Communicating inclusion: a review and research agenda on inclusion research in organizational communication

Abstract

ABSTRACT Inclusion is a topic of interest to many organizational communication scholars and is often implicit in research, but not fully articulated. In this paper, we review the published English-language organizational communication literature on inclusion. The major themes in the literature are inclusion as a discourse of difference, inclusion as voice and participation, inclusion-exclusion as tension, inclusion as communicative practices, and inclusion as a call to action. To begin to address the lack of explicit theorization of inclusion in organizational communication, we foreground a series of working principles derived from extant scholarship to guide future research and practice on critical inclusion. We suggest several areas for future research based on these principles and conclude with practical suggestions for communication scholars to practice inclusivity.