14 The Changing Landscape of Organizations CHAPTER AFTER READING THIS CHAPTER, YOU SHOULD … • Be able to distinguish between modern organizations stemming from the Industrial Revolution and postmodern organizations stemming from the Information Revolution. • Understand the nature of a global organizational environment and appreciate the practical and cultural challenges of working within such an environment. • Be familiar with the role of organizational and personal identity in postmodern organizations, especially during times of change and crisis. • Recognize the contemporary shift from a manufacturing to a service economy and be familiar with the communication challenges of providing service. • Recognize the forces that contributed to an increase in the contingent workforce and see how temporary workers (and the organizations they work for) are challenged by this shift. We began, in Chapter 1, with a consideration of the ways in which our organizational world of today is complicated. This complexity was illustrated with such issues as globalization, terrorism, climate change, and shifting demographics. I suggested that equally complex views of organizational communication are needed to effectively address these issues. In the following twelve chapters, our journey introduced you to ways of approaching organizational communication as well as to specific processes—such as conflict, socialization, and emotion— that are vital to considering organizational communication. This journey began, in Chapter 2’s discussion of classical approaches to organizational communication, with a consideration of the organizational world brought on by the Industrial Revolution. This was the modern era, ushered in by the logic and rationality of science and technology and nurtured by the managerial search for effectiveness and efficiency. This modern era or industrial age spawned many of the corporations and organizations with which we are most familiar and was the basis for many of the ideas about organizational communication that you have encountered in this book. These ideas about approaches ranging from human relations to systems to culture and about processes including decision making, conflict, change, emotion, diversity, and technology are highly relevant in today’s organizations. But the world of organizations is changing, and in this chapter, we conclude our journey with a look at some of the major alterations to the organizational landscape. If the Industrial Revolution ushered in the modern era of efficient organization and society, many would say that the Information Revolution has ushered in the postmodern era, where everything moves fast and life is more fragmented and less consistent. More than two decades ago, in an earlier phase of this revolution, Kenneth Gergen described these societal changes in his book The Saturated Self (1991): An urgent fax from Spain lay on the desk, asking about a paper I was months late in contributing to a conference in Barcelona. Before I could think about answering, the office hours I had postponed began. One of my favorite students arrived and began to quiz me about the ethnic biases in my course syllabus. My secretary came in holding a sheaf of phone messages, and some accumulated mail…. My conversations with my students were later interrupted by phone calls from a London publisher, a colleague in Connecticut on her way to Oslo for the weekend, and an old California friend wondering if we might meet during the summer travels to Holland. By the morning’s end I was drained. (p. 1) Although Gergen felt drained by these multiple contacts around the world, his experience seems positively quaint by today’s standards. Where are the e-mails, the cell phone, and the iPad? Why is Gergen merely concerned about work and not checking on stock prices, on turmoil in the Middle East, on his parents’ move to an assisted living facility, and on his child’s rescheduled soccer game? What is he doing in an office with a secretary outside rather than working from home, from the local coffee shop, or from halfway around the world? Clearly, we now live in a frenetic, multitasking, quickly changing, immense, and fragmented world. For the individual, this postmodern world has led to what Dalton Conley calls “Elsewhere U.S.A.” (2009a), a condition in which “we feel like we are in the right place at the right time only when in transit” and in which “we are haunted by the feeling that we are frauds, expendable in the workplace because so much of our service work is intangible” (Conley, 2009b, p. 59). These problems have been exacerbated by the ongoing effects of the Great Recession of 2008–2010, whose effects will “likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults” (Peck, 2010, p. 42). In short, as we demonstrated in Chapter 1, this postmodern world is complicated. In this concluding chapter, then, we will again look squarely at our present and future lives and consider those issues that directly influence our work experiences. To do this, we will revisit one of the issues examined in Chapter 1: how work itself is directly affected by our global economy and related societal shifts. We will also focus on three aspects of our postmodern world that are key to a consideration of organizational communication: the increasing importance of image and identity, the shift to a predominantly service economy, and the prevalence of new employment relationships, such as the “disposable worker.” COMMUNICATION IN THE GLOBAL WORKPLACE Most likely, many of us have recently called a help line for information about a product or help with computer software or perhaps government benefits. If we managed to get past the automated system and talk to a human, it is likely that our helper was someone located in a call center in another corner of the world. In recent years, for example, when citizens in New Jersey and a number of other states have called for help with their welfare benefits, they found themselves talking to someone in Ireland. Service technicians for one Mexican tourism hotline are located in Oregon. Those looking to choose an offshore call center site must balance the advantages of locations, including India, the Philippines, and South Africa (Asangi & Sathe, 2007). The proliferation of companies choosing to locate call centers in such far-reaching locations is just one example of globalization or “the rapidly developing processes of complex interconnections between societies, cultures, institutions, and individuals worldwide” (Tomlinson, 1997, p. 170). Other examples abound. As we discussed in Chapter 1, as political changes have broken down many boundaries that once divided countries, business practices have changed too. Many countries that were once considered unable to compete in the global marketplace have developed modernization programs that are helping them meet new challenges. The most obvious example is China, which in 2010 passed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy (with the United States being first). Corporations in developed nations now have branches and manufacturing plants worldwide, as they look for ways to compete in the economic marketplace. Of course, these global production facilities raise important questions about issues ranging from the 2013 industrial accident at a textile factory in Bangladesh (Greenwald & Hirsch, 2013) to worker treatment and human rights at Apple plants in China (Duhigg & Barboza, 2012). A number of factors have contributed to the rise of globalization. One underlying intellectual impetus for the global economy is laissez-faire capitalism: “the assumption that a free-market economic system has sufficient checks and balances in place to ensure that the legitimate interests of all members of a society will be met” (Conrad & Poole, 2004, p. 39). This economic philosophy—which minimizes the role of government—advocates the creation of wealth through free trade and has contributed to the globalization of business during the past few decades. With this globalization movement has come the increasing movement toward the democratization of many world governments, though a consideration of ongoing events in Africa, the Middle East, and other regions of the world suggests that democratization is a continuing struggle. Of course, the economic and political impetus toward globalization has been helped along by many technological factors. Foremost among these are the ease of travel and the advent of advanced communication technologies. Through low-cost air travel, it is possible for companies to employ many “road warriors” to span the globe. And through technologies such as cellphones, the Internet, and Skype, it is possible to conduct business across great distances. (See Chapter 13 for a review of technological advances and their impacts on virtual teams and virtual organizing.) As a result of these changes, we have moved from a landscape in which companies are largely associated with one country to a landscape where there is a mix of domestic organizations, multicultural organizations, multinational organizations, international organizations, and global organizations (see Table 14.1). As Table 14.1 indicates, the global marketplace contains an array of organizational types. These organizations differ not only in their geographical identity (do they operate in one country? several countries? around the globe?) but also in how they manage the interests and concerns of their employees, customers, and clients. Table 14.1 Organization Types in the Global Marketplace Organization Type Description Domestic An organization that identifies with a single country and predominant culture. Multicultural An organization that identifies predominantly with one country but recognizes the needs of a culturally diverse workforce and diverse contacts outside the company. Multinational An organization that identifies with one nationality while doing business across several or many nations. Management recognizes the needs of a multinational workforce, customer base, and institutional environment. International An organization that identifies with two or more countries with distinct cultural qualities. Distinct national interests are assumed to exist within the company’s management, clients, customers, and institutional environment. Global An organization that identifies with the global system rather than any particular nation. In a global workplace, organizational membership takes precedence over national allegiances. Adapted from Stohl, C. (2001). Globalizing organizational communication. In F. M. Jablin & L. L. Putnam (Eds.), The New Handbook of Organizational Communication: Advances in Theory, Research, and Methods (pp. 323–375). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Effects of Globalization Clearly, economic globalization has substantially changed how we live and how organizations do business. As we noted in Chapter 1, there is considerable debate as to whether these are changes we should applaud or dread. And as Zahra (1999) points out, there are utopian and dystopian views on this subject. In the utopian view: Globalization will continue to escalate, transferring technologies, bringing cultures and societies closer, and creating a community of peace loving, intelligent citizens. In this vision of the future, globalization will foster cooperation among nations and create good will. Globalization will be an instrument of peace, growth, progress and prosperity. Competitiveness is viewed as a marathon to achieve and sustain excellence. (Zahra, 1999, p. 36) For example, Taylor and Doerfel (2003) have described how an interorganizational network of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) came together in Croatia during that country’s transformation from a totalitarian state into the initial phases of a civil society. Positive outcomes of this kind are encouraged when organizations involved in global processes are encouraged in the practice of corporate social responsibility—a stance in which businesses attempt to have a positive impact on a variety of stakeholders including the environment, consumers, government, and the communities in which the company is embedded (Roper & Barker, 2011). In contrast, a variety of dystopian views see globalization in dramatically different terms. For example, Parameswaran (2008) considers the development of call centers in Bangalore, India. She first points to the historical conditions that have led to India being a source of inexpensive labor for this kind of work and then discusses the ways in which the life of an individual worker— although enriched through better pay than might be available elsewhere in the country—is difficult in many ways. She notes that “the assertion that call centers have provided relatively lucrative employment to hundreds of young women and men is indeed accurate, but to pitch the call center job … without any consideration of the stress that night shifts, highly repetitive work … and assumed ‘American identities’ have caused paints a unidimensional picture of globalization’s effects in South Asia” (Parameswaran, 2008, p. 120). Although there are sometimes opportunities for resistance at the level of the individual worker (Pal & Buzzanell, 2013), the oppressive outcomes of a global economy are widespread. For example, Liu and Vlaskamp (2010) have considered similar issues in China, as new college graduates in the global economy are now often unemployed or underemployed and forced to live in slum conditions. It is likely that both these positive and negative views are playing out on the global stage. As this happens, it is helpful to consider some general effects of globalization and to examine how some organizations adapt to the global workplace. For example, Monge (1998) proposes several ways that globalization influences organizational communication. First, globalization results in time and space compression, changing communication patterns and perceptions. In the global workplace, everything moves quickly: You can be in Tokyo one day and Cleveland the next, and it’s always the beginning of the workday somewhere around the globe. Space and time are no longer directly connected. Second, globalization enhances our sense of global consciousness. When we work in an organization that is global, multinational, or multicultural, we must be aware of the cultures of others and of our own attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Kim (2008) has referred to this as a process of developing “intercultural personhood” that includes both patterns of individuation and universalization. Third, globalization leads to disembedded organizations and people. In a global society, behavior and interaction are often lifted from their local context and restructured across time and space. While working in a cybercafe, for example, it might be difficult to know if one is in Seattle, Moscow, or Kuwait. In addition to these specific effects, there are general patterns to consider in how people view the process and outcomes of globalization. Stohl (2001) has noted two such patterns for viewing the challenges and outcomes of globalization within organizational communication research and practices. The first of these—convergence—is an approach that emphasizes the need of organizations to adapt their practices to a global marketplace. A convergence approach considers how an organization might adapt its practices to “a global system that requires flexibility, responsiveness, speed, knowledge production, and knowledge dissemination” (Stohl, 2001, p. 325). In this approach, communication is seen as “a conduit for the acquisition of resources, capital, information, and expertise” (Stohl, 2001, p. 325). For example, Roberts, Kossek, and Ozeki (1998) have discussed management challenges in the global workplace and advocated specific strategies for coping with such management challenges. Their ideas about instituting structures such as aspatial careers, awareness-building assignments, corporate SWAT teams, and virtual solutions (see Table 14.2) illustrate a convergence approach to globalization in which the goal is to enhance organizational performance in the worldwide marketplace. Table 14.2Strategies for Managing in a Global Marketplace In contrast, the divergence approach to the globalizing workplace emphasizes the cultural distinctiveness found around the world. The divergence perspective is less interested in exploring strategies for organizational success than in exploring how meaning is constructed in various cultural settings and the impact of organizational norms and functioning on that construction of meaning. Stohl (2001) argues that “[t]he environmental and technological pressure on contemporary organizations to become more and more similar clash with the proprietary pull of cultural identifications, traditional values, and conventional practices of social life” (p. 326). Thus, it is critical to look at the competing forces of convergence and divergence in examining communication within global organizations. It is also vital to consider the human effects of globalization as more individuals are working in unfamiliar cultures with people who hold different values and goals. For example, Enghsh-Lueck, Darrah, and Saven (2002) found that it was not only crucial but also quite challenging for hightech workers to establish trusting relationships in global organizations where workers are separated by great distances and are working under severe time constraints. Similarly, Mattson and Stage (2001) describe a variety of ethical dilemmas faced by workers who confront different cultural norms while working for global organizations. For example, Stage (1999) found that American companies in Thailand had an especially difficult time adapting to the national custom of giftgiving at New Year’s. Gifts were expected by clients from the Thai culture but were seen as unethical by many U.S. organizations. In summary, a variety of economic, political, and technological forces are transforming the workplaces of organizations competing in the global marketplace. In the global marketplace, our perceptions of time and space change, as does our understanding of others and ourselves. Communication in these global organizations will depend largely on balancing the forces of convergence (making us more alike in our search for workplace efficiency) with the forces of divergence (making us appreciate our cultural differences). COMMUNICATION IN AN ERA OF SHIFTING IDENTITY As our economy becomes more global, the names of some corporations have become known worldwide. Some critics have talked about the “McDonaldization” of the world (Ritzer, 2000), and names such as Samsung, Disney, Ford, Nike, and CNN are brand names that are clearly recognizable around the globe. The worldwide spread of these corporate monikers suggests the increasing importance of organizational identity—knowing an organization, what it sells, and where it stands on relevant issues of the day. Indeed, Cheney and Christensen (2001) argue that “[i]n the contemporary activities of public relations, issue management, marketing, advertising, and the like … the ongoing rhetorical struggle for organizations of most kinds is to establish a clearly distinctive identity and at the same time connect with more general concerns so as to be maximally persuasive and effective” (p. 233). In addition to worldwide recognition, there are many other reasons for the increased importance of organizational identity in today’s economy. For example, with widespread mergers and acquisitions, there is the shifting landscape of “who belongs to whom,” causing confusion for a great many individuals and organizations. These mergers and acquisitions are often contentious. Recent mergers among airlines provide an interesting illustration of this branding dynamic. In 2005, US Airways merged with America West, keeping the US Airways name. In 2010, Delta and Northwest completed their merger, keeping the Delta name. Some of these name choices may have been based on size (Delta taking a front seat in branding to the smaller Northwest), but some might also say that the issue of reputation may have also made a difference (as American West was sometimes referred to by customers as “America Worst”). US Airways is likely to lose its name, however, in its planned merger with American Airlines. The merger between United and Continental put another interesting twist on this notion of organizational image during a merger, as the planes now combine the name “United” in block letters on the front fuselage with the Continental logo and colors on the tail. Organizations often try to be proactive in developing and communicating an organizational identity. Heath (1994) has noted that “[c]ompanies try to impose themselves on their environments, rather than merely adapt to them. They attempt to shape their environment by their presence in it, by what they do and say” (p. 228). Organizations seek to create and maintain positive images in order to achieve long-term goals. As Cheney and Frenette (1993) explain, “The presumed circle of influence runs thus: corporation to public to policy makers to corporation” (p. 50). For example, a pharmaceutical company may attempt to enhance its image in a number of ways: by providing free AIDS drugs in sub-Saharan Africa, by distributing prescription discount cards for senior citizens who rely on Medicaid, or by promoting concern for the long-term health of Americans. It is then hoped that this positive image will engender public support that could eventually be parlayed into favorable policy decisions at various levels of government. Case in Point: Image Gone Viral It started in 2006 when Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries granted an interview to Salon Magazine. When asked about the secret of A&F’s success, he said: “…we go after the cool kids…a lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely” (Temin, 2013). Probably not the best thing to say in terms of organizational image, but there wasn’t a great uproar and it soon became old news. Of course, in the Internet age, “embarrassing articles do not die—they just go into hibernation until they are resuscitated” (Temin, 2013). The quote was brought up by an author who was promoting her new book about the retail industry. The fire was fanned with quotes such as “Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch doesn’t stock XXL sizes in women’s clothing because they don’t want overweight women wearing their brand” (Temin, 2013). And, not surprisingly, the quotes— and the hit to the Abercrombie & Fitch image—went viral. Bloggers went crazy. An online petition was opened up to force A&F to make plus sizes. A boycott of the retailer was established. And on and on. Temin (2013) compares this negative image gone viral with another corporate effort from the same time period— Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” campaign in which women are encouraged to see themselves in the more positive ways that others see them. Though this campaign has also drawn criticism, the contrast with the A&F image is stark: “Mean, bully-boy culture (A&F) vs. a holistic, self-esteem promoting, we-can-make-the-world-a-better-place sensibility (Dove). Narcissism vs. collectivism; cruelty vs. compassion; me, me, me vs. we” (Temin, 2013). Many years ago, Canon promoted its cameras through an Andre Agassi campaign with the tagline “Image is Everything.” If Canon was right, Abercrombie & Fitch ran into a lot of trouble when their image went viral. It is important to note, however, that organizational images are not always created and maintained through purposive campaigns. Members of the organizational environment form perceptions of an organization’s image based on a wide array of messages. Furthermore, sometimes the style or means of communication can be more important than the actual message. As Cheney and Christensen (2001) suggest, “[T]he principal management problem in today’s marketplace of goods and ideas is not so much to provide commodities and services or to take stands on the salient issues of the day, but to do these things with a certain distinctiveness that allows the organization to create and legitimize itself” (p. 241). For example, a Samsung advertising campaign positions its phones as more cutting edge than major competitor Apple by showing young and hip college students transferring music through a bump of the phone while their parents stand hopelessly by with their iPhones. As Van Camp (2013) notes, these “ads have been damn effective at making the Galaxy phones look a lot cooler than most things on the market.” Examples of organizational image creation and maintenance abound and illustrate the various communication avenues through which this process occurs. In the late 1970s, Mobil Oil enhanced its image through an advertising campaign that advocated positions on a wide range of public issues. In the fall of 2001, the travel industry as a whole attempted to link its image with patriotism in a post-September 11 public relations campaign. Federal and state government agencies (especially the Federal Emergency Management Association [FEMA]) suffered from severe image concerns in the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Toyota worked to maintain its strong image with customers in the wake of a wide range of safety concerns. And many corporations quickly severed their spokesperson ties with Tiger Woods when issues in his personal life spiraled out of control in late 2009. As many of these examples illustrate, image becomes particularly critical during times of organizational crisis (see Chapter 10). Classic examples include Exxon after the Valdez oil spill, Johnson & Johnson after the discovery of tainted Tylenol tablets, Union Carbide after the energy plant disaster in Bhopal, India, and NASA after the explosion of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles. More recent examples include a wide variety of food safety issues, such as spinach and eggs, concerns with toy safety dealt with by Mattel, concerns with mine safety in the wake of explosions and collapses, and the BP oil rig disaster. The messages sent by organizational representatives in the face of such events could predict both the short-term image and the long-term survival of the organization. Issues of identity are not limited to the organizational or corporate level, of course. Individuals, too, see their organizational selves in a particular light that is influenced by ongoing changes in the workplace and can have implications for well-being. For example, Kristen Lucas (2011) argues that identity is particularly problematic for working class employees who find it increasingly difficult to achieve the “American Dream” in the contemporary economy. Though these workers hold onto an identity that she labels the “working class promise”—strong work ethic, providing for family, dignity of work, and humility—this identity can be difficult to maintain when upward mobility is more difficult. Similar issues of individual identity were raised for many in 2013 when news stories publicized the statistic that 40% of American households include a mother who is the sole or primary earner in the family (Rampell, 2013). The increased prevalence of women in the breadwinner role pointed to contemporary trends such as changing gender roles in upper income households and the prevalence of single mother households in lower income households. In summary, then, the changing landscape of organizations points to important identity shifts for both organizations and individuals. These identity challenges can be particularly difficult during times of crisis and social and economic upheaval. COMMUNICATION IN A SERVICE ECONOMY A third aspect of the changing landscape for organizational communication involves the type of business we conduct in today’s organizational world. In the years following the Industrial Revolution (see Chapter 2), most organizations counted the creation of “things” as a primary goal. The U.S. economy (and other world economies) was based primarily on manufacturing. At the end of World War II, only 10% of nonfarm jobs were in the service sector (“The American Workplace,” 2010), but the U.S. economy then underwent a radical shift, and today, it can largely be characterized as a service economy. There are estimates that service companies (including retail, financial services, transportation, health care, and construction, among others) now employ about 90% of the U.S. economy (“Service Sector,” 2012). The shift to a service economy has also fueled rapid growth in global economies, such as in India (“Services,” 2010). Though there are some good jobs in sectors of the service economy, it is bad news for many. For example, Davis (2010) notes that “jobs in retail are distinguished by low wages, low tenure, and extremely limited job prospects” (p. 303). It is hard to deny the importance of service in our daily lives as employees, students, customers, and clients in a wide range of organizational settings. Even a trip to the grocery store involves a service encounter that has implications both for the grocer’s profits and for your mood for the rest of the day. Moreover, customer service today extends to a wide range of online and mobile interactions, ranging from the ease of a return at Amazon to the quality of a pedicure purchased through a Groupon opportunity. Thus, it is little surprise that popular business publications tout the importance of service. For example, a recent book examining “high-tech, high-touch customer service” pointed to trends in customer service including the customer’s desire for instant gratification, a push toward self-service and customer empowerment, and an appreciation for environmental awareness and values-based buying. Failures in customer service are costly to the organization and frustrating to the consumer, and these failures are widespread. For example, only 37% of brands received “excellent” or “good” customer experience score in a 2012 survey—the rest were rated as “OK,”“poor,” or “very poor” (“20 Important Customer Experience Statistics,” 2012). The airline industry is a case in point. Flying was a luxury afforded only to a few in the middle part of the twentieth century, but by the 1990s, air travel was a part of everyday life for many. Deregulation had lowered prices, thus increasing the prevalence of business and leisure travel, and with the rising number of travelers came declining service standards. Indeed, in April 2001, Newsweek ran an in-depth story entitled “Why Flying Is Hell” (Bryant, 2001) and surveys of service quality have not turned around in recent years. Indeed, when a 2012 survey found that airline performance quality was only “slightly worse” than in 2011, it was viewed as a positive sign for the industry (Brown, 2013). These negative attitudes toward the airline experience are fueled by factors such as airport lines, flight delays, boarding denials, horror stories of hours spent on the tarmac, and an increasing trend toward fees for everything—luggage, food, boarding and seating preferences, and so on. Indeed, in 2013, Spirit Airlines eliminated their toll-free customer service phone number. Why are there problems with service? Part of the answer may lie in organizational moves, such as corporate downsizing and retrenchment. As Pederson (1997) notes, “While manufacturers can often replace workers with machines, that’s usually not an option for services. Some companies— FedEx, UPS, Nordstrom—kept customers happy despite the new pressures. Many others just got surlier” (p. 57). Thus, in a turbulent environment, an organization may choose to sacrifice customer service in the belief that such a move will enhance profits and keep the company economically competitive. Another answer to problems with service may be in the type of service that is provided and the match of that service communication to the needs of the customers. Ford and Etienne (1994) have suggested that service comes in many guises. For example, a supermarket clerk may strive to be courteous, auto dealers have the reputation of providing manipulative service, and retailers like Nordstrom take great pride in providing personalized service. Ford (1995) has found that these forms of service can have a significant impact on customers’ satisfaction and behavior. When customers develop expectations about service, violations of those expectations can either be highly gratifying (e.g., when personalized service is not expected but received) or highly dissatisfying (e.g., when manipulation is encountered in a sales presentation). Third, as noted in Chapter 11, the provision of service often involves emotional labor and accompanying stress for the service provider. Undoubtedly, worker stress can lead to service that is less than optimal. This problem can be accentuated when service providers are stretched thin by understaffing and unrealistic expectations. Research has found that customers are highly intolerant of negative emotional displays, and the norm of “service with a smile” is particularly pronounced in the United States (Grandey, Rafaeli, Ravid, Wirtz & Steinger, 2010). Consider, again, the airline industry. While passengers become increasingly frustrated with service, those providing the service are also getting mad. In August 2010, this dynamic reached a breaking point for one flight attendant who got fed up with an unruly passenger, grabbed the intercom for a final parting message, activated the emergency chute, and slid down with a beer in each hand. Peggy Noonan (2010) sees this as a sad outcome of the service economy: “Everyone is getting on everyone’s nerves.… Everyone wants to tell the boss to take this job and shove it. Everyone wants to take a good, hard, last look at the customer and take the chute.” The challenges of communication in a service environment can be particularly pronounced in the information economy, which is increasingly dominated by electronic transactions, or ecommerce (Yoon, Choi & Sohn, 2008). In the early years of e-commerce, growth was slow, perhaps because of challenges in the communication environment. With no face-to-face interaction, service provided largely through self-service transactions, and limited opportunities for complex messages and immediate feedback, there were many communication challenges (Scott, 2001). However, many online retailers and service providers have met these challenges and e-commerce is growing at record and is anticipated to grow at 14% per year in the coming years (Enright, 2013). Much of the new growth is fueled by mobile devices, adding new communication challenges for providing customer service. Research has suggested that one of the most important aspects of maintaining good relationships with customers in this environment is establishing a sense of trust (Kim, Ferrin & Rao, 2009). In sum, then, we now live in a service economy and hence an organizational world that is dominated by service encounters. Communication in service encounters—whether an ongoing service relationship with a valued massage therapist or a point-and-click encounter when ordering flowers online—can influence customer attitudes and satisfaction as well as organizational profits and the satisfaction and health of service providers. Spotlight on Scholarship: What Can You Do With That Major? This chapter highlights many ways in which organizational life is continually shifting, in part in response to larger changes in the economy and society. Some of you now reading the end of this book are also looking forward to the end of your college career—if not this semester than in the next year or two. Undoubtedly, the prospect of graduation has you thinking more about the changing landscape of the workplace highlighted in these final pages of this text: What will the next phase of your life look like? What kind of work will you do? How will that work provide meaning to your life? The answers to these questions will obviously be shaped by larger currents in society. As I write these words, the economy is improving after many years of trouble, but it’s far from healthy. Thus, those graduating from college continue to face an uncertain and rapidly changing job market—often with the additional worry of student-loan debt. In this environment, it’s hardly surprising that many have started questioning the value of higher education, as “students are turning to universities in increasingly vocational terms, dramatically altering social understandings of the meaning and purpose of higher education” (Lair & Wieland, 2012, p. 425). And in the midst of all this societal turmoil, you still must deal with the ubiquitous question: “What are you going to do with that major?” In many ways, this colloquial and oft-asked question distills our ongoing concerns about education and work, and it served as a focus for a recent investigation undertaken by Daniel Lair and Stacey Wieland. These scholars were interested in knowing more about how students understood the meaning of work and the connection of education to work, and they asked undergraduates to write short essays describing situations in which this question was asked and answered. Their analysis of the narratives revealed interesting patterns about the ways in which today’s college students frame the work world they are about to enter. Lair and Wieland found widespread acknowledgement that this question is ubiquitous and often emotionally charged—typically in a negative way. They note that “one student reported ‘having a mini heart attack’ every time she is asked” (Lair & Wieland, 2012, p. 433). The researchers also found that the question serves three broad functions: as small talk in everyday conversation, as an opportunity for exploration and self-reflection, and as an expression of judgment about major and career choice. On a more abstract level, Lair and Wieland analyzed the narratives to better understand how respondents conceptualized the “connection” between work and education. Most students accepted the dominant interpretation that an acceptable answer to the question was one that demonstrated a sensible plan that promised future success— especially in financial terms. This majority of respondents “understood the meaning of work—and subsequently, education— first and foremost in economic terms” (Lair & Wieland, 2012, p. 440). However, a small portion of respondents (10%) resisted this dominant interpretation, either by refusing to engage the question or by rejecting the premise of the question. These students questioned the tight coupling of academic major and planned career and rejected the notion that they should already have a linear career path in mind. According to Lair and Weiland, “these alternative interpretations of the work-education relationship helped relieve the pressure around major selection by emphasizing students’ potential to use education creatively to succeed over their long-term working lives” (2012, p. 443). One student (but only one) even rejected the notion that what you “do” with a major necessarily relates to paid employment—she instead stated that because of her international studies major she would be able to participate in significant conversations through the rest of her life. And although it is important to not discount the importance of work and career, let’s hope that one important function of college education continues to be these ongoing dialogues. Lair, D. J., & Wieland, S. M. B. (2012). “What are you going to do with that major?” Colloquial speech and the meaning of work and education. Management Communication Quarterly, 26, 423–452. COMMUNICATION IN THE AGE OF THE DISPOSABLE WORKER A final factor to consider in the changing landscape of the workplace involves the roles that individuals play in the new global economy. In the past, many people stayed with one or perhaps two organizations throughout their working lives. As Reich (2000) notes, “[T]wo-thirds of senior executives surveyed in 1952 had been with the same company for more than twenty years” (pp. 93–94). And most people working at a given company were permanent, full-time employees of that organization. These circumstances created strong connections between an individual and the company with which he or she worked—what William Whyte called The Organization Man (Whyte, 1956). As Holstein and Gubrium (2000) explain, “[T]he Organization Man (and presumably woman) . puts the organization’s interests above individual goals and priorities” (p. 45). And in exchange for that loyalty, the organization was supposed to take care of all the organizational men and women. But times have changed. By the turn of the twenty-first century, the global economy, increased technology, weakened labor unions, and an extremely competitive organizational environment had contributed to what Robert Reich called “the end of employment as we knew it” (Reich, 2000) and what Conrad and Poole (1997) labeled “the age of the disposable worker.” During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the situation intensified, and a Business Week cover story in early 2010 noted that the Great Recession’s “unusual ferocity… accelerated trends—including offshoring, automation, the decline of labor unions’ influence, new management techniques, and regulatory change—that already had been eroding workers’ economic standing” (Coy, Conlin & Herbst, 2010). The trend continues, as human resource advisors argue that a contingent workforce “provides employers with flexibility and control when you need to make changes in [the] workforce quickly” (“Employment Trends,” 2013). In short, today’s workforce is comprised to an ever-increasing degree of contingent workers—individuals without a permanent and fulltime connection to an organization. The college or university you’re now enrolled in is probably a case in point—the ranks of adjunct and part-time professors have exploded by 300 percent since 1975 (Weissmann, 2013). Some workers are contingent by choice—they are not forced into alternative work arrangements but intentionally opt for an employment situation that bears little resemblance to Whyte’s “Organization Man” (or woman). Individuals may choose to work as temps, telecommute, work part-time, or enter and exit the workforce at various stages of their lives. These choices can be motivated by a variety of factors. Some workers want to concentrate on an avocation rather than a vocation. Some workers simply enjoy the liberty of being “temporary.” Erickson (2012) summarizes many of the motivations for choosing a contingent work life: Some contingent workers say they are seeking better work/life balance; others want to create or design their own careers by choosing the kind of work or projects that create a unique set of skills, making them more desirable prospective employees. Contingent employment can expose individuals to a broad variety of challenges, demanding constant learning and new skills, which make work more interesting for them. For these kinds of contingent workers, there are great rewards, as a recent survey found that the happiest workers in the United States were independent workers who did not have a connection to a specific organization (Shaughnessy, 2012). From the organization’s perspective, the need to attract these high quality “free agents” creates challenges for relationship building and communication. Frauenheim (2012) calls this the “arm’s-length embrace” in which “companies respect contingents’ independence yet nonetheless show them more love—in the form of invitations to social gatherings, improved communication, greater recognition and the like.” For many workers, however, being contingent is not a choice. For many years, organizations have worked to streamline and downsize their workforce to deal with the uncertainties of the contemporary business landscape. Coy et al. (2010) note, “[T]he trend toward a perma-temp world has been developing for years” and that “26% of the U.S. workforce had jobs in 2005 that were in one way or another ‘nonstandard.’”However, this trend accelerated rapidly during the recent recession and has not changed substantially. Employers have increasingly relied on temporary workers in order to lower costs and gain flexibility. Furthermore, this trend has hit workers at all levels of the organization, in a wide range of work sectors, and for longer periods of time. Work is increasingly becoming what Kalleberg (2009) calls “precarious”— “uncertain, unpredictable, and risky from the point of view of the worker” (p. 2). It is clear, then, that the nature of the workforce is rapidly changing and is not likely to shift back into old patterns. We are now increasingly temporary, part-time, independent, freelancing, elancing, and telecommuting workers. What are the implications of these basic changes in work as we know it? A few issues are highlighted below. There are, of course, financial implications for the disposable worker. Those who are unemployed, underemployed, working in temporary jobs, or in and out of the workforce will most often earn less money over their lifetimes than will a lifetime corporate employee. Individuals who finish college during a recession (and are hence likely to be underemployed or contingent workers) suffer from lower wages for a decade or more after graduation (Marray, 2009). A second financial implication involves employment benefits. For example, Reich (2000) notes that “in 1980, more than 70 percent of workers received some form of health benefit from their employers. By the late 1990s, that percentage had slipped to about 60 percent. And even when employees have some coverage, it has become less generous” (p. 99). A 2010 report portrayed a telling contrast regarding the contingent workforce: While 86% of full-time U.S. workers receive health care benefits, such benefits were available to only 24% of part-time workers (“Employee Benefits,” 2010). There are additional concerns beyond pay and benefits. For example, contingent workers are at higher risk for work-related injury, illness, and death than other workers (Cummings & Kreiss, 2008). There are also social and psychological effects, as a disposable workforce feels less connection to the organization and vice versa. For example, Gossett (2002) found that many contemporary companies could be described as “organizations of free agents,” where lack of interaction and purposeful organizational policies limited the extent to which temporary workers felt connected to the organization and might feel stigmatized by others in the organization (Boyce, Ryan, Imus & Morgeson, 2007). Furthermore, a lack of employee identification has implications for personal and organizational decision making (see the discussion in Chapters 6 and 8) and for job satisfaction and turnover. The implications of an employer’s lack of commitment to the worker is also clear: “Part-time jobs are … the first to go in an economic downturn” (Greenberg, 2001, p. 55). Furthermore, in addition to feeling a limited connection to the organization, contingent workers often receive directives from both the staffing agency and the organization that contracts for their work. This situation can lead to role conflict and the need for temporary workers to choose between the desires of these competing organizations (Gossett, 2007). Case in Point: Generation Y in the Workplace Part of the changing landscape of work stems from younger workers arriving in organizations. The most recent influx of workers has come from Generation Y, often defined as those born in the 1980s and 1990s. These new workers are seen as different from the preceding baby boomers and Gen-Xers. Tim Irvin, a corporate psychologist, explains: “They come in with very high expectations…. Their parents have told them from the moment they were born that they were special. These Gen Y’ers believe it. The thought of having to pay dues for a long time to get into a corner office is kind of jarring to them” (Osburn, p. Dl, 2007). Now, if you are someone born in the 1980s or 1990s—a member of Generation Y—this description might seem a bit insulting. Perhaps you would not agree with the assessment that indulgent parents have produced “workers without a sense of responsibility, accountability, or commitment” (Osburn, 2007, p. D6). However, these generational differences can clearly influence relationships in the workplace, and the prevailing perception of younger workers can be seen as a disturbing trend for both employers and for workers. However, there’s another side of the story. For example, Generation Y workers are also seen as being highly motivated, willing to stay with a company if they are challenged and given opportunities, and very aware of the technology options that are vital to today’s workplace. One of these Gen Y’ers, Anthony Oni, describes it this way: “For the 76 million or so Gen Y’ers in the world, we are trying to find our place in the business community. Sometimes it doesn’t always happen the first time. Young people are graduating college and exploring and seeking their niche in a community and taking advantage of great opportunities. This may be confused with impatience” (Osburn, 2007, p. D6). Indeed, these words might describe you: exploring, looking for opportunity, impatiently finding your place—difficult and challenging tasks in the changing world of work. It is possible, though, to see a silver lining around this dark cloud. That is, a contingent workforce has the potential to continuously breathe new life into organizations. As Conrad and Poole (1997) argue, “Temporary or part-time workers bring new ideas and new ways of doing things…. They may also bring a useful candor; they may be less strategically motivated and less concerned with impression management than employees with their future at stake” (p. 590). SUMMARY In this chapter, we have considered a number of factors critical to a continuing understanding of organizational communication. The landscape of the work world has shifted substantially in the last twenty years, and it continues to change. First, the organizational landscape has become global. Second, this globalization—along with other aspects of the “new economy”—has heightened the importance of understanding the creation and maintenance of organizational image. Third, the economy is increasingly dominated by 
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