This book, intended primarily for scholars of management, business, and organizational communication, invokes the theories of Kant, Habermas, Orwell, and Marx to assess at a macro level the historical and contemporary relationships between communication and control in the workplace. In chapter 1, “Introduction: Communication and the world of work,” Klikauer critiques management “recipe books” that offer simplistic solutions to complex communicative problems, and outlines his alternative view for a rational perspective that works at “a non-empirical but conceptual level by using theory language rather than observation language.” In chapter 2, “The origins of communication and management at work,” and chapter 3, “Critical rationality and present working society,” Klikauer investigates historical explanations, ranging from Kant to Horkheimer, of the changing role in communication at work; he suggests that the transformation from feudalism to capitalism was sparked by the acceptance of rationality. In chapter 4, “Understanding communication in today's working society,” Klikauer claims that forces behind instrumental rationality (which is objectively concerned with the most efficient means to an end) are no longer conscious of critical rationality (which is concerned with the reasons for achieving an end), and that this division causes serious effects for workers. In chapter 5, “Understanding modern relations at work,” Klikauer critiques positivistic and empirical approaches as “limiting” and suggests that “a comprehensive understanding into the communicative aspects of the world of work needs the application of hermeneutical, communicative, critical, and emancipatory theories.”

In chapters 6, “The management of labour at work,” and 7, “The two domains defining the world of work,” Klikauer analyzes the differing perspective on work of management and workers as well as the ways rationality affects communication amongst and between workers and management. In chapters 8, “Management and instrumental communication,” and 9, “Technical domination and engineering ideology,” he unfavorably compares structure and power in management with those in the military, and explains how Taylor's theory of scientific management has marginalized workers by minimizing their communications. In chapters 10, “Control and communication at work,” 11, “Control and communication through socialisation,” and 12, “Human resource management and the control of communication,” he outlines how management asserts socially reinforced tools to maintain communicative control over the workers and how human resource departments have become advocates of instrumental (and not critical) rationality, to the detriment of the worker.

In chapter 13, “Conclusion: Communication, management, and work,” Klikauer ultimately suggests that in order for workers to alter the established power structures with management, they must create new discourse forums dedicated to critical rationality that are separate from management-approved, instrumental rationality-based discourse forums. In summary, Klikauer effectively critiques current relationships between communication and management and offers a well-reasoned framework for assessing these concepts from a communicative action perspective. However, while he creates an intriguing look at communication and management through a critical rationality lens, Klikauer avoids empirical observation and does not include any first-hand examples. As a result, this book would be of more interest to scholars of economic philosophy, labor relations, and social theory than to sociolinguists.