Management of Communication Networks in Knowledge Intensive Service Organizations - The Perspectives of Conduit and Language Game Models

This paper examines four different organization types and the challenge that management faces in them, when the focus is on creating innovative solutions. Internal interaction of organizations is approached from two different views of communication, the conduit and language game models. Special consideration is given to linguistic forms of social groups. Different parlances and different ways of using language and metaphors are seen to draw the boundaries between epistemic groups. This conceptual analysis is based on an extensive literature review. Systematic search criteria were used in order to grasp and depict communication processes in knowledge intensive organizations facing complex demands from their environment. After the general introduction, two views of communication are introduced as frameworks for understanding the conceptual analysis of the organizational models. Four organization types are described in detail as social networks and arenas for communication. As a conclusion they are placed on a schematic depicting organizations' internal and boundary crossing communicational properties. Finally some suggestions on the selection of communication perspective are given based on the organizational and contextual properties.