Introduction

This study investigates the nature of responsiveness in organizations and its relation to dialogue as a reflective mode of conversation. The theme emerged from my encounters and conversations with participants in my capacity as facilitator in an organization development (OD) project with a residential care provider for people with physical and sensory disabilities. In the literature, the metaphor of stimulus-response in general and that of responsiveness in particular, has been used extensively in the strategy literature, but has rarely been conceptualized comprehensively in its communicative implications. Stakeholder management emphasizes the normative and instrumental benefit for adhering to stakeholder demands, but has not reflected on the conversational formats required for such a dialogical interaction. Organizational learning as a change in an organization’s response repertoire draws from a mechanistic model of responsiveness, which does not sufficiently address communicative consequences. This study will investigate the nature of responsiveness in organizations and its relationship to dialogue by addressing the following research questions: What is the nature of responsiveness? What is the relationship between dialogue and responsiveness? The journey has been organized as follows.