Discourse interns use to make sense of work and professional

life in organizationsMark Aakhus

William Voon

Rutgers University

The Setting• Interns were asked to write about dilemmas they experienced at

work and in professional life

• They completed an online form composed of 5 questions– What is the situation and what is the dilemma?– What question do you have about handling this dilemma?– What advice may others typically offer to solve this dilemma?– What do I think should be done in this situation?– How has this situation influenced your beliefs about how communication

works at work or in professional life?

• Research Question: – What do they talk about when writing the updates?– What are the implications for understanding knowledge management?

Data

• 6 Semesters of contributions – Corpus of 1,168,765 words

– 1,626 updates, 471,780 words

– 7,661 responses, 696,985 words

Approach to Analysis

• Focus on “Topics” in Updates to assess what interns talked about – Top nouns from Intern Corpus

• Content words are simple indicators of how interns represent their experience

– Comparison with top nouns from Business Corpus– Analysis of Topics - “Key”ness of terms

• Compare Topics with Intern Corpus• Compare “Quadrants by Popularity” with Intern Corpus

– Distribution of Topics by Top Nouns and Keywords • “Popularity” of topics containing nouns/keywords

• Focus on “Questions” in updates to assess interns orientation– Analysis of Question form– Analysis of Modal Verbs

Top nouns in Intern Corpus

work 9847

time 4931

boss 4348

people 3932

job 3795

supervisor 3539

internship 3153

situation 3010

things 2252

intern 1958

company 1947

4183 5664

1899 3032

1420 2928

1845 2087

1474 2321

1240 2299

1235 1918

1242 1768

844 1408

862 1096

895 1052

Total Updates ResponsesNoun

Do interns engage in “business” discourse?

• Since interns were based in organizational settings, we use “business discourse” as a point of comparison to understand intern’s discourse.

• Compare top nouns with Mike Nelson’s Business English Corpus, top 100 most key words list (http://users.utu.fi/micnel)

Top Nouns – Intern versus Business Corpus

work 9847

time 4931

boss 4348

people 3932

job 3795

supervisor 3539

internship 3153

situation 3010

things 2252

intern 1958

company 1947

company *

business

market

work *

time *

people *

services

product

price

thing *

system

Intern Corpus Business Corpus

Interns’ use of “business” terms

• Interns use some of the top terms from the business corpus – work, time, people, thing, company

• Tend not to use ‘business of business’ terms – business, market, services, product, price, system

• Instead they use terms that emphasize interpersonal relations

– boss, job, supervisor, internship, situation

• This suggests that the interns do not frame their experience in terms of the business of business.

The Interpersonal Dimension

• Frequent words in updates when further analyzed in terms of unusual frequency relative to the corpus further reveals an orientation that: – Attends to the Interpersonal– Attends to the interns immediate social

environment– Attends to struggles with superiors and peers

“Key” terms in Topic - relative to Corpusderived using Wordsmith Tools

JOB

WORK

INTERN

PARTY

WORKER

GOSSIP

OVERLOAD

BORED

LOST

GENDER

TIME

INTERNS

BARRIER

AGE

“Key” terms in Topic – Top versus Bottom-half

SEX

INTERNS

WORK

PARTY

TIME

OVERLOAD

JOB

STAY

JOB

WORK

REVISED

POLITICS

BARRIER

SCHEDULING

Top-half Bottom-half

Top Nouns and Keywords in Topics – Popularity by Response

keywordAverage

Responses Tot Resp Max Resp Topics % top % bot

time 5.0 171 14 34 68 32

intern(s) 6.1 242 20 40 68 33

sex(ual) 5.7 17 11 3 67 33

boss 6.4 141 20 22 64 36

work 4.8 388 17 81 56 44

gossip 4.5 59 9 13 54 46

supervisor 3.7 44 8 12 50 50

job 4.3 183 14 43 49 51

(mis)communication 4.3 51 15 12 33 67

company 1.8 7 3 4 0 100

             

Mean of Corpus  4.6     54 46

Questions about Dilemmas

• The questions interns pose about dilemmas signal their orientation.

• Questions were examined by looking at word choice in the questions they posed about the dilemmas they reported. – How is the question set up (e.g. who, what, where,

when, etc.)?– What modal verbs are frequently used?

Ways interns pose questions – Analysis of the Question element

Should I 1058

How do 261

How can 116

What should 98

How should 97

What do 43

What is 27

What can 24

How much 18

Would it 16

FrequencyQuestion

Analysis of Modal Verbs by Update Element

Modal verb

should

could

would

may

will

Topic Dilemma QuestionOther’sadvice

Intern’sAction Learned

40 339 1282 1195 438 253

1 220 97 148 96 122

3 692 211 386 701 266

2 137 39 121 519 220

4 368 205 500 319 355

Types of questions interns pose about their dilemmas

• Questions are dominated by “should”– Even “how” and “what” questions collocate

with should– Modal verb frequency – “should” outnumbers

“could”

• Suggests a “rule” rather than a “possibility” orientation

Discussion

• Interns orientation toward the interpersonal – Represented by the content words (nouns and verbs) they use

to write their dilemmas– Evident frequency of response to updates with topics containing

key nouns. • Frame interpersonal in terms of tensions• Seek appropriate and definitive advice more than

alternatives/options• Use conversational, vernacular expressions to talk about

work– They don’t use “business of business” terms– They tend not to use theoretical terms from the communication

discipline• Networks, proxemics, face, cognition, etc.

Implications for KM

• System Design:– Provision of different update elements help contributors articulate

various "facets" of the tacit, thus facilitating its explication.

• Methodology:– Demonstrated a methodology to analyze a "body" of discourse. The

approach could readily be extended to analyze the discourse of a "Community of Practice" to articulate aspects of their "Common Knowledge".

• Further Research:– Analyzing patterns of participation with what is "talked" about in online

discussions, insights could illuminate the issue of "inclusion" and hence the broader dilemma of knowledge sharing.