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Management Communication Quarterly
http://mcq.sagepub.com/content/16/2/274
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/089331802237241
2002 16: 274Management Communication Quarterly
Robert D. Mcphee, Steven R. Corman and Kevin Dooley
Discourse
Organizational Knowledge Expression and Management: Centering Resonance Analysis of Organizational
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10.1177/089331802237241MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / NOVEMBER 2002McPhee et al. / KNOWLEDGE IN DISCOURSE
ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE
EXPRESSION AND MANAGEMENT
Centering Resonance Analysis
of Organizational Discourse
ROBERTD.M
CPHEE
STEVEN R. CORMAN
KEVIN DOOLEY
Arizona State University
T
he Delphic inscription “know thyself” has been used many
times in discussions by practitioners and scholars of
knowledge management (KM), but it actually points to a vital but
peculiar challenge to such efforts. To manage knowledge it seems
that we should be able to “know” what the knowledge is, and to
steer, measure, and evaluate it. But it is far from clear how organiza-
tional knowledge should be characterized or might be validly crys-
tallized: Is it cognitive, consensually cognitive, distributed
(Hutchins, 1995), or technological? In this article, we explore some
of the implications of viewing knowledge as crystallized in the ver
-
bal expressions of organizational communication.
Critics will argue that this approach neglects the inexpressible
and simply unsaid dimensions of knowledge. But such matters can
be put into or referred to in words, as the Matsushita company did
when a software developer trained with a master baker to learn and
verbalize dough handling secrets to help build a home bakery
machine (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995, p. 104). Without verbal
expression it is very hard for ideas to enter into managerial decision
making or to be exported to other parts of the organization or econ
-
omy. Also, this knowledge-in-discourse approach introduces a host
of options for its management. For instance, organizations cur
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274
Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2, November 2002 274-281
DOI: 10.1177/089331802237241
© 2002 Sage Publications
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rently engaged in KM encourage access to, and responsive commu
-
nication by, experts (Cross, Parker, Prusak, & Borgatti, 2001) but
could begin to encourage broader access to rich dialogue specifi
-
cally about innovative topics as such dialogue begins to emerge in
spatially distributed exchanges beyond the range of any single
party, perhaps by creating workshops for participants who are only
beginning to be interested. We will focus on one particular
approach to knowledge in discourse called centering resonance
analysis (CRA).
CRA: WHAT IT IS AND HOW IT WORKS
To put it simply, CRA finds and maps concepts linking diverse
chains of discussion and reasoning in and across conversations,
then can compare maps between different groups and organiza-
tions. It can be used, for example, to find good matches among
experts being organized into research teams or between clients
describing problems and the experts whose discourse shows they
can solve those problems. Most important, it can locate such
matches by using transcribed talk or online messages produced
today, rather than outdated or irrelevant database records. It shifts
from an image of knowledge as stockpiled information to knowl-
edge as enacted in dynamic conversation. But with this new option
for KM comes increased power to control the creative, potentially
transforming powers of communication.
CRA involves both a conceptualization of discourse and a tech
-
nology for its study. It is one of a growing array of procedures for
text analysis but is unique in its dependence on and elaboration of
centering theory, a theory of text coherence (Grosz, Weinstein, &
Joshi, 1995; Walker, Joshi, & Prince, 1998). Centering theory
describes coherence as a backward and forward reference to “cen
-
ters” of linked meaning and emphasizes noun phrases as the basic
centers of reference. CRA is a method for mapping the relations,
generated in the discourse, among its noun phrase elements.
Simplifying substantially, CRA includes four steps: the first two
are selection of the noun phrase elements—the focal words—to be
the basis of later stages of analysis, and linking of words into a net
-
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work reflecting their sequence inside sentences. The third stage,
indexing, involves taking all appearances of focal words and com
-
puting values for two main structural indices. The main index for
individual words is influence, which measures the betweenness
centrality of the word—its likelihood of being on the shortest path
in the network connecting any other two words. The other main
type of index is resonance, which measures the similarity of two
networks in using the same influential words. In the final, fourth
stage of CRA, concept mapping, the most influential words and
their connections are displayed as a network. Current work on CRA
aims to allow informative display of the evolution of central terms
and their relations over time, as discourse proceeds. All four steps
in this sequence are now automated. For richer description of the
method and its rationale, several examples of its use, and evidence
of its validity, see Corman, Kuhn, McPhee, and Dooley (2002).
Figure 1 shows the CRA map for a listserv discussion concern-
ing the meaning and applicability of “simple rules” in an organiza-
tional context. The discussion spanned 2 weeks, involving about 20
participants. One can see that discussion about simple rules drew
from complexity theory, that there was discussion about simple
rules in conversation, and that one interactor (ralph = Ralph Stacey,
a radical analyst of knowledge emergence) was central to the
discussion.
Centering Resonance Analysis Network of a Listserv Discus-
sion on the Subject “Can Complex Systems Ideas Be Applied to the
Analysis of Conversations?” (The closer a word is to the center of
the diagram, indicated by the concentric circles, the more influen
-
tial it was in the discussion.)
APPLICATIONS OF CRA
CRA can be used very flexibly. It can generate networks repre
-
senting the words of a single speaker or writer, words used in a sin
-
gle meeting or type of meeting, or even words used in a single phase
of such meetings. It can also register the similarity or resonance of
word networks to one another and to fabricated normative net
-
works. Among recent or proposed uses of the method are (a) creat
-
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ing research teams based on resonance of their publications with
requests for proposals from funding agencies; (b) studying differ
-
ences among organizational groups based on member descriptions
of reactions to a common change initiative; and (c) studying idea
and theme emergence in news coverage, for example, of the 9-11
tragedy.
CRA is a sophisticated discourse analysis approach, sensitive to
conceptual linkages expressed in a single sentence yet able to gen
-
erate networks describing vast stretches of discourse. Corman et al.
(2002) argued that it is especially well suited to studying organiza
-
tional communication, because it is able to handle the vast quanti
-
ties of discourse that members generate in the course of work
weeks or longer. Our vision is that studies of communication could
McPhee et al. / KNOWLEDGE IN DISCOURSE 277
Figure 1: Centering Response Analysis Network of a LISTSERV Discussion on the
Subject: “Can Complex Systems Ideas Be Applied to the Analysis of Conversations?”
NOTE: The closer a word is to the center of the diagram (indicated by the concentric circles),
the more influential it was in the discussion,
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be based on all the discourse generated in an organization, includ
-
ing (but exploring differences among) written texts and transcripts
of oral interaction, varied work sites and meetings, and multiple
power levels. But we would argue that it is also a valid and valuable
approach for crystallizing organizational knowledge. It generates
word networks that are very similar to the concept maps proven
valid in the study of knowledge and learning in the field of educa
-
tion (see the review in McPhee et al., 2000).
However, the representation of knowledge generated by CRA is
obviously unlike a discursive statement or summary of a set of
propositions. First, its word networks direct our attention to highly
influential words, where “influential” means that they facilitate the
connection of meaning among many different words, across very
different parts of the overall word network. The linkages that make
a word influential might well occur at different times in discourse,
each with different relevance. Second, interpretation of CRA
results rarely rests on the indices of specific words. Instead, words
are interpreted relative to their place in the overall network of rela-
tions among the most influential terms. Rather than a sequenced
prepositional description, narrative, or argument, CRA registers a
field of meaningful relations. In our example map, this field
includes interpretive theories, applications, and an idea originator.
We contend that CRA maps are thus responsive to a highly social
and pragmatic sense of knowledge—knowledge as used in dis-
course of all sorts, in all parts of the organization. CRA networks
can register the connections among concepts drawn as organization
members (and others) inform or educate other members, explore
ideas and interactively elaborate new ones, and argue for controver
-
sial ideas or for funding specific research proposals. Sometimes
these uses obviously overlap; sometimes we may be able to sepa
-
rate them for purposes of subanalysis. Nonetheless, they are all
expressive of knowledge, either taken-for-granted connections or
new connections being advanced for organizational learning.
Because CRA can be focused on subsections of discourse, it can
also represent relations among the expressed knowledge structures
in different parts of an organization, at different times. Thus, for
example, it can evaluate and analyze the sources of resonance
between knowledge, as expressed in ongoing discourse, in a unit
that is the source of a valued technological capacity and another
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unit seeking to import that capacity. Or it could depict the degree of
overlap between the discourse of knowledge practitioners—front-
line expert employees and supervisors solving innovation prob
-
lems—and that of knowledge engineers, the middle-level manag
-
ers working to integrate diverse technical units with imperatives
from upper management and other divisions (Nonaka & Takeuchi,
1995). CRA would identify the influential concepts used to achieve
coherence in these diverse streams of discourse; it may even allow
identification of the bases of effective KM or of misunderstanding
and conflict. The idea of knowing the knowers gains traction when
we can generate a representation of the knowledge they are putting
into play and a further representation of how it plays out over time.
CONCLUSION: A VISION AND A CONCERN
The ability to generate discourse-based concept maps quickly
and reliably implies both a vision and a concern. The vision
involves a shift in the goal of KM, away from typical attempts to
capture and employ sedimented information and expert decision
bases or to direct or nurture ongoing knowledge use while depend-
ing on fragmentary and evanescent notions of the organization’s
state of knowing. It enables a shift to goals such as keeping track of
and steering the concepts and issues that are of central concern in
organizational interaction, and charting the distribution of differ
-
ences among groups and forums in how they center and elaborate
ideas in discourse.
The concern is about the use of the power to manage knowledge
in practice. CRA grounds the power to extend control from deci
-
sions and actions chosen to the knowledge expressed in trying to
justify those decisions or deviate from past decision patterns.
Trethewey and Corman (2001) warned that utopian narratives, such
as the one we have articulated here, ignore the dangers of KM for
individuals. Happily, we would note that the knowledge
crystallizations accomplished by CRA seem eminently suitable for
transparent and inclusive use. They tend toward transparency
because they are quick, understandable to members of the discur
-
sive community, and easily accessible. They tend toward inclusive
-
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ness—use for the good of all members—because they are immedi
-
ately and eminently useful to members, who can quickly see the
central themes of the organizational dialogue, the sources of reso
-
nance between own discourse and group discourse, and the ways
that one’s own themes get elaborated at other times and places. But
a possible affinity for consensual democratic use does not remove
the prospect of increased control. Instead, it indicates a course that
we can advocate in helping to design the KM efforts of the future.
REFERENCES
Corman, S., Kuhn, T., McPhee, R., & Dooley, K. J. (2002). Studying complex dis
-
cursive systems: Centering resonance analysis of organizational communica
-
tion. Human Communication Research, 28, 157-206.
Cross, R., Parker, A., Prusak, L., & Borgatti, S. (2001). Supporting knowledge cre-
ation and sharing in social networks. Organizational Dynamics, 30(2), 100-
120.
Grosz, B. J., Weinstein, S., & Joshi, A. K. (1995). Centering: A framework for
modeling the local coherence of a discourse. Computational Linguistics, 21,
203-225.
Hutchins, W. (1995). Cognition in the wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McPhee, R. D., Corman, S. R., Dooley, K. J., Kuhn, T. R., Zaug, P. J., & Iverson, J.
O. (2000, November). Discourse analysis of organizational knowing: A survey
of assumptions and problems. Paper presented at the meeting of the National
Communication Association, Seattle, WA.
Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The knowledge-creating company: How Japa
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nese companies create the dynamics of innovation. New York: Oxford Univer
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sity Press.
Trethewey, A., & Corman, S. R. (2001). Anticipating K-commerce: E-Commerce,
knowledge management, and organizational communication. Management
Communication Quarterly, 14, 619-628.
Walker, M. A., Joshi, A. K., & Prince, E. F. (Eds.). (1998). Centering theory in dis
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course. New York: Oxford University Press.
Robert D. McPhee (Ph.D., 1978, Michigan State University) is a professor
in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication and director of its
interdisciplinary Ph.D. program. He has served as chair of the Organiza
-
tional Communication Division of the National Communication Associa
-
tion and has published in Management Communication Quarterly, Com
-
280 MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY / NOVEMBER 2002
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munication Monographs, Human Communication Research, and the New
Handbook of Organizational Communication, among other sites.
Steven R. Corman (Ph.D., 1988, University of Illinois at Urbana–Cham
-
paign) is an associate professor in the Hugh Downs School of Human Com
-
munication at Arizona State University, where he studies organizational
communication networks, activity systems, discourse and text analysis, and
communication technology. He is coeditor of Perspectives on Organiza
-
tional Communication: Finding Common Ground (2000, Guilford) and is
vice-chair of the Organizational Communication Division of the Interna
-
tional Communication Association.
Kevin Dooley has a joint appointment with the Department of Management
and the Department of Industrial Engineering at Arizona State University
(ASU). Professor Dooley’s research interests lie in the areas of complexity,
quality, innovation, information technology, and health care. He is cur
-
rently codirector of ASU’s Software Factory and is president of the Society
for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences.
McPhee et al. / KNOWLEDGE IN DISCOURSE 281
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