Meaning in Organizational Communication
http://mcq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/3/393
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  peer-reviewed

Hogler, Raymond, Michael A. Gross, Jackie L. Hartman and Ann L. Cunliffe
Management Communication Quarterly
2008

Abstract:

The authors propose an alternative to the postmodern way of viewing metaphor primarily as an instrumental and functional rhetorical tool designed to influence members of an organization through ideological appeals, a view that depicts rhetoric as merely subjective and manipulable. Our alternative draws from the "aesthetic side of organizational life" and argues that communication exceeds the theoretical reach of the postmodern perspective, which requires a new conceptualization of metaphor as epistemic and capable of signaling meaning that is inseparable from its unique and discrete form.