Navigating Complexity: A Forum on Communication Research in High Reliability Organizations

This forum joins communication researchers who explore high reliability organizations (HROs) and teams to discuss the communicative foundations of HRO. We argue that organizational communication researchers can make meaningful contributions to present challenges in HRO research. These challenges include (1) HRO’s focus on organizations versus processes of organizing, (2) tensions in defining success and failure to create reliability, and (3) the privileging of rational thought patterns and communication over emotional and care-centered communication. The authors in this forum push boundaries around organization types, consider overlooked and obscured knowledge, and question the role of power and materiality in HROs. Together, the forum advocates for the unique contributions organizational communication scholars can make to the study of HRO and, just as significantly, what HRO theorizing can contribute to organizational communication.