James R. Taylor

James Renwick Taylor is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Communication of the Université de Montréal, which he founded in the early 1970's.

Drawing from research in fields such as organizational psychology (Karl E. Weick), ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel, Deirdre Boden), phenomenology (Alfred Schütz) and collective minding (Edwin Hutchins), Taylor developed an original theory of organizational communication, suggesting that communication is the "site and surface" of organizations, rather a phenomenon taking place within pre-existing organizations. He uses interaction and conversation analysis to understand the processes by which organizations and organizational roles emerge and maintained.

Selected Bibliography

• Cooren, F., J. R. Taylor, & E. J. Van Every (Eds.) (2006). Communication as organizing: Empirical and Theoretical Explorations In the dynamic of text and conversation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Taylor, J. R. & E. J. Van Every (2000). The Emergent Organization: Communication as its Site and Surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Taylor, J. R. (1993). Rethinking the theory of organizational communication : how to read an organization. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
• Taylor, J. R. & E. J. Van Every (1993). The Vulnerable Fortress: Bureaucratic Organization and Management in the Information Age. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
• Taylor, J. R.; C. Groleau; L. Heaton & E. J. Van Every (2001). The Computerization of Work: A Communication Perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

External Links

• James R. Taylor and Elizabeth van Every's personal website
• The Language, organization and governance research group, of which Taylor is a member