Cornelissen’s overall discussion of stakeholder theory
brings to mind the current policital campaigns, especially big money’s
attachment to them. It’s easy to see that the stakeholders in the election are
from corporations that have a vested interest in where federal money goes and
how laws are written. It’s difficult from this perspective to see the ways
corporations attend to other stakeholders such as customers. My personal
opinion is that the focus on money at the top takes away from the ability of customers
to purchase goods, which brings down profits. In that vein, CEOs and
shareholders take money away from employees. Stakeholder theory makes me wonder
how meaning is constructed in some of these companies, especially the big ones.
For example, I heard that Fox news has specifically instructed news anchors to
avoid using certain terminology for certain issues. It’s obvious that the
stakeholders in this situation are the CEO and shareholders. What dominant logic are they using when they
relay their instructions to what is suppose to be an objective account of
happenings?
Stakeholder theory also got me thinking about students as
stakeholders. The only feedback (collaboration?) students can contribute to a
class is through course evaluations. But because they are conducted at the end
of the semester, student never really get to see the results of their
commentary. In fact, I think most students think teachers don’t read or
consider their comments with any seriousness. I can’t speak for other teachers,
but I know I take them seriously. Most of how I teach comes as a direct result
of a student’s comment. It’s not that I change everything just because one
student complains or comments. It’s more that I consider the value of the
comment in conjunction with what I tried to accomplish in the class. To what
extent should students have power in pedagogical decisions? What kind of
stakeholders are they or should they be? College is an investment in their
future, so it seems like they should at least have a collaborative logic in the
makeup of the class. What do you all think?
Cornelissen comments that “organizational identity has a
specific strategic purpose in that it cuts across departmental and other group
boundaries and aims to foster a common orientation for everyone in the
organization” (p. 69). It is important
to foster a common orientation, but when I teach information design, I tell
students that the design should grow out of the content. This, then, becomes
difficult when we have a department project that involves the English
department website or print materials because I’m often asked to suggest a
student who might do that kind of work for us. My dilemma is that because UNO
is very strict about its branding, the student does not have to make any design
decisions, and making decisions is key to teaching students how to design.
Design work (like writing) is a process of problem solving. Without a problem
to figure out, what is the student learning. And students should insist on
problem solving projects. But, then, any organization a student ends up working
for will have it’s own branding rules too. Following a style guide is equally
important for design work and offers it’s own problem solving dilemmas. This is
one of the tightropes that I walk when preparing a class. What kind of
tightropes do students walk when preparing to take a class?
I appreciate your comments about students as stakeholders. I too take the same approach with student feedback. What I hear from students is of critical importance to the future pedagogical decisions I make. I do not try to accommodate the whims of all students (an impossible and unsound goal), but I use their comments to determine whether my pedagogical choices helped students reach the course objectives. I believe this is the best manner for gauging the success of a course.
ReplyDeleteThis cannot happen, however, without doing the work of establishing an open communicative framework in which students are oriented to their role as stakeholders from the start of the course. If students are primed to be evaluative and critical for the good of the class (or organization) from its inception, the feedback received by the instructor at the end is much more likely to be relevant and informative.
I have been thinking about how big companies, the really big ones, that compete on a global stage constructed meaning. I we had a speaker in one of my communication courses who job is to construct the message for a major technology brand across Europe and Africa. Think about that on a micro and macro level. Just starting with the number of languages what considers and then think about the necessary cultural adjustments that would need to be considered. It is an entire division. Think about how often the messages change. It is really overwhelming.
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