The "rational" organization reconsidered: An exploration of some of the organizational implications of self-organizing

This paper argues for an enlargement of our conception of rationality to include forms Of reasoning, intelligence, and cognition that are commtrnicatively, rather than discursively, based. To defend the thesis that understanding emerges in the collective interactive processes of practically situated conversation, as well as in individual thought, this paper examines the theoretical literature devoted to self-organizing systems and the empirical literature that describes how distributed intelligence is developed bq, groups in materially embedded contexts of work. It then explores the phenomenon of emergence of organization as an actor, capable of expressing an intention and participating in a dialogue involving other organizations. It explains this phenomenon of the emerging organizational self as a logical implication of the theory of self-organizing, which predicates "self-ness" as an effect of the coupling of an autopoietic system to an observer. Whereas this has tended to be interpreted in intersubjective contexts of communication, it can also be applied to organizational communication. Implications of such a revision of perspective are briefly considered, including a critique of current interpretations of dialogics.