Discourses of post-bureaucratic organization represents an ambitious effort by Rick Iedema to synthesize the fields of discourse studies and organization studies. Not since Deirdre Boden's The business of talk (1994) has this feat been attempted in such depth by a scholar whose starting point is linguistics (as opposed to management theory). Of course, each of the two fields being synthesized includes a large number of diverse perspectives. Iedema develops his theoretical paradigm primarily by highlighting and intertwining the strands of social semiotics and conceptualizations of the “post-bureaucratic organization.” He weaves these together with the aid of Foucauldian notions of discourse and governmentality. In this review, I will first summarize Iedema's argument and then offer an assessment of its strengths and limitations. My description of the book will go into some detail as a service to potential readers, because, in fact, this volume is not easy to read.

The central theme of Iedema's book is the identification and description of a phenomenon that he labels “textualization.” This is a novel set of meaning-making practices that Iedema holds to be characteristic of organizations today. Before explicating these discursive phenomena, however, let me set the stage by summarizing the organizational side of Iedema's argument. In his understanding of the way organizations function under late capitalism, Iedema is strongly influenced by the critical management theory approaches of authors such as Heckscher & Donnellon 1994. He begins with their argument that shifts in the global political economy have led to a complex of organizational changes that include “the reduction of formal levels of hierarchy, an emphasis on flexibility rather than rule-following” (Grey & Garsten 2001:230), increased reliance on work teams, and a shift to contract work and outsourcing. Iedema also accepts their claim that a new form of organizational control has emerged in which workers are called on not only to execute their tasks efficiently but also to display psychological engagement with and commitment to the work. The same phenomenon has been analyzed by followers of Foucault, using his concept of governmentality. Foucault argues that the most subtle way for institutions to exercise control over their subjects is to inculcate in these subjects a personal desire to carry out institutional goals, in the belief that they are acting in their own self-interest. In this way, subjects will come to “govern” themselves. Although Foucault is especially interested in state governments, later authors have applied the concept of governmentality to other types of organization as well.

It is in this context that Iedema argues that “textualization” is the central process shaping post-bureaucratic organization. He frames textualization as a dialectical negotiation between two poles; Table 1 summarizes some of the oppositional sets of terms he uses to express this dialectic. Furthermore, under late capitalism, Pole 2 takes on an increasing role in organizational life. Iedema claims that until recently, most employees mainly needed to communicate their work experiences to others who were relatively close to them in the work process. Thus, their conversation could highlight the local and the particular. In the post-bureaucratic organization, however, workers increasingly need to communicate their work to others who are in distant parts of the organization, or even in entirely different organizations. Such interactions require participants to bridge diverse local understandings and to describe their work in generalized terms that can be understood by a broad audience. Thus, employees are called on to shift articulations and outputs of their workplace activities and identities from Pole 1 to Pole 2.

The two poles of textualization.

Iedema argues that “textualization” is comprised of three related discursive processes, which he terms “delinguistification,” “dedifferentiation,” and “time-space distanciation.” The first term refers to a shift toward generalizing and abstracting uses of language (Habermas 1987). “Delinguistified” discourse also elides information that speakers assume to be shared with their audience; it therefore naturalizes shared ways of knowing. The second term, “dedifferentiation,” refers to discursive processes through which differences of opinion between conversational participants or stakeholders are deemphasized. Such differences of opinion may be due to contrasts in organizational positions, roles, professional expertise, or status. Third, “time-space distanciation” refers to a standardization and extension of structures and practices across time and space (Giddens 1984). Iedema offers grammatical metaphor, especially nominalization, as a key linguistic technique for achieving textualization.

According to Iedema, when employees learn to describe their work in generalized terms for a broad audience, they come to see themselves in a different way. By publicly affirming their identification with work practices which they have explicitly articulated, they connect more intensely with their job. This increased affiliation enables organizational power to flow through the “participative logic of governmentality” (46); as employees identify more with their organization, they enact its goals out of their own perceived self-interest.

The process of textualization contributes to two changes in the position of employees. First, textualization helps raise the “visibility” of employees inside the organization: The discursive spotlight is placed on their performance while the role of senior management is deemphasized. Second, textualization increases the “transparency” of work processes: The creation of generalized work descriptions enhances management's ability to measure the performance of employees against a norm. Employees can more easily be held accountable for following standardized work practices and meeting quantifiable targets. Although these shifts in the position of employees have been identified previously, Iedema illuminates the role played by discursive processes.

Iedema's argument has both strengths and limitations. I commend the author for reaching out to the field of organization studies from a home base in discourse studies. He has clearly thought deeply about the issues, and he provides an interesting synthesis of social semiotics and certain organizational concepts. His introduction to social semiotics is cogent, and he makes a strong case for the usefulness of this theoretical paradigm for organization studies. I find his argument especially interesting when it touches on the transformation of discourse as it moves from the particular to the general – for instance, the way in which talk in a meeting to plan a hospital building is transformed into written guidelines, which in turn lead to the design of an architectural plan, and then ultimately to the construction of the actual building (144). I would like to have seen this topic explored in greater depth.

The main limitation of this book is that the discussion of organizational life is rather thin. Iedema's use of existing literature is narrow, his examples are few, and his arguments lack a nuanced understanding of what goes on in organizations. The organizational literature he draws on consists mainly of two works on post-bureaucracy (Heckscher & Donnellon 1994, Grey & Garsten 2001). So, for example, he seems unaware that the argument he presents about workers being required to display an attitude of psychological engagement dates back to Tompkins & Cheney 1985, who identify the phenomenon as a new form of organizational control which they label “concertive control.” Their insights were extended by authors such as Barker (1993, 1999) and subsequently diffused into the literature on post-bureaucratic organizations. Iedema's analysis would have been enriched by addressing the concept of concertive control, and doing so would have helped readers from organization studies follow his reasoning. The book also makes no reference to a large body of organizational research on language and power, whose leading authors include Mats Alvesson, Stanley Deetz, and Dennis Mumby. Much of what Iedema says overlaps with the concerns of this literature, and again, organizational scholars would have found his book more accessible had he engaged with ongoing discussions.

Iedema offers surprisingly few examples of actual interactions in organizations. Several of his examples are invented, and others are repeated from one chapter to another. It is telling that he describes the pros and cons of adopting computer-based medical record-keeping systems by summarizing discussions in the medical literature, rather than by presenting the story of the actual adoption of such a system. I find the lack of field data surprising, because he claims to have conducted several years of ethnographic and linguistic fieldwork (178). Furthermore, Iedema's data collection has taken place primarily in medical organizations, yet he does not address the ways in which such organizations function differently from corporations or other types of institutions.

In addition, Iedema provides little organizational context for his examples. It is hard to understand the significance of snippets of conversation without knowing the political situation in which they took place, or the effects that they had on the subsequent life of the organization. For example, chap. 5 describes a meeting in which an unskilled facilitator fails to unify the diverse viewpoints of team members, who all belong to different organizations. We do not learn contextual information such as what pressures the participants faced in their respective organizations, or how this shaped their attitudes and behaviors. What key events happened before the meeting that shaped its dynamics? What were the consequences of the meeting? Similar questions are left unanswered for all examples.

Perhaps because of this lack of data, Iedema presents a rather undifferentiated view of organizational life. His arguments have a tendency to simplify the experience of employees. One area in which this happens is his elision of differences in the contexts that employees move through during the course of their workday. For instance, in chap. 3 Iedema provides a four-line extract from a document of the Australian Department of Immigration. He argues that the grammatical metaphors it contains lead “the people who … are in charge of realizing the intentions of this discourse” to “reconfigure their agency” and their enactment of time and space (75). This is a rather sweeping statement. Employees may perform a particular discourse in one organizational context without necessarily acquiring a new sense of agency, time, and space in all moments of their work life. Iedema's argument does not take into account the ways in which employees engage in quite different performances of self depending on the organizational context in which they find themselves. For instance, their behavior among trusted coworkers is likely to be markedly different from their self-presentation in front of an audience of senior management or clients.

A second way in which Iedema's view of organizational life lacks nuance is his failure to distinguish consistently between employees at different levels in the hierarchy. At a minimum, it would be helpful to distinguish between workers and management. And, to the extent that he is writing about his knowledge of hospitals, it would be interesting to see an analysis of the status of doctors – they seem to share some characteristics of both workers and managers. Iedema never distinguishes between these different groups in terms of how they might experience the process of “textualization.”

As these comments indicate, Iedema's writing has itself undergone a process of “textualization” – it is far removed from the lived experience of organization members. Much of the writing utilizes complex grammatical constructions, nominalizations, and passive verbs. Iedema uses jargon extensively. Also, the text relies heavily on direct quotes; Iedema often lets other authors voice his main points.

This book is likely to be of interest to scholars in both discourse studies and organization studies. In particular, it may be useful to those studying the ongoing transformation of Western medical institutions. However, they will need to accept the narrowness of Iedema's organizational perspective, and be willing to stay with a text that is challenging to read.