View article

Organizational communication scholarship can provide valuable insights into a range of hidden organizations; thus, the domain of our field should be expanded to not only include this hidden terrain but to reconsider and qualify knowledge claims based almost exclusively on more visible organizations. This essay describes in some detail three broad types of hidden organizations and the reasons why each must be examined: inappropriately hidden, appropriately hidden, and ambiguously hidden. Additionally, an argument is made for a multi-level view of these hidden entities that considers not just the broader organization but also various groups/chapters/cells, individual members, and other levels.