The affirmatives emphasis on micro-politics is in line with the goals of capitalism- their focus on individualistic forms of resistance fragments and directly trades off with collective macro-level challenges to global capitalism.

Here, we map some processes that may have led to the emphasis upon resistance as a form of micro-practice in organizational communication. This focus is ironic but understandable, in light of the historical origins of the field, characteristic research methodologies, and an overall U.S. centrism. First, it may be that existing work displays a bias towards studying resistance at the individual rather than collective level because the field historically has been concerned with the communicative practices of individuals in organizations. This bias toward individuals as the centerpiece of organizational communication research is analogous to Putnam and Poole’s (1988) assessment of organizational conflict research, where they argue that the field has been more concerned with studying conflict patterns between individuals in organizational settings than it has with studying organizational conflict strategies per se. Moreover, some primary theorists have been read as encouraging a focus on the individual as the locus of resistance. For example, Mumby (1997), like many communication scholars in the critical tradition, draws from Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) writings on hegemony to critique research that ignores the dialectic of resistance and control by addressing only issues of domination or failing at “appropriately situating such resistance in the wider context of capitalism and patriarchy” (p. 346). He then goes on to suggest that studying hegemony and resistance in communication involves “explicating the degree to which social actors are able to discursively penetrate the everyday conditions of their existence” (p. 350). Although much work on resistance in organizational communication now illustrates the simultaneity of domination and resistance, much of it has focused on Mumby’s latter suggestion by conceptualizing resistance as individual awareness of power inequities. Such a narrow application of the hegemony-resistance dialectic, coupled with the dominance of Foucaultian (1980) and allied models of power/resistance, may have resulted in critical organizational communication research defining resistance in terms of an individual’s ability to articulate alternative meanings to that of dominant constructions. For Foucault, power is an immanent dimension of all social relations and symbolic constructions. His work often equates power with diffuse networks of social discipline, and correspondingly conceives of resistance in terms of fragmented acts of communication. Consequently, it is easy to read any form of collective action through a Foucaultian lens as a form of discipline, and view resistance as lying with the individual. For example, Tracy (2000) describes identity as a “dance of resistance and domination” (p. 99), conceptualizing resistance for individual cruise ship employees as the ability to define the self in ways that countered the emotional labor norms established by cruise ship management. Similarly, Tretheway (2001) examines resistance through individual narratives about aging, asking, “How do White middleclass professional women resist the discourse of decline through their narratives and embodied identity?” (p. 188). Second, characteristic methodologies may be another source of individualism in critical organizational communication research. The way that scholars typically implement ethnographic investigations may actually reinforce the individual emphasis, by focusing on single sites of analysis rather than making comparisons across cases (Ganesh, 2005; Larson & Tompkins, 2005; Zoller, 2003). Consequently, ideas about the potential for resistance often remain organizationally specific, and this may weaken the focus on broader social, political, movement, and policy contexts. Moreover, questions of generalizability that often challenge ethnographers result in a timidity to argue for broad cultural or policy changes in such issues as emotional labor norms or new technological systems of production. This pattern of critical, ethnographic work focused on individuals in individual workplaces is not specific to organizational communication, but, with exceptions (Egri, 1994), appears to be true of organizational studies in general. For example, Jermier, Knights, and Nord’s (1994) volume on resistance focuses on individual strategies such as sabotage or elongated break times, that leave workplace norms and structures largely intact (see, e.g., Gottfried, 1994; LaNuez & Jermier, 1994; O’Connell Davidson, 1994). Given the scope of these mainly single-organization investigations, the empirical stress on individual and local action is not surprising; what is worthy of comment is that such research provides little insight into the structural possibilities for or implications of resistance. Third, it is also likely that because much of organizational communication research still focuses on U.S. workplaces (see, for exceptions, Cheney, 1998b; Deetz, 1994; Ganesh, 2003; Townsley & Stohl, 2003) researchers may tend not to encounter examples of broad-based collective resistance. For example, in a study of employee resistance to an organizational merger, Howard and Geist (1995) found examples of passive rejections involving “discrediting the dominant ideology” (p. 123) such as by expressing a sense of betrayal. Yet the examples of active rejection the authors found primarily involved exiting the company, thereby leaving the managerial plan intact. A history of worker–management co-operative schemes, the ideology of individuality, the waning power of unions, job scarcity, and economic globalization itself tend to impede collective forms of resistance centered in U.S. workplaces (Fantasia, 1988; Goodstein, 1999). This U.S. focus may also contribute to the fact that critical organizational communication researchers have not devoted very much time to tracing the role of class in articulations of resistance, given cultural reluctance to discuss the issue. Recent interest in broad and ideologically loaded discourses of “professionalism” (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2003) indicates that this trend could change. Nonetheless, we believe that overlooking class issues contributes to the overall lack of focus on issues of collective resistance. In sum, theoretical and methodological issues, along with the choice of cases for analysis have resulted in our emphasis upon resistance as a form of micro-practice. However, we by no means intend to suggest that organizational communication researchers have entirely ignored the issue of collective resistance or are oblivious to class-based issues in and around organizations. Accordingly, we need to assess the manner in which the field has linked individual resistance to collective action. We turn to this task in the following section. Linking Individual to Collective Resistance in the Global Economy Individually focused studies of resistance differ in the degree to which they theorize linkages between individual acts of resistance and collective attempts at change. Much work in the field of organizational communication continues to investigate individual strategies and thus delays examining how these practices might link to transformational politics. Moreover, there are some studies where it appears that resistance is more amenable to interpretation as a coping mechanism than an attempt at transformation per se (Fleming & Sewell, 2002). Bell and Forbes (1994), for example, chronicle office folklore and resistance strategies among mostly female office workers in a university, but they do not discuss the relationship between the stories, drawings, and other symbols that these workers used to parody and perform their oppression, and change in the symbolic or material conditions of their workplace. It is also evident that researchers are aware that individual resistance often does not translate into collective change. For example, Tracy (2000) acknowledged that while cruise ship staff developed hidden transcripts in the form of making fun of passengers and the program, doing so did not alter the burden of emotional labor in their workplace. Other researchers note the need to carefully trace a connection between individual and collective change, but their data do not capture that process. Murphy’s (1998)study of the resistant practices of flight attendants highlights the need to connect these hidden practices, or transcripts, with collective change, but that process is not evident in any of the three gendered themes (hierarchy, space, and appearance) that constitute the hidden transcripts of flight-attendant discourse. Of course, this absence is likely due to the research site. Tretheway’s (2001) research on women managers and age-based ideology is an interesting example of how linkages between micro-level discourse and collective action might be constructed. The author describes the response of individual women managers as more and less transformative of age ideology for women, such as women’s decisions not to wear make-up or dye their hair. Importantly, the author theorizes a path of at least four steps that move toward transformative politics in changing the “master narrative” of aging for women, from the use of mentors and social support groups to social movements, coalitions, and broader cultural changes. Further empirical research on these processes would help to fill the gap in knowledge about collective resistance. Other scholars have also emphasized the importance of connecting individual action with social movements. Deetz (1995), for example, theorized macro-level political issues and the need for transformation in terms of a stakeholder model for ethical corporate communication. In organizational communication studies, prescriptions for good, ethical, transformative practice often promote corporate social responsibility and the development of a stakeholder model that highlights the connections and responsibilities of a variety of groups with a stake in corporate behavior (see the special issue of Management Communication Quarterly on “The Corporate Meltdown,” 2003). However, there are very few empirical studies of this model (see, for exception, Ulmer & Sellnow, 1997), and this absence leaves the concept under-theorized regarding its usefulness in achieving collective change in corporate structures. Additionally, we note potential limitations of the stakeholder model that may impede our ability to connect individual resistance with social transformation. First, work outside our field points to the problem of co-optation in stakeholder models that may prevent transformative change (Moberg, 2002). Second, the stakeholder model assumes that all individuals and groups necessarily have an equal stake in the contemporary form of corporate capitalism. This is evident in Deetz’s (1995) discussion of “reformation” and his recommendation that we create workplaces where every member thinks and acts like an owner. The need to do so may be compelling in U.S. contexts where corporations are arguably the dominant social institution. However, the value of this prescription as a transformative tactic might not be quite so great in more hybrid economies, including those of India and China, which blend socialist and capitalist principles. Moreover, the very assumption that we all necessarily have a stake (understood as investment with endorsement) in contemporary multi-national corporate capitalism could well result in a very limited notion of social transformation itself. At the very least, the notions of “ownership” and “stake” should be rendered problematic and subject to investigation in themselves. In sum, we seek to expand theorizing and practical work on resistance, calling for more research that moves beyond the description of systems of power and resistance to a truly critical engagement with the social processes that link individual-level resistance with attempts at transformational change (see, for an exception, Lukes, 1974).1 Below, we describe an alternate read of resistance that highlights its transformational potential in the context of “globalization from below” and explain further why critical organizational communication studies needs to take these movements more seriously than it has thus far. In contrast to the often individualized and accommodative ways that resistance has been understood, we would like to encourage attention to collective resistance efforts that aim for the transformation of power relations in the global economy. Thus, resistance efforts would be, at least in part, explicitly evaluated in terms of their transformational potential. We see transformation as a term that highlights attempts to effect large-scale, collective changes in the domains of state policy, corporate practice, social structure, cultural norms, and daily lived experience. Cloud (2001) presages our argument when she critiques critical organizational communication studies for a preoccupation with infra-political micro-strategies at the expense of attention to class issues, labor, and macro-level social change. Cloud’s conceptualization of “macro changes” implies the assessment of collective transformation of largely class-based power structures. While this is an example of the “transformative” change we discuss, we would also include other discourses and movements that influence class-based structures, for example, race or gender. Protest movements against global economic and development institutions provide the impetus for the kind of theorizing of transformative resistance to which we allude. We believe that the individualization of resistance in organizational communication may contribute to the paucity of attention to protests and social movements associated with globalization from below. Another possible reason for such neglect may be recommendations to focus on the everyday level of resistance, defined in terms of communication rooted in mundane, unmediated, and routine situations. For example, Deetz’s (1992) influential work, which represents a key critical survey of corporate power, directs attention toward the everyday level of resistance and unfortunately excludes “protest” from the category of the everyday. Deetz describes the public forum as colonized by news reporters and those who can afford to buy airtime, stating: “The ‘protest’ as a modern public expression is totally mediated and demonstrates rather than challenges the structural issue” (p. 50). Although it is vital to question the power relations involved in the formation and expression of political ideas, such dismissals of protest prevent us from learning more about organizational communication phenomena. We maintain that it has never been more important for our field to engage significantly with social protests, both traditional, such as mass demonstrations and strikes, and new, such as “hacktivist” groups and the public melodrama of organizations such as Act Up and Ad Busters (Jordan, 2002). Accordingly, we describe four reasons why we believe studying collective resistance in the context of globalization from below is significant for critical organizational communication theory and research.