The Communicative Constitution of Epistemic and Deontic Authority: Epistemological Implications of a Second-Order Construct

This chapter focuses on two constitutive dimensions of any organization: the epistemic and the deontic authority (i.e. who, in a given circumstance, is or should be (recognized as) the one who knows and the one who decides) and makes a case for their being at the same time presupposed and constituted by participants in and through interaction. As we will show by means of an empirical illustration, members display their orientation to these dimensions of organizational authority and talk them into being by locally (re)creating “who knows best and who decides what to do”. At least from the analyst’s point of view, agency and structure appear to permeate each other. Indeed, by analyzing the perspicuous case of the management of epistemic and deontic authority, we contend and show that the core notion of CCO theory, literally, the communicative constitution of organizations, does not necessarily mirror the members’ “natural attitude” on their own communicative practices. Rather it appears to be an experience-distant, second order construct significantly detached from members’ understandings and accounts of their everyday organizational life-world.