Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 372
The title must match the authority
Zhengming treats consequential names as part of governance, asking whether titles, duties, expectations, and actual conduct still fit one another
Premise
Organizations coordinate through names: owner, adviser, accountable executive, consultation, consent, safety incident, independent review. These terms do more than describe. They distribute expectations, authority, duties, and permissible responses. The Confucian idea commonly called zhengming – rectification or correction of names – directs attention to disorder that emerges when important names no longer fit the realities and role performances they are supposed to organize.
For executives, the value is not vocabulary cleanup. If a person is called responsible but lacks decision rights, if consultation cannot affect a decision, or if an independent committee depends on the people it reviews, language stabilizes a governance contradiction. Rectification asks whether the name, institutional reality, and conduct expected under that name can still be made mutually intelligible.
What the model is: Rectification of Names (zhengming) in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryDoctrines, Principles & Normative Frameworks
- DomainOrganization & Structure
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Doctrines, Principles & Normative Frameworks
Sets out principles or criteria for what should be pursued, considered legitimate or done. Its contribution is evaluative or prescriptive: it gives reasons for judging conduct and arrangements, rather than merely describing their frequency.
- KnowledgeRectification of Names (zhengming)