underlying assumptions about communication embedded in physical and administrative structures or found in every day interactions and the implications this has for organizing and makes explicit the ways in which the physical environment becomes implicated in communication design.

Additionally, this study demonstrates how the principles of language and interaction used as heuristic for thinking about designs for communication and the achievement of interdisciplinarity is a productive approach in that it surfaces tensions not always evident. It also illustrates how practices develop over time and therefore designing for interdisciplinarity is never complete, that is organizing in general and interdisciplinarity specifically requires a continuous process of engagement among organizational members. Together, these demonstrate a need for a distinct approach grounded in design for organizing, managing, and leading interdisciplinary organizations (Yoo, Boland, & Lyytinen, 2006).

ETD_9515

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Christine V. Goldthwaite

doi:10.7282/t3-36sz-9j74

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.