The making of vulnerabilities and organizational communication

Abstract

Long mobilized through categorical and managerial approaches, the concept of vulnerability has gained increasing prominence in the social sciences, particularly in relation to work and organizational contexts. This introduction situates the theoretical, political, and epistemological issues surrounding contemporary uses of vulnerability, highlighting the tensions between essentialist perspectives and more critical, processual, and relational approaches. In organizational communication, research on vulnerabilities remains relatively limited, despite the relevance of the concept for analyzing transformations of work, communication practices, and organizational dispositifs. This special issue brings together eight empirical articles based on diverse fieldwork contexts, which examine the making of vulnerabilities in organized settings. Taken together, these contributions demonstrate the heuristic value of vulnerability for understanding organizational communication processes and contemporary working conditions.