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Organizational Communication

Organizational communication examines the relationships between communication and organizing through the study of discourse, meanings, symbols, and information flow. We honor the Redding Tradition in Organizational Communication established at Purdue and embrace cutting-edge intra- and interdisciplinary scholarship in organizing.

Reasons to Study Organizational Communication at Purdue
  • Design a personally-tailored plan of study that matches your interests with our strengths
  • Participate in stimulating courses covering a wide variety of areas
  • Work with award-winning and productive faculty
  • Collaborate with faculty and fellow graduate students on projects that establish new research agendas for our field
  • Build a teaching portfolio that includes courses in small group, organizational, and global workplace communication
  • Be part of the W. Charles Redding tradition and Purdue's extensive national and international networks
  • Obtain a degree from one of the top-ranked communication programs in the nation.
Program Strengths and Faculty Interests
  • Career issues and strategies, leadership, work-life policies and practices, resilience, and gender: Patrice Buzzanell
  • Identification, leadership, distributed teams and organizations, political parties: Stacey Connaughton
  • Conflict and dispute resolution, trust, organizational structures and environments, worksite health campaigns: Tyler Harrison
  • Technology, organizations, and work, privacy, social networks, difference and marginalized voices: Lorraine Kisselburgh
  • Organizational and social networks, organizational ecology, communication technologies for development: Seungyoon Lee
  • Consulting and training, cognition and communication skills, work-family issues: Melanie Morgan
  • Decision making, consumer behavior, groups and teams, compliance gaining and marketing: Torsten Reimer
  • Communication abilities, civility, employee health, case studies, evaluation research: Beverly Davenport Sypher
  • Group dynamics, expertise and experience, social networks, culture:Xiumei Zhu
Selected Course Offerings
  • Organizational Communication (COM 574)
  • Small Group Communication (COM 520)
  • Communication in the Scientific Community (COM 561)
  • Research & Assessment of Organizational Communication (COM 583)
  • Special Topics in Small Group Communication Theory (COM 620)
  • Special Topics in Organizational Communication (COM 674)
Interdisciplinary Connections

The organizational communication faculty is connected to several schools and interdisciplinary programs on campus, including:

Students have the opportunity to develop research and professional connections through these programs.