Schoeneborn, D. (2011) - Organization As Communication. A Luhmannian Perspective

Management Communication
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Organization as Communication: A Luhmannian Perspective

Dennis Schoeneborn
Management Communication Quarterly 2011 25: 663 originally published online
19 May 2011
DOI: 10.1177/0893318911405622
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DOI: 10.1177/0893318911405622
A Luhmannian http://mcq.sagepub.com
Perspective
Dennis Schoeneborn1
Abstract
This article introduces Luhmann’s theory of social systems as a prominent
example of communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) thinking and
argues that Luhmann’s perspective contributes to current conceptual debates
on how communication constitutes organization. The theory of social systems
highlights that organizations are fundamentally grounded in paradox because
they are built on communicative events that are contingent by nature. Con-
sequently, organizations are driven by the continuous need to deparadoxify
their inherent contingency. In that respect, Luhmann’s approach fruitfully
combines a processual, communicative conceptualization of organization
with the notion of boundary and self-referentiality. Notwithstanding the
merits of Luhmann’s approach, its accessibility tends to be limited due to
the hermetic terminology that it employs and the fact that it neglects the
role of material agency in the communicative construction of organizations.
Keywords
organizational communication, communication constitutes organization (CCO),
Montreal School, theory of social systems
1
Institute of Organization and Administrative Science, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Corresponding Author:
Dr. Dennis Schoeneborn, University of Zurich, Institute of Organization and Administrative
Science, Universitaetsstr. 84, Zurich, Switzerland, CH-8006
Email: dennis.schoeneborn@uzh.ch

664 Management Communication Quarterly 25(4)
Organizing is first and foremost a communicative activity. Weick even con-

cludes that “the communication activity is the organization” (Weick, 1995, p.
75; italics added). A significant body of literature has emerged in recent years
that takes Weick’s claim seriously, acknowledging the constitutive role of
communication for organizations, often abbreviated to CCO. The CCO per-
spective originates in the interdisciplinary field of organizational communi-
cation studies (Putnam & Nicotera, 2008). In a recent article, Ashcraft, Kuhn,
and Cooren (2009) present a comprehensive overview of the emerging CCO
perspective. The authors argue that apart from rare examples, in particular the
work of the “Montreal School” of organizational communication (e.g., Coo-
ren, Taylor, & van Every, 2006; Taylor & van Every, 2000) or scholars work-
ing with structuration theory (e.g., McPhee & Poole, 2001; McPhee & Zaug,
2008), limited attention has focused on explicit claims that communication
constitutes organizations.
In this article, I take this claim forward by drawing upon the work of
German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. I argue that Luhmann’s theory of social
systems (Luhmann, 1995, 2000; Seidl & Becker, 2005), a long-reaching the-
oretical tradition in the German-speaking social sciences, fundamentally
shares with the CCO perspective the explicit assumption of the communica-
tive constitution of organizations. Nevertheless, so far the theory of social
systems has remained largely isolated and separate from comparable theories
developed by authors of the CCO perspective. This lack of reception can be
explained by the fact that a large part of Luhmann’s work on organizations
has not yet been translated from German into English (Hernes & Bakken,
2003, p. 1513) and is, therefore, mostly inaccessible to an international read-
ership. In view of that, this article’s objective is systematically to introduce
Luhmann’s notion of organization as communication to an international
readership in the field of organizational communication and to contribute to
emergent debates on the CCO view.
Particularly, I put forward the argument that Luhmann’s theoretical perspec-
tive lends itself to three current conceptual debates on unresolved questions
within the CCO framework: first, what makes communication organizational
(Bisel, 2010; McPhee & Zaug, 2008)? Second, if organizations are defined as
consisting of something as ephemeral as communication, how are organiza-
tions stabilized over time (Cooren & Fairhurst, 2008)? Third, what differenti-
ates organizations from other forms of social phenomena, such as networks,
communities, or social movements (Sillince, 2010)?
With regard to the first question, I suggest drawing on Luhmann’s focus
on decisions as the distinctive feature of organizational communication. In
this context, Luhmann’s theory of social systems highlights that organizations
are fundamentally grounded in paradox, as they are built on communicative

Schoeneborn 665
events that are contingent by nature. With regard to the second question,
Luhmann proposes that organizations are driven by the continuous necessity
to deparadoxify their inherent contingency. With regard to the third question,
I claim Luhmann’s framework is helpful in combining a processual, com-
municative conceptualization of organization with the notion of boundary
and self-referentiality.
This article is structured as follows: First, I provide a brief overview of the
emerging CCO perspective. Second, I introduce Luhmann’s theory of social
systems and especially his notion of organization as communication. Based
on this brief introduction, I relate Luhmann’s framework to current debates
about the CCO view and analyze his potential contributions to these debates.
Third, to set these potential contributions into perspective, I point out limita-
tions to the transferability of insights from Luhmann’s framework to CCO
thinking. The study concludes with a discussion of how acknowledging
Luhmann’s theory of social systems as one explicit strain of CCO thinking
can inspire future research on organization as communication.
The Communicative Constitution

of Organization (CCO)
A growing body of literature applies a constitutive conception of communi-
cation, that is, the notion that communication fundamentally constitutes social
reality (Craig, 1999), to the study of organizations (Ashcraft et al., 2009;
Putnam & Nicotera, 2008). As Castor points out, “Organizational communi-
cation scholars . . . are becoming increasingly interested in the communica-
tion as constitutive of organizations (CCO) perspective that views organizations
as socially constructed through communication” (Castor, 2005, p. 480). The
CCO approach (e.g., Kuhn, 2008; Taylor, 2000) addresses one of the most
fundamental questions in organization studies: What is an organization? In
doing so, CCO scholars attempt a radical shift in perspective: They reject the
notion that organizations are constituted by their members (e.g., March &
Simon 1958, p. 110, who maintain that “an organization is, after all, a collec-
tion of people and what the organization does is done by people”). Instead, they
put forward a fluid and processual notion of organizations as being constituted
by ephemeral acts of communication: “An organization is not a physical
structure—a collection of people (or computers), joined by material channels
of communication, but a construction made out of conversation“ (Taylor,
1993, p. 22).
In a recent article, Ashcraft et al. (2009) provide a comprehensive over-
view of the current state of research based on the CCO perspective. At the
same time, the authors rely on a rather broad understanding of the CCO

approach. Besides discussing particular strains of CCO thinking that explic-

itly propagate a constitutive view of the organization–communication rela-
tionship, they also consider strains of embedded CCO thinking, characterized
by the fact that “constitutive claims are not their primary focus” (Ashcraft et
al., 2009, p. 9). As examples of such embedded approaches, the authors men-
tion research on organizational culture (e.g., Eisenberg & Riley, 2001), power
(e.g., Deetz, 2005; Mumby, 2001), or networks (e.g., Monge & Contractor,
2003). In this article, I use the term CCO to refer mainly to explicit strains of
CCO thinking. The most prominent examples of these explicit strains, that is,
the work of the Montreal School of organizational communication (e.g.,
Taylor & van Every, 2000) as well as structuration theory approaches (e.g.,
McPhee & Zaug, 2008), are introduced below in their main features.
The Montreal School of organizational communication is represented in
particular by James R. Taylor, François Cooren, and their colleagues (e.g.,
Cooren, 2004; Cooren et al., 2006; Robichaud, Giroux, & Taylor, 2004;
Taylor & van Every, 2000, 2011). The starting point of their theorizations is
the assumption of an isomorphic or equivalent relationship between organi-
zation and communication (Taylor, 1995): The notion of equivalence “treats
communication and organization as a monastic unity or as the same phenom-
enon expressed in different ways. That is, communicating is organizing and
organizing is communicating: the two processes are isomorphic” (Putnam,
Phillips, & Chapman, 1996, p. 375). The basic distinction on the communi-
cational side of the equivalence concerns the modalities of text and conversa-
tion: “The textual dimension corresponds with the recurring, fairly stable and
uneventful side of communication (i.e. the organization’s ‘surface’), whereas
the conversational dimension refers to the lively and evolving co-constructive
side of communication (i.e. the ‘site’ of organization)” (Ashcraft et al., 2009,
p. 20). In a social-constructivist understanding of organizations, Taylor and
colleagues (Taylor, Cooren, Giroux, & Robichaud, 1996) imagine the orga-
nization as the alternate succession of episodes of conversation (where the
organization is accomplished in situ) and textualization (where the organiza-
tion is “incarnated” as a recognizable actor by creating textual representations
of itself). In this radical view, the organization’s inception occurs exclusively
on the level of ongoing text-conversation processes and thus “has no existence
other than in discourse” (Taylor & Cooren, 1997, p. 429).
However, in this conceptualization of organizations, the crucial question
remains: What particular form of communication “makes communication
organizational” (Taylor & Cooren, 1997; italics added)? With regard to that
question, the Montreal School’s conceptualization of organization as com-
munication has been subject to criticism for being too vague. This criticism

Schoeneborn 667
has been expressed particularly by scholars who primarily follow a structura-

tion theory perspective (e.g., McPhee & Poole, 2001; McPhee & Zaug, 2008).
Countering the notion of isomorphic equivalence between organization and
communication, these authors draw on the root metaphor of production,
arguing that organizations both produce communication and are produced by
communication (see Giddens’s notion of the duality of structure and agency;
Giddens, 1984). For instance, in what is a predominantly supportive account
of Taylor’s work, McPhee and Poole point out,
One limitation of Taylor et al.’s (1996) approach is that it attempts

to use communication concepts that apply to all interaction, perhaps
influenced by the idea that if organization and communication are
equivalent, all communication should be organizational. Since these
concepts must . . . apply to marriages, mobs, and communities that
intercommunicate, they are hindered from finding crucial explanatory
concepts for specifically organizational communication. (McPhee &
Poole, 2001, p. 534)
In a similar vein, McPhee and Zaug question the idea that every form of
communication has the inherent constitutive ability to let an organization emerge.
Instead, they propose distinguishing between four types of communication
“flows,” which they assume to be essential for the constitution of organization.
First, organizations tend to draw a clear-cut distinction between their mem-
bers and nonmembers and thus are characterized by continuous communi-
cative processes of membership negotiation. Second, organizations entail
communicative processes of reflexive self-structuring, which in turn distin-
guishes them from loose forms of social gatherings, such as “lynch mobs or
mere neighborhoods” (McPhee & Zaug, 2008, p. 36). Third, organizations
follow at least one manifest purpose, which serves as a template for commu-
nicative processes of activity coordination toward that specific end. Fourth,
organizations do not operate in a vacuum but are embedded into society at
large. Thus, organizations also generate (and in turn are shaped by) complex
communicative processes of institutional positioning, where the organization’s
status is continuously negotiated in interaction with stakeholders and other
institutions. These four flows, however, need to be seen as a soft set of criteria
rather than a clear-cut definition of what makes communication organizational.
Leaning toward the work of the Montreal School, Cooren and Fairhurst
(2008) critically respond to McPhee and Zaug (2008), essentially arguing that
their model of four flows adopts a too reductionist, top-down stance toward
organizations:

For example, a group of individuals can organize themselves to accom-

plish a common objective (for example, moving) and develop some
patterns of interaction, but this does not necessarily mean that this
group constitutes a formal organization (for example, a moving com-
pany). They could just be a bunch of friends trying to help one of them
to move. (Cooren & Fairhurst, 2008, p. 121)
Cooren and Fairhurst instead propose applying a bottom-up perspective,

from which the organization should be conceived as an emergent phenome-
non, fundamentally rooted in local interactions. According to the authors, the
key question lies in how local and ephemeral interactions are scaled up to
longer-lasting and stabilized forms of organization: “It is this source of sta-
bility that needs to be unveiled” (Cooren & Fairhurst, 2008, p. 123; italics in
original). In response, the authors highlight the importance of textual and
nonhuman agency for processes of organizing. Nonhuman entities are seen
here as agents capable of acting, that is, of making a difference, by virtue of
their mere presence and particular configurations, for instance, “the PDA
reminded me of the appointment” (Cooren, 2006, pp. 84-85) or a sign at a
restaurant’s door where a private party is held is likely to stop you from enter-
ing. This is referred to as the “staying capacity” (Derrida, 1988) or “distan-
ciation” (Ricœur, 1981) of texts and artifacts, that is, their ability to transcend
time and (in some cases also) space. Although circumstantial factors may
vary, such entities remain robust over time, as they become detached from
their authors’ intentions and the context of their creation. With relation to
organization, one could say that, in effect, organizations come into existence
by help of the various forms of nonhuman agency (see Latour, 1994), which
allow the dislocation and consequently the perpetuation of its existence. In
that respect, the CCO perspective directs our attention to sociomateriality as
a stabilizing condition for organizing (Cooren, 2006; Orlikowski, 2007).
Consequently, changes in sociomaterial practices, for example, the introduc-
tion of new media and genres of organizational communication (Yates &
Orlikowski, 1992), fundamentally affect the perpetuation of organization. In
the same spirit, Cooren elucidates,
Different types of agencies are typically created and mobilized to ful-

fill organizing (to name just a few, organizational charts, contracts,
ledgers, surveillance cameras, statuses, checklists, orders, memos,
[etc.]). . . . Organizing can thus be understood as a hybrid phenomenon
that requires the mobilization of entities . . . which contribute to the
emergence and the enactment of the organized form. (2006, p. 83)

Schoeneborn 669
As I have shown, though the authors who represent the various strands of
the CCO perspective agree on the constitutive role of communication for
organization, we can also perceive ongoing debates on how communication
constitutes organization. Most recently, this debate has been intensified in a
special topic forum on the CCO approach in Management Communication
Quarterly (e.g., Bisel, 2010; Putnam & Nicotera, 2010; Sillince, 2010).
Within the current debates on the CCO view, I identify three main unresolved
questions. First, Bisel, in line with McPhee and Zaug, suggests conceptual-
izing communication as a necessary but ultimately insufficient condition for
the emergence of organization. Of course, this stance raises the question of
what else needs to be in place for organization to emerge or, in other words,
what makes communication organizational. Second, and closely related to
this, if organizations are defined as consisting of something as ephemeral as
communication, how are organizations stabilized over time (Cooren & Fairhurst,
2008)? Sillince points out a third question; namely, what differentiates orga-
nizations from other forms of social phenomena such as networks, communi-
ties, or social movements? He argues that McPhee and Zaug’s four-flows
model (2008) could equally apply to all of these forms. Consequently, Sillince
calls for developing more precisely the defining characteristics that are specific
to organizations. In the following section, I present the argument that Luhmann’s
social systems theory framework particularly lends itself to contributing to
these three questions on how communication constitutes organization.
Potential Contributions of the

TSS to the CCO Perspective
The CCO perspective’s most fundamental assumption, that organizations are
constituted by communication, matches a central tenet of the theory of social
systems (TSS), as developed by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1995,
2000). Although the TSS represents one of the most prominent schools of
thought within the German-speaking social sciences (Seidl & Becker, 2006,
p. 8), so far it has remained largely isolated from the ideas developed by
authors of the CCO perspective (for one rare exception, see Taylor, 2001).
One of the main reasons for this may be that Luhmann’s work on organizations,
particularly his major monograph Organisation und Entscheidung (2000,
Trans. Organization and Decision), has not yet been translated into English
and is thus inaccessible to large elements of the international readership. The
reception of Luhmann’s work on organization theory in English-language
publications has begun to grow relatively recently (e.g., Bakken & Hernes,
2003; Hernes & Bakken, 2003; Nassehi, 2005; Seidl & Becker, 2005, 2006). In

view of that, it is my objective in this article to introduce the TSS, concentrat-

ing on its main features, and to highlight its contributions to understanding
organization as communication.
Luhmann’s lifetime project was to develop a universal theoretical frame-
work that can be applied to all social phenomena and that allows for theory-
consistent descriptions. Expounding his ideas on social systems, Luhmann
(1995) starts with communication as the most basic element of the social
domain. In that respect, the TSS leads to the counterintuitive notion that human
beings are part of the environment of communication processes (Luhmann,
1992, p. 30). In other words, Luhmann theorizes a clear distinction between
communication (“social systems”) and individual human beings (“psychic
systems”): “Accordingly, social systems are not comprised of persons and
actions but of communications” (Luhmann, 1989, p. 145). Despite this rather
impersonal notion of social systems as interconnected communications,
Luhmann conceptualizes communication processes and individual thought
processes as mutually dependent on each other (Luhmann, 1992, p. 281).
The key to Luhmann’s understanding of communication is his notion of
autopoiesis, that is, self-(re)production: Luhmann assumes that the social
domain consists of various autopoietic systems, which reproduce themselves
self-referentially on the basis of ongoing processes of communication: “Social
systems use communications as their particular mode of autopoietic repro-
duction. Their elements are communications which are recursively produced
and reproduced by a network of communications, and which cannot exist out-
side the network” (Luhmann, 1986, p. 174).
Based on this conception, Luhmann distinguishes three basic types of
autopoietic social systems: (1) interactions, the smallest and most elusive
form of social gatherings on the microlevel; (2) organizations as more for-
malized and stable social systems on the mesolevel; and finally, (3) society as
a whole, which encompasses all forms of social systems on the macrolevel
and can be further differentiated into various functional subsystems such as
the political system, economic system, legal system, and so on (Luhmann, 1986,
p. 173). Thus, organizations represent a generic social form. Like all social
systems, organizations are assumed to be fundamentally constituted by com-
munication. Accordingly, the organization is conceptualized as an autopoi-
etic system consisting of interconnected communicative events. In this view,
the organization only exists as long as it manages to produce further com-
munications, which call forth yet more communications.
The view that organizations consist solely of ephemeral communicative
events, which is central to the processual perspective, directs our attention to
a fundamental problem of organization: How do organizations maintain their

Schoeneborn 671
existence from one communicative event to the next? Or in other words, how
do organizations ensure connectivity (in German, “Anschlussfähigkeit”; Nassehi,
2005)? Indeed, organizational strategies established to increase the likelihood
of connectivity are a focal point for the TSS. In the following, I will discuss
to what extent Luhmann’s theoretical perspective can contribute fruitfully
to the three identified debates on unresolved questions within CCO thinking.
These questions will structure my analysis.
Organization as Fundamentally
Grounded in Paradox
With regard to the first question of current CCO debates, that is, what is it
that makes communication organizational (Bisel, 2010; McPhee & Zaug,
2008), I turn to Luhmann’s idea that the decision communication is the key
feature of organizational communication:
Organised social systems can be understood as systems made up of

decisions. . . . Decision is not understood as a psychological mecha-
nism, but as a matter of communication, not as a psychological event
in the form of an internally conscious definition of the self, but as a
social event. That makes it impossible to state that decisions already
taken still have to be communicated. Decisions are communications;
something that clearly does not preclude that one can communicate about
decisions. (Luhmann, 2003, p. 32)
Luhmann’s focus on decisions as the constitutive element of organization

has roots in a long-standing tradition in organization studies (e.g., March &
Simon, 1958; Weber, 1958; Weick, 1979, 1995) as well as organizational
communication research (e.g., Tompkins & Cheney, 1983, 1985). Within
existing strains of CCO thinking, however, such focus on decisions as the key
feature of organizing—in the tradition of March and Simon (1958)—is
regarded as old-fashioned and too reductionist (e.g., Taylor & van Every,
2000, p. 183). But in contrast to the work of his predecessors, Luhmann
ascribes to decisions a radical communicative character: “Luhmann suggests
conceptualising decision as a specific form of communication. It is not that
decisions are first made and then communicated; decisions are communica-
tions” (Seidl, 2005a, p. 39). According to Luhmann, the organization comes
into being whenever speech acts adopt the form of decisions. As an example
of what he means by decisions, let us consider the most basic type of organi-
zational decisions, that is, decisions on membership. Communicative acts

representative of this type include phrases like “We have hired . . .” or “Please
welcome . . ., our new colleague.” What counts for the organization is the
completed decision. Seidl draws on the same example when he explains that
what matters for the organization is the decision as such, rather than the pro-
cess that has led to that decision:
For the organization the decision on the candidate connects directly to

the earlier decision to create the position. . . . For the continuation of
the decision process (e.g., further decisions on concrete curricula etc.)
it is only relevant which candidate has been chosen (and which ones
have not). It is completely irrelevant who was for or against the candi-
date . . . , how long it took the participants to reach the decision etc.
What counts for the further decision process is the decided alternative,
while the process culminating in the decision, and the uncertainty involved
in it, are irrelevant or absorbed. (Seidl, 2005b, p. 158)
When it comes to decisions, the TSS highlights that organizations are

essentially grounded in paradox (Luhmann, 2000, p. 64). In this context,
Luhmann refers to the paradox of the undecidability of decisions, as expressed
by von Foerster (1992, p. 14): “Only questions that are in principle undecid-
able, we can decide” (see Derrida, 2002; Cooren, 2010). To make this para-
doxical statement more comprehensible let us take a closer look at Luhmann’s
notion of the term contingency, as a first step. When Luhmann asserts that
“contingency is the state that is reached if necessity and impossibility are
negated” (Luhmann, 1988, p. 183; translated from the original), he is refer-
ring to the philosophical definition of the term (e.g., Rorty, 1989). Here
“contingency” means an instance of “it could be otherwise” and thus repre-
sents potentiality as opposed to actuality. In this respect, Luhmann’s notion
of the term “contingency” clearly differs from its usage in “contingency the-
ory” (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967) or its common usage (i.e., a future event or
circumstance that is difficult to predict accurately).
Decisions, in turn, are contingent by definition because in a decision, usu-
ally “only one conclusion [is] reached but others could have been chosen”
(Andersen, 2003, p. 245). At the same time, questions that have only one
answer, that is, questions that can only be decided in one way and, therefore,
lack the property of “undecidability,” do not allow organizations to emerge
as interrelated sets of decision-communications: “If a decision can be reached
through absolute deduction, calculation, or argumentation [it leads] to a final
closure or fixation of contingency without simultaneously potentializing

Schoeneborn 673
alternatives. . . . So-called rational decisions are not decisions at all”

(Andersen, 2003, p. 246). In practice, this means that if, for instance, an orga-
nization has established procedures that allow it to determine deductively the
profile of the “optimal” candidate for a job within the organization, for exam-
ple, based on a list of predefined criteria, there would be no need to make a
decision as such when choosing among candidates, in the sense that the ques-
tion of selecting a new member of staff can be answered solely on the basis
of past decisions. Thus, in the TSS the term “decision” designates only the
“pure” form of decisions, which reflects their inherent contingency, arbitrari-
ness, and undecidability. Consequently, it is in line with Luhmann (2000) to
assume that decision communications do not necessarily follow a rationalist
and deductive pattern (see also Taylor, 2001). As Nassehi puts it, “Luhmann
comes to the conclusion that rationality is a retrospective scheme of observa-
tion, dealing with the contingency and the paradox of decision-making pro-
cesses” (Nassehi, 2005, p. 186).
One important aspect of decision communication in organizations is that
decisions can be identified as decisions only if their contingency is made vis-
ible in the form of one or more alternative possibilities that have been explic-
itly taken into consideration but are discarded:
What is particular about decisions is that they . . . communicate their

own contingency . . . . In contrast to an ordinary communication, which
only communicates a specific content that has been selected (e.g.
“I love you”), a decision communication communicates also—explicitly
or implicitly—that there are alternatives that could have been selected
instead (e.g. “I am going to employ candidate A and not candidate B”).
(Seidl, 2005a, p. 39)
Thus, organizations constantly operate in a state of paradox: “The deci-

sion must communicate itself as a decision, but by doing that it also commu-
nicates its own alternative. A decision cannot help but communicate its own
self-critique, i.e., communicate that it could also have been made differently”
(Knudsen, 2005, p. 110). Seidl adds that “every decision communicates that
there are alternatives to the decision—otherwise it would not be a decision—
and it simultaneously communicates that since the decision has been made,
there are no alternatives—otherwise, again, it would not be a decision” (Seidl
2005b, p. 146; italics in original). Or in the words of Luhmann, “Decisions
can only be communicated [as decisions] if the rejected alternatives are
also communicated” (Luhmann, 2000, p. 64; translated from the original).

The organization, then, can be described as a communicative entity that is

driven by the continuous need to handle this paradox and thus tends to oscil-
late between visibilizing and invisibilizing the alternativity of decisions
(Schoeneborn, 2008).
To conclude, Luhmann’s focus on decision communications is highly per-
tinent to the first question of current debates on the CCO perspective; that is,
what makes communication organizational? In this context, Luhmann pro-
poses focusing on a particular form of communication, the decision com-
munication. From the TSS perspective, one could argue that all four flows
that define organization according to McPhee and Zaug (2008), that is, self-
structuring, membership negotiation, activity coordination, and institutional
positioning, essentially involve explicit or implicit forms of decision commu-
nication. From this point of view, decision communications represent the spe-
cific type of communication that holds all four flows together; for example,
the process of negotiating whether a job applicant joins an organization or not
may result in a contract being signed by the new recruit. For Luhmann (2000),
this process would essentially consist of a decision communication, in the
sense that the signing of a contract indicates one option (inclusion), which
has been chosen over an alternative (exclusion) and is communicated in writ-
ten form. Similarly, the process of activity coordination during a team meet-
ing will most likely involve a decision communication on which activities to
focus on (from among all available options) and on the allocation of tasks to
team members. Authors of the Montreal School would still object to such
decision-centered reductionism, of course, arguing that language per se has
the inherent tendency to generate instances of organizing. Thus, according to
these authors, organization can emerge in principle out of all forms of com-
munication, not only from decision communication.
Nevertheless, even if one does not agree with Luhmann’s focus on decision
communication, the TSS yields potentially valuable insights into the com-
municative constitution of organization. For instance, the TSS suggests taking
a closer look at the form of communication. In this context, Seidl (2005b, p. 149)
distinguishes various layers of organizational interactions ranging from the
pure “deciding interactions” at the organization’s very core, to “semi-detached
interactions” with merely a loose relation to decision making (e.g., gossiping)
at the organization’s outer layers. Seidl’s distinction implicitly calls for com-
parative research on these various layers of organizational communication
(see Robichaud et al., 2004). Most important, the TSS highlights that organi-
zations consist of an interrelated, self-referential, and autopoietic network of
communicative events, which are fundamentally grounded in paradox and
are inherently contingent—an aspect largely missing in current CCO debates.

Schoeneborn 675
Accordingly, the question arises, “How do organizations handle their inherent

contingency communicatively and manage to sustain their existence over
time?” I will further elaborate on this question in the following section.
Deparadoxification as the Driving Force

of Organizational Self-Reproduction
In answer to the second CCO question, that is, how organizations become
stabilized over time (Cooren & Fairhurst, 2008), the TSS provides a proces-
sual model to explain how organizations come into being and maintain their
existence. Starting from the assumption that organizations are essentially
based on the paradox of the undecidability of decisions, Luhmann’s frame-
work enables us to observe the organization as a processual entity by identi-
fying organizational strategies of deparadoxification (see Andersen, 2003;
Czarniawska, 2005). As Andersen points out,
In relation to decision communication it is important to make decisions

look decidable. Decision communication is able to deparadoxify itself
by basically making freedom look like restraint. In a certain sense,
organizational communication through the form of decision consists of
nothing but continual attempts to deparadoxify decisions. The way
they do is an empirical question. (2003, p. 249; italics in original)
In other words, reducing the almost infinite number of potential options

(“open contingency”) to a limited set of options (“fixed contingency”;
Andersen, 2003) transforms the undecidability of decisions into decidability.
Again, the example of hiring a new employee helps us to illustrate this rela-
tion: In most cases, the decision to create a new position generates a large
range of potential candidates. Typically, the hiring process involves exclud-
ing the majority of applicants and compiling a shortlist of likely candidates.
During this process, the initially larger number of options is reduced to a
much smaller, and much more manageable, range of options on which the
decision will be based.
Likewise, Nassehi describes organizations as being driven by the continu-
ous necessity to conceal the fact that their operation is based on a paradox, the
undecidability of decisions: “If there were any secure knowledge on how to
decide, there would not be a choice. To have the choice means not to know
what to do. This is the main problem of organizations as social systems, con-
sisting of the communication of decisions to perform strategies to make this
problem invisible” (Nassehi, 2005, p. 186; italics in original). Organizations

are then forced to find some way to deparadoxify the undecidability of their
decisions; otherwise, they become paralyzed by the paradoxical character of
their basic operation. Consequently, organizations can be conceptualized as
ongoing processes of transforming open contingency into fixed contingency,
that is, by limiting down the number of alternatives or even presenting only
one inevitable alternative (Luhmann, 2000, p. 170). In Luhmann’s words,
“The paradoxical character needs to be packaged and sealed in communication”
(Luhmann, 2000, p. 142; translated from the original). This is realized, for
example, by constructing “a decider as an accountable address” or by making
decision processes visible: “This means to stage-manage [decisions] in meet-
ings, in special rooms, at special times, with special rites, and on special docu-
ments” (Nassehi, 2005, p. 186). Thus, organizations seem to depend on the
creation of a decisional language game in which they treat communicative
events at least as if decisions were made (Ortmann, 2004, p. 208).
In the same context, Andersen (2003) distinguishes three strategies of
deparadoxification. Temporal deparadoxification refers to overcoming the
pressure created by social expectations to make a decision by either tighten-
ing (e.g., by setting a deadline) or by widening the time frame for the decision
(e.g., by postponing a decision to the next meeting). In both cases, the imme-
diate pressure to execute a decision and to face its vast inherent contingency
is alleviated. Luhmann explains that imposing a deadline is a powerful mech-
anism of deparadoxification in the sense that it limits the amount of effort that
is invested in the decision to whatever the restricted time frame permits
(Luhmann, 2000, p. 176). Nevertheless, we of course also perceive examples
of following the opposite strategy of postponing a decision, on the grounds
that the decision needs to “ripen” before it can be made. Social deparadoxifi-
cation refers to justifying a decision by relating it to social expectations.
Claims that an “interest analysis” or “stakeholder analysis” must be carried
out to fulfill social expectations are empirical instances of this. Such tools are
used to legitimate a decision by creating social imperatives in the environ-
ment of the organization. Factual deparadoxification involves characterizing
a decision as a reaction to the “nature of the case”; decisions are identified as
choices among certain predefined alternatives. Typically this is achieved by
reference to environmental affordances; for example, the market situation
an organization faces is presented as an imperative that makes a particular
choice compulsive.
Because organizations are indeterminate in their complexity and given the
large range of possible connections between communicative events, organi-
zations are driven by the continuous need to execute selections in the form
of decisions (Luhmann, 1988, p. 110). A characteristic that is inherent in the

Schoeneborn 677
contingent nature of decisions is that every decision creates the need for fur-
ther decisions: “Decisions are attempts at creating certainty. . . . But they also
create uncertainty by demonstrating that the future is chosen; so it could
be different. In this way decisions pave the way for contestation” (Ahrne &
Brunsson, in press, p. 17).
It is exactly this interplay of decisions and the inherent necessity to execute
follow-up decisions that reproduce organization in the course of successive
communicative events. Consequently, organizations ensure their performa-
tivity by functioning both as the producer and product of decision necessities
(what Luhmann refers to as “Entscheidungsnotwendigkeiten”; Luhmann,
2000, p. 181). This allows us to provide an answer to the question raised by
Cooren and Fairhurst (2008, p. 121): What distinguishes the organization
from, for example, a group of friends helping one of them moving into a new
apartment? For Luhmann, an organization comes into being as soon as a self-
referential network of decision communications emerges, in which a past
decision becomes the “decision premise” for further decisions (Luhmann,
2000, p. 222). Consequently, the friends helping each other to move may
indeed represent the starting point for eventually establishing a more formal
organization but only if a self-referential set of interrelated decisions can be
sustained, typically starting with the decision on membership—who is part of
the moving company and who is not.
In light of our discussion so far, we can distinguish an important differ-
ence and an important similarity between Luhmann and the authors of the
CCO perspective—the Montreal School in particular—when it comes to
tackling the question of organizational stabilization over time: The propo-
nents of the Montreal School emphasize the importance of sociomateriality
(Orlikowski, 2007) to the process of stabilizing the organization as a com-
municative entity over time (e.g., Cooren & Fairhurst, 2008). These authors
argue that communicative practices are fundamentally entangled with mate-
rial objects (e.g., text, tools, artifacts of all kinds) that endure and thus allow
space and time to be transcended (Cooren, 2006). In contrast, Luhmann
(2000) rather tends to neglect the dimension of materiality; his definition of
communication (Luhmann, 1992) primarily centers on face-to-face interac-
tions. However, when it comes to the aspect of nonhuman agency, we can
perceive striking parallels between the two approaches: Both the Montreal
School and Luhmann downplay the importance of individual human agency.
Although authors of the Montreal School ascribe agency to all kinds of
“things” and artifacts, Luhmann conceptualizes the organization as ongoing
processes of communication. In Luhmann’s view, the self-referential com-
munication processes tend to develop an autopoietic life of their own and

thus gain a high degree of agency themselves. Let us illustrate this again by
the example of the recruitment decision: Luhmann would argue that it is
not the individual human agent (e.g., a manager) who can decide voluntarily
and largely independent from particular social circumstances on hiring a new
employee. Instead, the current recruitment decision stands in a tradition of
earlier decision communications that gain (nonhuman) agency on the current
decision situation (Seidl, 2005b, p. 158).
To conclude, when we describe the TSS approach in the categories intro-
duced by Bisel (2009), the TSS seems to reside in between “acted-in-structure”
(prioritizing text over talk) and “structured in action” (prioritizing talk over
text). Luhmann indeed stresses the importance of nonhuman agency (in his
case, by conceptualizing social systems as consisting of communication pro-
cesses) but largely neglects the aspect of materiality (by prioritizing talk over
text in his focus on face-to-face interactions). In his almost “immaterial”
understanding of organization as communication, Luhmann (2000) instead
identifies the inherent need for deparadoxification as the main driving force
that triggers the next instance of communication and thus enables the organi-
zation to perpetuate.
A Processual Notion of Organization,

But Within Boundaries
The third question of the current CCO debate has been recently raised by
Sillince (2010): What is it that specifically distinguishes organizations from
networks, communities, or social movements? According to Luhmann (2006),
social systems such as organizations fundamentally emerge by the distinc-
tion between the system and its environment. As the system–environment
distinction needs to be continually sustained, the existence of organizations
is a precarious one; they tend either to become either lost in pure self-
referentiality or to become absorbed by their environment (Luhmann, 2000,
p. 417). Thus, to maintain its existence, the organization continuously needs
to reproduce a boundary that distinguishes it from its environment. As
Luhmann would argue, it is exactly this systemic and self-referential bound-
ary that distinguishes organizations from networks, communities, or social
movements. In this context, it is important to note that Luhmann (1995)
conceptualizes social systems as both closed and open (or permeable; see
Cheney & Christensen, 2001) at the same time. On the one hand, on the level
of their most basic operations, that is, the decision communication, organiza-
tions are self-referentially closed. On the other hand, however, operational

Schoeneborn 679
closure becomes the precondition for organizations to remain structurally

open to interaction with their environment (see Maturana & Varela, 1987).
Although Luhmann’s emphasis on the system–environment distinction
and the concept of the boundary may be misinterpreted as propounding a
reified notion of organizations, quite the opposite is the case. Given that
Luhmann (2000) perceives organizations as processual in nature—that is,
as fundamentally constituted by communicative events—the organization’s
boundary is likewise assumed to be formed communicatively. In other words,
a boundary has no existence unless it becomes repeatedly reproduced as a dis-
tinction achieved by events of communication. Every decision-communication—
for example, decisions that are made during an organizational meeting (Boden,
1994; Castor & Cooren, 2006) or a recruitment decision—reproduces organi-
zation and, as a consequence, the boundary to its environment. This is because
decisions are executed for—or in the words of Cooren (2006) on behalf of—
the organization and not for its competitor. For instance, a managerial meet-
ing of Company A results in the decision to expand into the Chinese market.
This decision communication is part of a longer history of decision commu-
nications of Company A (e.g., an earlier decision to expand into the Japanese
market), but it is not part of the self-referential network of comparable
decision-communications of Company B, nor would the managerial meeting
of Company A be entitled to make similar decisions for Company B. The
organizational boundary is then stabilized by forming over time a self-
referential network of communicative events, each of which links back to at
least one preceding event.
This highlights an important difference from other strains within CCO
thinking: Although the concept of boundary is also emphasized by some authors
of the Montreal School (examples of this include the concepts of metaconver-
sation and narrative closure as discussed by Robichaud et al., 2004, or the
memetic model of organization in Taylor & Giroux, 2005), their notion dif-
fers from that of Luhmann. For instance, according to Cooren (2006), any
communicative event that ascribes agency to an organization would equally
stabilize the organization as a collective actor. In this view, a CNN report on
the Obama administration would reestablish the status of the Obama admin-
istration as a collective actor. In contrast to this, Luhmann’s way of theoriz-
ing is guided by a clear distinction between the inner and the outer side of an
organization. Luhmann (2000) emphasizes that the organization is primarily
stabilized by self-reference, not by external reference. Accordingly, in the
TSS view, as the hypothetical CNN report would take place in the environ-
ment of the organization and represent an external reference to it, it would not

contribute to the perpetuation of the organizational system as such. Instead,

the organizational system would be perpetuated by ongoing events of decision-
communications, for example, decisions on who is a member of the Obama
administration and who is not, on health care policy programs, or on what to
address next on the political agenda.
A legitimate question with regard to the above is whether it makes a posi-
tive difference if the Luhmannian notion of organizational boundary is added
to the CCO perspective. First, in a paper that builds on Luhmann’s ideas
(1995), Schreyögg and Sydow (in press) put forward the argument that con-
ceptualizations of the “boundaryless organization” (e.g., Ashkenas, Ulrich,
Jick, & Kerr, 2002) displace the fundamentals of theory development on orga-
nizations. They go on to argue that the notion of the organizational boundary
and identity is essential to grasp an organization’s inherent historicity. For
Luhmann (2000), it is exactly this maintaining of a self-referential boundary
to their environment that distinguishes organizations from more loose forms
of social phenomena such as networks, communities, or social movements
(see Sillince, 2010). Second, the TSS, which combines a communication-
centered perspective on organization with the notion of boundary, allows us
to address questions of organizational inclusion and exclusion from a com-
municative perspective, in particular, the thin line between who is a member
of an organization and who is not—and how this distinction is continuously
communicatively constructed and stabilized (see the concept of “membership
negotiation” by McPhee & Zaug, 2008).
Limitations to the Transferability of Insights

Despite the identified potential, the transferability of contributions from
Luhmann’s TSS framework to current debates within CCO thinking is lim-
ited in two respects, first, by the hermetic terminology of the TSS approach,
and second, by the fundamental differences between the TSS and other strains
of CCO thinking, particularly with regard to Luhmann’s neglect of the role
of materiality. In the following, I will briefly elaborate on these limitations
to transferability.
Luhmann’s theoretical approach is characterized by its hermetic terminol-
ogy (Seidl & Becker, 2006, p. 10). In the TSS, all terms are defined in relation
to each other in a self-referential way. It was Luhmann’s objective to create a
theory-specific language that is explicitly distinct from everyday language
(Nicolai, 2004). In this view, drawing a boundary is an essential precondition
for self-referentiality as well as for the possibility of observation. The eye, for
instance, can only perceive its surroundings because a thin line is drawn, so
to speak, which distinguishes the eye from its environment. Consequently,

Schoeneborn 681
this principle also applies to Luhmann’s general way of theorizing: Only when
the theoretical framework is established as a closed, self-referential language
system that sustains a clear boundary between itself and the environment is it
possible to make observations that differ from observations based on every-
day language (see Nicolai, 2004, p. 971).
Thus, becoming familiar with Luhmann’s TSS is not merely a matter of
translating his texts from German into English but also of learning to use his
theory-specific language as a lens with which to perceive the world (Seidl &
Becker, 2006, p. 10). As Blühdorn rightly observes, “The particular problem
[the TSS] presents is that it defies a pick-and-choose approach. Because
Luhmann was aiming for nothing less than a . . . paradigm change, it is hardly
possible to adopt some elements of his thinking and reject the rest. The
two options appear to be either the whole theory package or nothing at all”
(Blühdorn, 2000, p. 339). The inherent hermetism of the TSS is a major weak-
ness that limits greatly its compatibility with other, even similar, theoretical
approaches. It is, therefore, in the best interest of the current proponents of
the TSS approach to make it more accessible to an international readership
that is not familiar with its theory-specific terminology (examples of recent
publications that go in that direction include Seidl, 2007, or Mohe & Seidl, in
press, and Schreyögg & Sydow, in press).
Another limitation in transferability lies in the fact that the TSS (despite
efforts from Luhmann’s followers) remains incomplete in various respects.
For instance, Luhmann can rightly be criticized for having overestimated the
role of decisions and having underestimated the role of materiality in the self-
reproduction of organizational practices. However, the rise of the digital age
and, as a result, of all kinds of computer-mediated communication, has cre-
ated new forms of interaction, which Luhmann’s theories do not address—at
least not during his lifetime (Luhmann died in 1998). For Luhmann, organic
systems, artifacts, or machines do not actively participate in communication,
as they lack the capacity to process meaning (Luhmann, 1995, p. 37). Because
of that, the TSS simply lacks the vocabulary for appropriately discussing mate-
riality and its role in the self-reproduction of organizational communication.
It will, therefore, be up to future research to close these theoretical gaps and
connect the TSS properly to current debates on the role of materiality within
CCO thinking (e.g., Ashcraft et al., 2009; Cooren, 2006; Orlikowski, 2007).
Conclusion and Outlook

This article contributes to current debates on the emerging CCO perspective
(communication constitutes organization; Ashcraft et al., 2009; Putnam &
Nicotera, 2008). I have introduced Luhmann’s theory of social systems

(Luhmann, 1995, 2000) as one explicit strain of CCO thinking. I particularly

argue that Luhmann’s perspective contributes to current conceptual debates
on how communication constitutes organization (Bisel, 2010; Cooren &
Fairhurst, 2008; McPhee & Zaug, 2008; Sillince, 2010). In response to this,
the TSS highlights that organizations are fundamentally grounded in para-
dox, as they are built on communicative events that are contingent by nature.
Consequently, organizations are driven by the continuous need to depara-
doxify their inherent contingency. At this, the TSS fruitfully combines a
processual, communicative conceptualization of organization with the notion
of boundary and self-referentiality. Notwithstanding these potential contri-
butions, the transferability of insights is limited by the hermetic terminology
the TSS employs and the fact that it neglects the role of material agency in the
communicative construction of organization.
Finally, I want to outline some avenues for further research, which may
benefit from a combination of Luhmann’s theory of social systems with other
strains of the CCO approach. First and foremost, the identified strains of the
CCO view (Ashcraft et al., 2009) as well as Luhmann’s TSS (1995, 2000)
allow us to readdress one of the most fundamental questions of organization
studies: What is an organization? The various strains of the CCO perspective
address this question from different theoretical angles but all agree on the
constitutive power of communication for organizations. Therefore, I believe
that engaging in a dialogue on the minimum conditions of organizing, a ques-
tion that is raised both in the CCO approach (e.g., Bisel, 2010) and the TSS
(e.g., Ahrne & Brunsson, in press), can pave the way for a new, processual
understanding of organization.
Second, the TSS suggests that research should focus on the inherently
paradoxical and contingent character of decision communication and, with
this, organizational communication in general (Luhmann, 2000). Starting
from this assumption, it will be worthwhile to examine how organizations
ensure their perpetuation, though they are based on something as ephemeral
as communication. From the TSS point of view, organizations achieve their
perpetuation by continuously transforming open contingency into fixed con-
tingency, as described by Andersen (2003) or Czarniawska (2005). From the
Montreal School’s point of view, it can be assumed that the agency by non-
human entities (e.g., texts, artifacts, technologies, and so on; Cooren, 2006)
plays a pivotal role in the transformation of open into fixed contingency, for
example, by limiting the possible range of realizable communicative options.
This is where the CCO perspective and the TSS (as an integral part of it) may
mutually inspire each other by enhancing our understanding of the socioma-
terial practices that limit the contingency of organizing (Orlikowski, 2007;

Schoeneborn 683
Yates & Orlikowski, 1992). These sociomaterial practices ultimately both

stabilize and deparalyze the processual entity called organization in its con-
tinuous reproduction from one communicative event to the next. In this
context, one could study, for instance, how particular media and genres of
organizational communication help to perpetuate an organization by cloaking
the inherent contingency of organizational communication processes (e.g.,
software applications like Microsoft’s PowerPoint—see Kaplan, in press;
Schoeneborn, 2008).
Third, if the CCO and the TSS approaches become more mutually recep-
tive this could also contribute to enhancing empirical methodologies. To
comprehend organization as communication, so far, authors of the Montreal
School have primarily used conversation and discourse analyses to study the
microlevel of organizational interactions (Taylor, 1999). However, these
authors also aim at comprehending organizations on a meso- or macro-level:
“Our theory of communication must be capable of explaining the emergence
and sustainability of large, complex organizations” (Taylor et al., 1996, p. 4).
The TSS approach exactly matches this claim, aiming at comprehending the
organization as a holistic processual entity. In view of the above, opening up
the explicit strains of the CCO perspective also to TSS-enriched quantitative
methodologies such as agent-based simulations (e.g., Blaschke & Schoeneborn,
2006) or social network analysis may help us to accomplish a fuller under-
standing of the organization as a holistic processual entity.
Acknowledgments
I wish to express my gratitude to Steffen Blaschke, Sue Newell, Alexander T.
Nicolai, Andreas G. Scherer, David Seidl, Paul Spee, and Anna Theis-Berglmair, the
anonymous reviewers, as well as editors Charles Conrad and James R. Barker for
their very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship
and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this
article.
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Bio
Dennis Schoeneborn (PhD, Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany) is a senior lecturer
and researcher for organization studies in the Department of Business Administration at
the University of Zurich, Switzerland. His current research concerns the question of how
communicative practices get reproduced in organizational contexts.

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Management Communication

Organization as Communication: A Luhmannian Perspective

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Management Communication Quarterly

Organization as 25(4) 663­–689

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Organizing is first and foremost a communicative activity. Weick even con-

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The Communicative Constitution

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approach. Besides discussing particular strains of CCO thinking that explic-

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has been expressed particularly by scholars who primarily follow a structura-

One limitation of Taylor et al.’s (1996) approach is that it attempts

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For example, a group of individuals can organize themselves to accom-

Cooren and Fairhurst instead propose applying a bottom-up perspective,

Different types of agencies are typically created and mobilized to ful-

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Potential Contributions of the

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view of that, it is my objective in this article to introduce the TSS, concentrat-

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Organised social systems can be understood as systems made up of

Luhmann’s focus on decisions as the constitutive element of organization

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For the organization the decision on the candidate connects directly to

When it comes to decisions, the TSS highlights that organizations are

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alternatives. . . . So-called rational decisions are not decisions at all”

What is particular about decisions is that they . . . communicate their

Thus, organizations constantly operate in a state of paradox: “The deci-

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The organization, then, can be described as a communicative entity that is

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Accordingly, the question arises, “How do organizations handle their inherent

Deparadoxification as the Driving Force

In relation to decision communication it is important to make decisions

In other words, reducing the almost infinite number of potential options

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A Processual Notion of Organization,

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closure becomes the precondition for organizations to remain structurally

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contribute to the perpetuation of the organizational system as such. Instead,

Limitations to the Transferability of Insights

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Conclusion and Outlook

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(Luhmann, 1995, 2000) as one explicit strain of CCO thinking. I particularly

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Yates & Orlikowski, 1992). These sociomaterial practices ultimately both

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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Andersen, N. A. (2003). The undecidability of decisions. In T. Hernes & T. Bakken

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Organization as 25(4) 663–689