Introductory chapter to this reader on communicative practices in the workplace. In order to “[thicken] up the thin gruel of most workplace models of communication” (3), a focus on the actual interaction order, an orientation towards practical, ethically motivated relevance, and a generally ethnographic approach should constitute the starting points for discourse studies of talk at work. Sarangi & Roberts stress the hybridity of the workplace, in terms of different ‘professionalities’, forms of talk, collaboration and case work, and the relations between research object and researcher. The editors further express the need to bring together the interaction and the institutional order. The latter comprises shared habitual practices, including the “new work order” that destabilizes professional identities through the increasing introduction of accountability on all levels. These different aspects implicate interdisciplinarity, from a conversation-analytic view on local knowledge and interaction to the sociology of workplaces.