Jody Jahn | University of Colorado, Boulder (original) (raw)

Papers by Jody Jahn

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article challenges gender inequalit... more Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article challenges gender inequality that perpetuates the marginalisation of women in Pentecostal leadership. Gender equality is proposed as an effective way to empower women to occupy highest offices in leadership.

Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficac... more Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficacy, exposure, and gender prescriptions but have glossed over the role of communication in socializing adolescents toward or from various careers. We investigate academic interests in math and science and related career aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Drawing on data from 38 focus groups (241 students), the proposed Vocational Anticipatory Socialization (VAS) model of STEM depicts factors that influence adolescent academic-career interests including communication associated with gender prescriptions; cultural membership/socioeconomic status; experi-ences; personal factors (self-efficacy, exposure, resilience); and importantly, the sources and significance of VAS messages for the development of academic-career pursuits. doi:10.1177/0893318910377068

The United States is failing to develop the math and science interests of our youth. As a result,... more The United States is failing to develop the math and science interests of our youth. As a result, we face a crucial shortage of workers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. Through vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) adolescents develop ...

Many adolescent girls continue to lose interest in (STEM) related careers. Although studied by sc... more Many adolescent girls continue to lose interest in (STEM) related careers. Although studied by scholars in other disciplines, communication researchers have an opportunity to examine this important vocational anticipatory socialization dynamic (Jablin, 1987, 2001) to reveal the ...

Handbook of Management Communication, 2021

Management Communication Quarterly, 2020

Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pand... more Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no different in this regard. In this forum, we, as a group of organizational communication scholars currently living in North America, engage in sensemaking and sensegiving around this pandemic to help process and share some of the academic uncertainties and opportunities relevant to organizational scholars. We begin by reflexively making sense of our own experiences with adjusting to new ways of working during the onset of the pandemic, including uncomfortable realizations around privilege, positionality, race, and ethnicity. We then discuss key concerns about how organizations and organizing practices are responding to this extreme uncertainty. Finally, we offer thoughts on the future of work and organizing informed by COVID-19, along with a list of research practice considerations and potentially generative research questions. Thus, this forum invites you to reflect on your ow...

Society & Natural Resources, 2020

Forest Service Research Data Archive

Journal of Applied Communication Research, 2019

ABSTRACT Current high reliability organization theorizing explains how members manage equivocalit... more ABSTRACT Current high reliability organization theorizing explains how members manage equivocality stemming from emergent environments and organizational complexities, but it does little to explain how members navigate equivocality that arises when communicating with others. This study reveals that equivocal interactions provide opportunities for members to build experience through voice enactment. Departing from conceptualizations of voicing as an individual discretionary decision, this study proposes that voicing involves enacting knowledge and positioning – activities that contribute to building experience. Findings from in-depth interviews with N = 37 wildland firefighters illustrate the importance of certain kinds of communicative moments in building experience with navigating interactional equivocality. Enacting voice involved performing scripted practices, complementary relationships, and positioning. Voice enactments can be pivotal experiences for members to learn how engage in precarious, sometimes face-threatening repartee. Practical recommendations center on making individual and group reflective practices more attentive to ways voice performs relationships and positioning.

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2018

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how adaptive capacity is accomplished through com... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how adaptive capacity is accomplished through communication processes and can contribute to enhancing disaster resilience. The authors adopt a structurational “four flows” explanation of communication processes. Design/methodology/approach The authors observed and analyzed discourse in meetings of a crisis communication network consisting of representatives of municipalities and public authorities involved in crisis communication management during the Västmanland wildfire in Sweden. Findings Adaptive capacity during the wildfire was principally accomplished through the structurational communication processes or “flows” of self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning. These flows intersected demonstrating how communication accomplishes the development of a responsive affiliation, organizes stabilizing structuring practices, and enables adaptive structuring practices. Research limitations/implications The main c...

Safety Science, 2019

Abstract Safety rules have long been associated with a rationalist or compliance/violation logic,... more Abstract Safety rules have long been associated with a rationalist or compliance/violation logic, meaning that workers must comply with rules, and can expect disciplinary action if they violate them. In recent years, scholars have begun to introduce an adaptation safety paradigm, proposing that rules should be used as “tools” for flexible action. This text analysis examines organizational policy, safety, and training documents associated with US wildland firefighter Doctrine, a policy that aligns with an adaptation safety paradigm because it formally allows firefighters to bend and disregard safety rules according to their judgment. The study tracks how Doctrine-related documents redefined how safety rules and other documents were used on scene and within accountability processes. The analysis also proposes a new technical documentation cycle associated with an adaptation paradigm, which illustrates how documents are linked with each other in policy texts, training manuals, and accident investigation processes and reports. Recommendations for safety scholars and managers include articulating how an adaptation paradigm for safety rules might address concerns related to: (1) how rules are incorporated into “normal” safety practice, (2) when rules enter/inform decision processes, and (3) and how organizations investigate accidents and determine accountability.

Communication Monographs, 2018

ABSTRACT This study proposes an explanation for textual performance grounded in communicative rel... more ABSTRACT This study proposes an explanation for textual performance grounded in communicative relationality. Specifically, genre is theorized as a form of textual agency whereby generic texts and organizational actors form agential-performative relationships that script action and shape professional epistemologies. The case examines how agential-performative relationships between wildland firefighters and safety rules changed when a new US Forest Service policy, Doctrine, altered safety rule practice. Findings from 12 years of Doctrine documents and firefighting accounts from 37 firefighters revealed that pre-Doctrine commissive relationships with safety rules compelled members to follow them, enabling dissent and passive learning about hazards. Post-Doctrine, directive relationships enabled flexible decisions, but expanded the job’s scope and constrained dissent. Theoretical contributions to textual agency and genre studies are discussed.

Management Communication Quarterly, 2017

Organizational hierarchy is an inescapable aspect of many exemplary high reliability organization... more Organizational hierarchy is an inescapable aspect of many exemplary high reliability organizations (HROs). As organizations begin to adopt HRO theorizing to improve practice, it is increasingly important to explain how HRO principles—which assume the hallmarks of a flat hierarchy—can be understood and enacted in rigidly stratified organizations. We propose a preliminary theoretical model suggesting how various supervisor–subordinate and work group communication patterns and practices enable members to navigate hierarchy to achieve high reliability. We test the model using structural equation modeling on a sample of N = 574 U.S. wildland firefighters from three federal agencies. Results suggest how organizational members might overcome common hierarchy-based constraints to HRO through considering how leaders throughout a chain of command communicate to cultivate the necessary cross-level awareness of an operation, and ways in which supervisors, members, and groups might cultivate int...

Management Communication Quarterly, 2016

Safety rules are unavoidable in hazardous work and are often codified insights from accidents and... more Safety rules are unavoidable in hazardous work and are often codified insights from accidents and fatalities. Safety rules research predominantly focuses on factors that influence compliance and violation of rules (a rationalist view), but rarely examines how members draw from safety rules to take action and gain experience. This study draws from and extends an adaptation view of safety rules, which considers how members use safety rules as “tools” to inform action. The study compares how two wildland firefighting workgroups incorporate safety rules into communication practices, and specifically, how they ventriloquize them. From a communication perspective, ventriloquization directs attention to ways safety rules enable members to make sense of hazards, navigate authority, and develop experience. The findings contribute an explanatory workgroup model for how members adapt safety rules into action according to workgroup norms, complementary relationships, and practices, which extend...

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2016

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are em... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are embraced by leadership actors and perceived to influence relationships between leaders and co-workers. Specifically, the authors aim to investigate how leaders and co-workers discursively construct the concept of “communicative leadership” and its practices and perceive that communicative leadership influences relationships, work processes, and agency. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed interviews with leaders and co-workers in two Swedish business organizations about their understandings and experiences of leadership. Findings – Communicative processes that enhance co-worker agency, defined as a capacity to act; include: facilitating autonomy, sharing responsibility, and mutual participation. Relational and discursive leadership processes such as responsiveness and dialogue were seen to enhance mutual participation in both organizations. Broader Swedish cultural macro disc...

Communication Studies, 2015

ABSTRACT This study expands vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) theory by articulating th... more ABSTRACT This study expands vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) theory by articulating the concept of vocational anticipation—envisioning what careers are like and how to attain them based on communication from educators and others. We examine communication-based factors related to the leaking STEM pipeline. Data from 38 focus groups (N = 241) show that math and science classes communicate fragmented and limited information about STEM occupations, what they are like, and how courses and content fit into career pursuits. Findings highlight the importance of understanding how VAS receivers envision the world of work and direct attention toward related communicative concepts like occupational identification and proactive VAS.

Management Communication Quarterly, 2010

Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficac... more Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficacy, exposure, and gender prescriptions but have glossed over the role of communication in socializing adolescents toward or from various careers. We investigate academic interests in math and science and related career aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Drawing on data from 38 focus groups (241 students), the proposed Vocational Anticipatory Socialization (VAS) model of STEM depicts factors that influence adolescent academic-career interests including communication associated with gender prescriptions; cultural membership/socioeconomic status; experiences; personal factors (self-efficacy, exposure, resilience); and importantly, the sources and significance of VAS messages for the development of academic-career pursuits.

Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article challenges gender inequalit... more Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article challenges gender inequality that perpetuates the marginalisation of women in Pentecostal leadership. Gender equality is proposed as an effective way to empower women to occupy highest offices in leadership.

Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficac... more Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficacy, exposure, and gender prescriptions but have glossed over the role of communication in socializing adolescents toward or from various careers. We investigate academic interests in math and science and related career aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Drawing on data from 38 focus groups (241 students), the proposed Vocational Anticipatory Socialization (VAS) model of STEM depicts factors that influence adolescent academic-career interests including communication associated with gender prescriptions; cultural membership/socioeconomic status; experi-ences; personal factors (self-efficacy, exposure, resilience); and importantly, the sources and significance of VAS messages for the development of academic-career pursuits. doi:10.1177/0893318910377068

The United States is failing to develop the math and science interests of our youth. As a result,... more The United States is failing to develop the math and science interests of our youth. As a result, we face a crucial shortage of workers in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas. Through vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) adolescents develop ...

Many adolescent girls continue to lose interest in (STEM) related careers. Although studied by sc... more Many adolescent girls continue to lose interest in (STEM) related careers. Although studied by scholars in other disciplines, communication researchers have an opportunity to examine this important vocational anticipatory socialization dynamic (Jablin, 1987, 2001) to reveal the ...

Handbook of Management Communication, 2021

Management Communication Quarterly, 2020

Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pand... more Uncertainty is at the forefront of many crises, disasters, and emergencies, and the COVID-19 pandemic is no different in this regard. In this forum, we, as a group of organizational communication scholars currently living in North America, engage in sensemaking and sensegiving around this pandemic to help process and share some of the academic uncertainties and opportunities relevant to organizational scholars. We begin by reflexively making sense of our own experiences with adjusting to new ways of working during the onset of the pandemic, including uncomfortable realizations around privilege, positionality, race, and ethnicity. We then discuss key concerns about how organizations and organizing practices are responding to this extreme uncertainty. Finally, we offer thoughts on the future of work and organizing informed by COVID-19, along with a list of research practice considerations and potentially generative research questions. Thus, this forum invites you to reflect on your ow...

Society & Natural Resources, 2020

Forest Service Research Data Archive

Journal of Applied Communication Research, 2019

ABSTRACT Current high reliability organization theorizing explains how members manage equivocalit... more ABSTRACT Current high reliability organization theorizing explains how members manage equivocality stemming from emergent environments and organizational complexities, but it does little to explain how members navigate equivocality that arises when communicating with others. This study reveals that equivocal interactions provide opportunities for members to build experience through voice enactment. Departing from conceptualizations of voicing as an individual discretionary decision, this study proposes that voicing involves enacting knowledge and positioning – activities that contribute to building experience. Findings from in-depth interviews with N = 37 wildland firefighters illustrate the importance of certain kinds of communicative moments in building experience with navigating interactional equivocality. Enacting voice involved performing scripted practices, complementary relationships, and positioning. Voice enactments can be pivotal experiences for members to learn how engage in precarious, sometimes face-threatening repartee. Practical recommendations center on making individual and group reflective practices more attentive to ways voice performs relationships and positioning.

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2018

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how adaptive capacity is accomplished through com... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how adaptive capacity is accomplished through communication processes and can contribute to enhancing disaster resilience. The authors adopt a structurational “four flows” explanation of communication processes. Design/methodology/approach The authors observed and analyzed discourse in meetings of a crisis communication network consisting of representatives of municipalities and public authorities involved in crisis communication management during the Västmanland wildfire in Sweden. Findings Adaptive capacity during the wildfire was principally accomplished through the structurational communication processes or “flows” of self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning. These flows intersected demonstrating how communication accomplishes the development of a responsive affiliation, organizes stabilizing structuring practices, and enables adaptive structuring practices. Research limitations/implications The main c...

Safety Science, 2019

Abstract Safety rules have long been associated with a rationalist or compliance/violation logic,... more Abstract Safety rules have long been associated with a rationalist or compliance/violation logic, meaning that workers must comply with rules, and can expect disciplinary action if they violate them. In recent years, scholars have begun to introduce an adaptation safety paradigm, proposing that rules should be used as “tools” for flexible action. This text analysis examines organizational policy, safety, and training documents associated with US wildland firefighter Doctrine, a policy that aligns with an adaptation safety paradigm because it formally allows firefighters to bend and disregard safety rules according to their judgment. The study tracks how Doctrine-related documents redefined how safety rules and other documents were used on scene and within accountability processes. The analysis also proposes a new technical documentation cycle associated with an adaptation paradigm, which illustrates how documents are linked with each other in policy texts, training manuals, and accident investigation processes and reports. Recommendations for safety scholars and managers include articulating how an adaptation paradigm for safety rules might address concerns related to: (1) how rules are incorporated into “normal” safety practice, (2) when rules enter/inform decision processes, and (3) and how organizations investigate accidents and determine accountability.

Communication Monographs, 2018

ABSTRACT This study proposes an explanation for textual performance grounded in communicative rel... more ABSTRACT This study proposes an explanation for textual performance grounded in communicative relationality. Specifically, genre is theorized as a form of textual agency whereby generic texts and organizational actors form agential-performative relationships that script action and shape professional epistemologies. The case examines how agential-performative relationships between wildland firefighters and safety rules changed when a new US Forest Service policy, Doctrine, altered safety rule practice. Findings from 12 years of Doctrine documents and firefighting accounts from 37 firefighters revealed that pre-Doctrine commissive relationships with safety rules compelled members to follow them, enabling dissent and passive learning about hazards. Post-Doctrine, directive relationships enabled flexible decisions, but expanded the job’s scope and constrained dissent. Theoretical contributions to textual agency and genre studies are discussed.

Management Communication Quarterly, 2017

Organizational hierarchy is an inescapable aspect of many exemplary high reliability organization... more Organizational hierarchy is an inescapable aspect of many exemplary high reliability organizations (HROs). As organizations begin to adopt HRO theorizing to improve practice, it is increasingly important to explain how HRO principles—which assume the hallmarks of a flat hierarchy—can be understood and enacted in rigidly stratified organizations. We propose a preliminary theoretical model suggesting how various supervisor–subordinate and work group communication patterns and practices enable members to navigate hierarchy to achieve high reliability. We test the model using structural equation modeling on a sample of N = 574 U.S. wildland firefighters from three federal agencies. Results suggest how organizational members might overcome common hierarchy-based constraints to HRO through considering how leaders throughout a chain of command communicate to cultivate the necessary cross-level awareness of an operation, and ways in which supervisors, members, and groups might cultivate int...

Management Communication Quarterly, 2016

Safety rules are unavoidable in hazardous work and are often codified insights from accidents and... more Safety rules are unavoidable in hazardous work and are often codified insights from accidents and fatalities. Safety rules research predominantly focuses on factors that influence compliance and violation of rules (a rationalist view), but rarely examines how members draw from safety rules to take action and gain experience. This study draws from and extends an adaptation view of safety rules, which considers how members use safety rules as “tools” to inform action. The study compares how two wildland firefighting workgroups incorporate safety rules into communication practices, and specifically, how they ventriloquize them. From a communication perspective, ventriloquization directs attention to ways safety rules enable members to make sense of hazards, navigate authority, and develop experience. The findings contribute an explanatory workgroup model for how members adapt safety rules into action according to workgroup norms, complementary relationships, and practices, which extend...

Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 2016

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are em... more Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the knowledge of how leadership concepts are embraced by leadership actors and perceived to influence relationships between leaders and co-workers. Specifically, the authors aim to investigate how leaders and co-workers discursively construct the concept of “communicative leadership” and its practices and perceive that communicative leadership influences relationships, work processes, and agency. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyzed interviews with leaders and co-workers in two Swedish business organizations about their understandings and experiences of leadership. Findings – Communicative processes that enhance co-worker agency, defined as a capacity to act; include: facilitating autonomy, sharing responsibility, and mutual participation. Relational and discursive leadership processes such as responsiveness and dialogue were seen to enhance mutual participation in both organizations. Broader Swedish cultural macro disc...

Communication Studies, 2015

ABSTRACT This study expands vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) theory by articulating th... more ABSTRACT This study expands vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) theory by articulating the concept of vocational anticipation—envisioning what careers are like and how to attain them based on communication from educators and others. We examine communication-based factors related to the leaking STEM pipeline. Data from 38 focus groups (N = 241) show that math and science classes communicate fragmented and limited information about STEM occupations, what they are like, and how courses and content fit into career pursuits. Findings highlight the importance of understanding how VAS receivers envision the world of work and direct attention toward related communicative concepts like occupational identification and proactive VAS.

Management Communication Quarterly, 2010

Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficac... more Models of career development have focused on important vocational influences such as self-efficacy, exposure, and gender prescriptions but have glossed over the role of communication in socializing adolescents toward or from various careers. We investigate academic interests in math and science and related career aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Drawing on data from 38 focus groups (241 students), the proposed Vocational Anticipatory Socialization (VAS) model of STEM depicts factors that influence adolescent academic-career interests including communication associated with gender prescriptions; cultural membership/socioeconomic status; experiences; personal factors (self-efficacy, exposure, resilience); and importantly, the sources and significance of VAS messages for the development of academic-career pursuits.