The Four-Flows Model explains organizational constitution through membership negotiation, self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning. It helps examine how belonging, authority, work, and external relationships are accomplished through communication, including contradictions between formal arrangements and everyday practice.
- FamilyModel
- Category of its source unitTheories & Explanatory Models
- 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
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.