Johny T. Garner’s research while affiliated with Texas Christian University and other places

Marked by repetitive and negatively valenced disclosures, verbal rumination is a common strategy used to cope with challenges or manage complex situations that often have detrimental consequences for individuals and the organizations to which they belong. To investigate factors that might encourage or inhibit verbal rumination in organizations, the present study examined the quality of coworker and supervisor communication and perceived stress in workplace settings. Results revealed the interconnected nature of workplace relationships in terms of encouraging or inhibiting verbal rumination. These findings also emphasized the importance of relationships with supervisors as a deterrent to verbal rumination and reinforced the strong connection between stress and rumination, offering important implications for theoretical work related to interpersonal communication in organizations.

In this study, we examined online dissent as expressed by members and former members of a U.S. based megachurch. Our interpretive analysis of the data illuminated three audiences of dissent (i.e., self, others, the pastor) and uncovered three clear aims (i.e., individual sensemaking, community defense, providing corrective direction) of dissent processes in this non-secular organization as enacted online. Taken together, these audiences and aims complicate several taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in current models of dissent processes and extend scholarly insight into dissent in religious organizations.

This study sought to explore potential differences in organizational dissent seen as troublemaking and dissent seen as problem-solving. Participants completed open-ended items that measured perceptions of others’ dissent. Results revealed two key attributions that dissent audiences make: principled versus personal advantage dissent and appropriate versus inappropriate dissent. Results also demonstrated nuance in connecting dissent expressions and others’ perceptions of dissenters. Finally, the study draws attention to one aspect of residual communication, which includes communication about dissenters after they have expressed disagreement and which defines the context for future dissent.

Dissent is an integral part of decision making, and dissent processes may be particularly on display in workgroups in which group and organizational pressures intersect. The present study examined workgroup meetings in 3 organizations, focusing on how dissent influenced interactions that immediately followed the disagreement as well as how dissent shaped group meetings beyond those initial interactions. Immediately following dissent, groups typically tabled the dissenting member's concerns, either because the group could not resolve the dissent or because the group leader chose not to discuss the dissent further. A longer view of these meetings revealed phases of dissent interspersed within periods of focused work. These findings make 2 contributions to scholarship. First, much of the literature on organizational and group dissent focuses on variables that affect dissent, but the present study examines how one dissent event influences future events. These data revealed groups' keen awareness of past dissent as they expressed and responded to present dissent. Second, 2 breakpoints emerged as particularly important in the history of these groups, and those breakpoints revealed a dialectic mechanism that lay beneath dissent interactions. In one instance, managerialism seemed to subvert dissent, whereas in the other instance, a synthesis developed as the group developed new norms for interaction.

Organizational dissent is an interactive process that occurs as a result of one or more subordinates expressing disagreement with policies, practices, or imperatives. Dissent can be undertaken to improve the organization or to improve one's personal position within the organization. Prominent themes in dissent research include the person to whom dissent is expressed (the audience), what the dissenter says, and the outcomes of dissent conversations. Recent research focuses on the process of dissent rather than singular dissent events.

When Mars Hill Church came under fire for unethical activities, current and former parishioners began to share their stories of membership in and exit from the infamous mega church. In this study we explored the communicative space between the dominance of an organizational master narrative and the rise of a prevailing counter narrative, that is, the struggle for narrative ownership. Our thematic analysis of blogs featuring members’ and leaders’ stories and archival church documents revealed two tensions that members experienced in the struggle for narrative ownership: silence–voice and isolation–community. Ultimately, findings from this study extend Fisher’s Narrative Paradigm, situating narrative fidelity and probability as most useful not for evaluating the epistemic quality of stories but for explaining their resonance with a particular audience.

Prior to its dissolution, Mars Hill, a former megachurch, developed a reputation for abuse and dictatorial control, creating an organizational environment from which many sought to exit. However, for those members desiring to leave, exit was far from straightforward. Our interpretive analysis of former members’ stories revealed tension as Mars Hill cast out members who wanted to stay (involuntary exit) while pressuring those who wanted to leave (involuntary staying). Former members used a form of faith-based reasoning (spiritual rationality) to manage this tension. Finally, members described ways they simultaneously experienced identification and disidentification with the organization in the face of abuse and control, a phenomenon we characterize as uncoupled identification. We discuss these findings in light of the literature on employee-abusive organizations and identification.

The present study investigated students’ eye gaze while reacting to dissenting peers in groups. We measured the duration of gaze toward a confederate who disagreed with either a prevailing idea around which the group was coalescing or the process by which the group was solving a problem. Results indicated that participants gazed at dissenting confederates longer than at confederates in control groups. Qualitative analysis suggested that participants seemed to use eye gaze to understand the confederate, to prompt the confederate to contribute to discussions, to ease tensions, and to process information relative to the group’s task. Results provide an expanded look at how group members respond to dissenters, how conflict operates in some student groups, and how group members may differentiate acceptable and unacceptable disagreement.

Organizational justice is the perceived fairness of organizational outcomes, processes, and interpersonal relationships. Since 1975, the amount of research examining justice in organizations has dramatically increased. Much of that research is focused on procedural and interactional justice. Scholars have examined the antecedents of these dimensions of justice as well as the outcomes of justice perceptions. Organizational communication scholars have been particularly interested in how communication constitutes fairness in organizational relationships.