ECREA16-Abstract

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Alternative Theoretical Approaches to Participation in Organizational Communication – Analysis and Application of Relational

Constructivism

R. Evangelista

, T. Carvão

INFNET, Escola de Comunicação e Design, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

INFNET, ECDD, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This research aims to reflect on the hyper valuation of Organizational Communication based solely on strategies and its instrumental nature. Is also intends

to verify the feasibility of an alternative theoretical model, which uses the relational constructivism (Deetz, 2010) as the foundation for communication in

organizations. Until the 80s, the market communication, mainly oriented to the sale, was the main character in the organizational environment. In it, all

efforts made aimed at the immediate quantitative results and a very strong marketing function could be noticed. Since then, due to changes in organiza‑

tions and in media, a new form of information processing (in which the strategic nature is often very stressed and value) has been maintained. We believe

that this enhancement of strategic communication character in the organizational context, sometimes, is unnecessary and limit or inhibit the development

of new perspectives for analyzing production processes and attribution of meaning, as well as determining the actual level of participation interlocutors

in the communicative process. There are numerous authors that address the strategy as an essential practice to communication in organizations, and even

refer to it as Strategic Communication. To compose a solid theoretical board, contrary to the uniqueness of the strategic perspective and the instrumen‑

tal nature of Organizational Communication, we based our research on authors who tread the same path of questioning: Varey (2000), Radford (2007),

McClellan (2009), Deetz (2010). This last one proposes a new model for identification, characterization and classification of communicational practices

based on the production of meaning and the level of participatory freedom of the interlocutors. Called PARC – Politically Attentive Relational Construction,

the model highlights the need for concepts and practices of open conversations, deliberation, dialogue and collaboration. The author defends the idea that

the presence and intervention of others and the role of language particularize the approach under the constitutive perspective. Communication is treated

as a place of action, intervention and experience mediated by language, constitutive and organizer of the subjects, the world's objectivity and subjectivity,

since it is the intervention of the subject that brings out your shared or different worlds. Communication is no longer seen as subsequent to the facts and

intentions - there is not the world, on the one hand, and communication, on the other - and is seen as a place of establishment of the social structure.To test

and analyze the feasibility of PARC model, we chose a study case as a research methodology. Our object of study is Netflix and its communicational practices

in social networks that, in some way, interfere with or relate to Brazilian entertainment market. The results indicate that the relationship between strategy

and Organizational Communication can be re-conceptualized as two points of view. The first one would be that Communication is an intrinsic element,

however, subordinate to the strategic processes. The second point of view relates to the constitutive character in which the strategies are, in their nature,

a communicative process.

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Non-Governmental Organizations and Corporations: Conflict & Collaboration

J. Memaran Dadgar

Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of History- Culture and Communication, Rotterdam, Netherlands

This research project analyses the transforming relationship between businesses and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from pure antagonists

to equal collaborators in the past two decades. This shift resulted as the effects of globalization have altered the global balance of power, decreasing

the influence of national governments and the public sector in general. As a consequence, NGOs gained influence worldwide and the non-profit sector

transformed into the voice of civil society, taking its place as an institutional actor next to its equally strengthened for-profit counterpart. Given this rise

in global influence, and their collective influence and power, NGOs and businesses are believed to be the sustainable solution to the global environment

and societal problems we face today. Further, both actors have taken upon characteristics once thought constituent of the other, as the borders between

the for- and non-profit sector have gradually become indistinct. Realizing the potential benefits and resources that each side may hold for the other, NGOs

and business have thus begun to engage in dialogue and eventually partnerships with one another. Departing from previous scholarship that examines

the historically tense relations between the two actors, this research examines how NGOs and businesses might forge collaborative partnerships. Typically,

such partnerships have been limited to the well-established donor-recipient model, often observed in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs.

However, there is evidence to suggest that such arrangements offer limited opportunity for value creation and that organizations are shifting towards

sustainable solutions for global environmental as well as social issues, characterized as the creation of shared value in its most advanced form. The research

project therefore sheds light on the following questions: RQ 1: Under which conditions do businesses and humanitarian non-profit organizations develop

shared value collaborations? RQ 2: What forms does shared value creation take? The research project employs a qualitative approach, conducting expert

interviews with humanitarian NGOs and businesses that have or continue to engage in collaborative partnerships. Interviews highlight the determinants

of and impediments to the partnership process, ‘best practices,’tangible results of respective collaborations in addition to approaches or models of collabo‑

ration for creating shared value. The research contributes to a growing body of scholarship that addresses the importance of NGOs as vital social actors and

influencers in business-society relations. By focusing on the conditions under which business and civil society actors may collaborate, and the varied forms

such collaborations may take, this research advances both conceptual and pragmatic implications. Keywords: businesses, collaboration, NGOs, partnerships,

shared value, value creation