Presentation

This class is divided into two parts. Firstly, regarding change communication and support, the aim is to go beyond the functionalist view of communication as support for « making change acceptable » and as a remedy for "resistance to change". Emphasis will be placed on the importance of the principles of recognition, ethics and of communicational conceptions that can result in different takes on change management. On these bases, a distinction will be made between what are known as disruptive, incremental, and anticipated changes, their facilitation through communication, and their implementation.

In the second part of the class, in which we will focus on crisis communication, we will distinguish two approaches to crises, namely the event-driven and process-driven approaches. We will discuss the categories of crises, the phases of crisis development, their characteristics, the resulting processes of desynchronization of temporalities, and how they are dealt with from a communicational point of view. A case study of a political crisis will be presented.

Recommended Prerequisite(s)

The fourth-year class of introduction to organizational communication will have introduced important concepts regarding organizational dynamics and cultures. These concepts will help students to better grasp issues of change, anticipation, prevention, and crisis resolution.