Discourse interns use to make sense of work and professional life in organizations Mark 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 TotalUpdatesResponsesNoun

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 (

Top Nouns – Intern versus Business Corpus work9847 time4931 boss4348 people3932 job3795 supervisor3539 internship3153 situation3010 things2252 intern1958 company1947 company * business market work * time * people * services product price thing * system Intern CorpusBusiness 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 Corpus derived 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-halfBottom-half

Top Nouns and Keywords in Topics – Popularity by Response keyword Average ResponsesTot RespMax RespTopics% top% bot time intern(s) sex(ual) boss work gossip supervisor job (mis)communication company Mean of Corpus

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 ShouldI1058 Howdo261 Howcan116 Whatshould98 Howshould97 Whatdo43 Whatis27 Whatcan24 Howmuch18 Wouldit16 FrequencyQuestion

Analysis of Modal Verbs by Update Element Modal verb should could would may will TopicDilemmaQuestion Other’s advice Intern’s ActionLearned

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.