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1 – 10 of over 5000Cristiano Busco, Elena Giovannoni, Fabrizio Granà and Maria Federica Izzo
The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the enabling role of accounting and reporting practices as discourses about sustainability unfold inside organizations. In particular, the authors investigate how managers attempt to connect the concept of “sustainability” to their specific experience, as they seek to make sustainability meaningful (i.e. filling it with unfolding meaning) through accounting and within particular discursive spaces.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors rely upon the case of LOGIC, a large international oil and gas company operating in more than 70 countries worldwide. The authors analyze the evolution of discourses concerning sustainability inside the company, as well as the changing accounting and reporting practices, with a particular focus on integrated reporting.
Findings
The authors show that accounting and reporting practices (such as integrated reporting within LOGIC) provide the conditions for “sustainability”—as a discursive concept—to become meaningful, while evolving themselves as they are attached to this concept. They do so by enabling individuals (the management team within LOGIC) to connect their diverse experiences and aspirations to the concept of sustainability. Rather than filling sustainability with stable meaning, the authors observed that individuals are attracted by the gaps left by accounting representations, leading to the development of new practices and unfolding meanings within specific discursive spaces.
Originality/value
Most of the literature on sustainability accounting and reporting practices concentrate on the need for these practices to mirror what companies do about sustainability. Differently, the authors add to the very few studies on “aspirational” reporting that have emphasized the enabling effects of the gap between what companies say and do about sustainability. The authors do so by demonstrating that accounting is “aspirational” not only because it stimulates corporate efforts toward an imaginary better future, but also because it attracts managers’ particular aspirations through its representational gap. The authors show that this gap enables meaningful connections between individuals (their particular experience and aspirations) and “sustainability,” bringing this concept into their specific discursive space and, thereby, leading to the emergence of new practices.
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To provide insight into the consequences of telework from the perspective of the teleworker and the household. The paper discusses the consequences of telework for the formulation…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide insight into the consequences of telework from the perspective of the teleworker and the household. The paper discusses the consequences of telework for the formulation of identities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on empirical work, which comprises home visits to teleworkers and therefore includes observational data and interview data. The data are analysed following a particular framework, which is views discourse as a “strategic resource” and draws on the vocabulary of performativity and connectivity to investigate why some “discursive acts” take successfully while others fail.
Findings
It is shown that teleworkers and their households need to engage in strategies to protect and reconfirm their respective identities. This is achieved through the enactment of regulatory as well as self‐regulatory (identity) acts.
Originality/value
The paper is located in the household of teleworkers and therefore, includes this less well researched perspective. The linking of the conceptual framework (strategic resource) with the location of the study in the household in order to investigate the theme “identity” is an innovative feature, which shows that (internal) self‐regulatory identity acts are equally or even more important than (external) regulatory acts.
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Guido Maes and Geert Van Hootegem
The purpose of this paper is to develop a meta-model of organizational change that allows to look at change from different angles. This meta-model starts from the idea that there…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a meta-model of organizational change that allows to look at change from different angles. This meta-model starts from the idea that there are different discourses about organizational change, each having their own merits but also their own limitations. Bringing these discourses together into an integrated systems model allows the authors to capture the essence of organizational change a lot better.
Design/methodology/approach
This model is designed based on a literature review of organizational theories, systems theories related to theories of organizational change and specific theories about organizational change.
Findings
The literature review resulted in a systems model of organizational change that is better able to grasp the complexity of change than linear models.
Originality/value
This model goes beyond the usual change models from the normative discourse and provides a multidimensional view on organizational change.
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Helle Kryger Aggerholm and Birte Asmuß
The purpose of this paper is to link the authentic, communicative activities, e.g. organization-wide meetings at the micro-level, to the institutionalized practices at the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to link the authentic, communicative activities, e.g. organization-wide meetings at the micro-level, to the institutionalized practices at the macro-level within an organization, e.g. change management decisions and communication strategy (Steyn, 2003). Thus, the concern is with the relationship between institutionalized strategic management and the real-life strategic communication processes, thus advancing the understanding of the role of texts and discourses in the actual practice of strategic communication in an organizational context of strategic change processes.
Design/methodology/approach
The data are based on a large corpus of video-taped management meetings and organization-wide meetings in a large Danish public, knowledge-based organization. The method applied for studying the management discourse is a conversation-analytical approach (Sacks et al., 1974; Sidnell, 2010). This method has been chosen as it enables the authors to focus on micro-aspects of organizational practices (Nicolini, 2013) by investigating the interactional patterns that serve as resources for doing legitimation as an institutionalized practice.
Findings
The common denominator for the entire analysis is legitimation accomplished through the discursive use of distanciation and the analysis identifies three different discursive elements or micro-level strategies directly related to the concrete doing of strategic communication. First, legitimation is created by reference to the socio-economic context of the organization. Second, legitimation is generated by means of pointing to the abnormality of the strategic situation. And third legitimation is fostered by the use of idiomatic expressions. These different ways of accomplishing legitimacy are in a strategy-as-practice perspective related to the specific, in-situ communicative praxis and accomplished by the concrete actions of the strategic communicators, and thus the authors can position the instances of strategic communication at the organizational micro-level.
Originality/value
This paper studies at a micro-level how strategic actors use various discursive resources to legitimize strategic decisions and how these resources constitute the discursive basis of strategic communication as a managerial practice. The authors focus on the role of discourse in the legitimization processes of strategic managerial decisions analyzing micro-level instances of organizational communication. The paper thereby links the actor process activities (Langley, 2007), e.g. organization-wide meetings at the micro-level, to the institutional field practices at the macro-level within an organization, e.g. strategy and planning (Johnson et al., 2007).
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Beata Segercrantz, Annamari Tuori and Charlotta Niemistö
Drawing on a performative ontology, this article extends the literature on health promotion in organizations by exploring how health promotion is performed in care work. The focus…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on a performative ontology, this article extends the literature on health promotion in organizations by exploring how health promotion is performed in care work. The focus of the study is on health promotion in a context of illness and/or decline, which form the core of the studied organizational activities. The paper addresses the following question: how do care workers working in elderly care and mental health care organizations accomplish health promotion in the context of illness and/or decline?
Design/methodology/approach
The article develops a performative approach and analyses material-discursive practices in health promoting care work. The empirical material includes 36 semi-structured interviews with care workers, observations and organizational documents.
Findings
Two central material-discursive health promoting practices in care work are identified: confirming that celebrates service users as residents and the organizations as a home, and balancing at the limits of health promotion. The practices of balancing make the limitations of health promotion discernible and involve reconciling health promotion with that which does not neatly fit into it (illness, unachievable care aims, the institution and certain organizing). In sum, the study shows how health promotion can structure processes in care homes where illness and decline often are particularly palpable.
Originality/value
The paper explores health promotion in a context rarely explored in organization studies. Previous organization studies have to some extent explored health promotion and care work, but typically separately. Further, the few studies that have adopted a performative approach to material-discursive practices in the context of care work have typically primarily focused on IT. We extend previous organization studies literature by producing new insights: (1) from an important organizational context of health promotion and (2) of under-researched entanglements of human and non-human actors in care work providing a performative theory of reconciling organizational tensions.
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Deanna Kemp, Julia Keenan and Jane Gronow
The purpose of this paper is to examine how discourse used as a strategic resource can facilitate change in gender and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy and practice in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how discourse used as a strategic resource can facilitate change in gender and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy and practice in a global mining company.
Design/methodology/approach
An existing model of discourse and organizational change was applied to illuminate the contours of a particular organizational change process. This paper draws on empirical data in the form of talk and text in oral and written form.
Findings
The research highlights the challenge of finding the right balance between organizational receptivity and resistance, so that discursive boundaries around gender and CSR can be contested and challenged, but where new concepts and subjectivities are not rejected before they have an opportunity to generate shared meaning within the organization. Findings confirm that the involvement of a range of company personnel, particularly from the operational level, is important for generating knowledge and shared meaning, which can lead to enactment. This aligns with observations made in this journal that the management of meaning as opposed to management of change provides a useful analytical and practical focus.
Originality/value
The paper analyses one of the first attempts by a global mining company to articulate a change agenda for gender and community relations within a CSR framework. Unique insights into the internal world of a global mining company and CSR change processes are provided. The paper utilizes a well‐articulated model that facilitates a discursive analysis of organizational change to advance knowledge and understanding.
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Petra Sneijder, Baukje Stinesen, Maartje Harmelink and Annette Klarenbeek
The purpose of the paper is to describe the ways in which people use language to achieve mobilization. Recognizing and anticipating the discursive practices that are used online…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to describe the ways in which people use language to achieve mobilization. Recognizing and anticipating the discursive practices that are used online, for instance for mobilization, increasingly is a primary concern for professionals in crisis communication or issue management.
Design/methodology/approach
A discursive psychological perspective is drawn upon to conduct a qualitative analysis of the interactional and rhetorical features of mobilization on two Facebook event pages, and to discover patterns of talk.
Findings
Three dominant discursive patterns were identified: disputing the integrity of authorities, constructing a positive atmosphere and a feeling of “togetherness” and constructing decisive identities. These activities play an important role in mobilization and are accomplished by the use of language. Furthermore, it demonstrates that mobilization involves the concern of not overtly presenting oneself as a victim or activist.
Research limitations/implications
Insights into the discursive strategies people use to achieve mobilization are important for recognizing these discursive phenomena during media monitoring. The analysis presented in this paper does not allow the authors to draw general conclusions nor the success of the strategies in terms of the actual events.
Practical implications
The study offers important insights for communication professionals (for instance, in the domain of crisis communication), enabling them to recognize mobilizing practices in other contexts and designing an adequate response.
Social implications
The study exposes those issues that are important for mobilizing a community and creating public engagement.
Originality/value
In addition to other studies on the role of language in mobilization, the current study adds a perspective that takes into account both the rhetorical and the interactional features of mobilization. Furthermore, the findings are implemented in a training for professionals in the domain of crisis communication.
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Korien van Vuuren-Verkerk, Noelle Aarts and Jan van der Stoep
The study aims to explain the communicative basis of conflicts in which actors stand in opposition in defining a negotiated situation and to deepen knowledge of environmental…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to explain the communicative basis of conflicts in which actors stand in opposition in defining a negotiated situation and to deepen knowledge of environmental conflict development, in particular on how frames are (re)shaped through discursive choices in interaction.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts an interactional approach to framing and 1) identifies the frames shaped and reshaped in four environmental debates and 2) analyzes how framing activities affect the course of the debates.
Findings
This study contributes to understanding 1) the interactive nature of conflicts; 2) how the reception and interpretation of issue framing depends on the surrounding identity and characterization framing and 3) how framing activities, like identity work, emotional alignment and reframing, can affect the course of environmental debates toward polarizing or bridging.
Research limitations/implications
On a methodological level, this study contributes to communication research by applying methodologies for investigating framing processes on a micro-level. This study investigates interactional framing, considering the perspectives of frame strategists engaging in issue arenas. The study provides an in-depth discourse analysis of the debates but lacks an overview on the entire issue arena regarding this conflict.
Practical implications
Skilled actors span boundaries by articulating issue frames that accommodate opponents' concerns and values while demonstrating the added value of the new frame, adjusting identity work in favor of relations with opponents. Furthermore, calibrating emotional intensity offers opportunities to mobilize support.
Originality/value
This research investigates which communicative competences are essential to act adequately in environmental conflicts, given their intractable nature, and suggests opportunities for cocreation by making discursive choices. This approach helps to uncover the micro-processes that escalate and de-escalate a conflict.
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To provide some theoretical considerations concerning information literacy so as to contribute to a theoretically informed point of departure for understanding information…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide some theoretical considerations concerning information literacy so as to contribute to a theoretically informed point of departure for understanding information literacy and to argue that to be an information literate person is to have knowledge about information sources and that searching and using them is determined by an insight into how knowledge is socially organized in society.
Design/methodology/approach
Using concepts from composition studies that deal with the question of what a writer needs to know in order to produce a text, the paper outlines some ideas and key concepts in order to show how these ideas and concepts are useful to our understanding of information literacy. To demonstrate how information‐literacy is to have knowledge about information sources and that searching and using them is determined by an insight into how knowledge is socially organized in society, the paper takes a point of departure in Habermas' theory of the public sphere.
Findings
Concludes that information seeking competence is a sociopolitical skill, like reading and writing skills, connected to human activity. Searching for documents in information systems is a complex and sociopolitical activity. As an expression of human activity we might say that searching for documents and reading and writing constitutes each other. The genre knowledge necessary in reading and writing does also apply when seeking information in systems of organized knowledge as the forms of information determine what can be expected and found in these systems. Information literacy covers, then, the ability to read society and its textually and genre‐mediated structures. Information literacy represents an understanding of society and its textual mediation.
Research limitations/implications
Locating an understanding of information literacy in a broader discursive framework requires us to rethink our hitherto concepts and understandings of information literacy as socio‐political skills and not mere technical search skills
Originality/value
Rarely is information literacy discussed and understood from social‐theoretical perspectives. This article illuminates how an analysis of information literacy from the perspective of the theory of the public sphere can open up for an understanding of information literacy socio‐political skills. Thus, the article has contributed with a new interpretation of information literacy.
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Sid Lowe, Michel Rod and Ki-Soon Hwang
This paper aims to propose an approach for exploring industrial marketing network environments through a social semiotic lens.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose an approach for exploring industrial marketing network environments through a social semiotic lens.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper introduces social semiotic perspectives to the study of business/industrial network interaction.
Findings
This paper describes how structures of meaning derived from a cultural history of signification and interpretive processes of meaning in action are co-determined in social semiosis. The meaning of environments using this social semiotic approach is emphasised, leading us to explore the idea of the “atmosemiosphere” – the most highly complex business network level, in illustrating how meaning is made through structuration between structures of meaning and their enactments in interactions between actors within living business networks.
Practical Implications
Figurative language plays an important role in the structuration of meaning. This facilitates establishing plots and, therefore, in the actors’ capability to tell a story, which starts with knowing what kind of story can be told. By implication, the effective networker must be a consummate moving “picture maker” and, to do so, she must have competence in narrative, emplotment, myth-making, storytelling and figuration in more than one discursive repertoire.
Originality/value
In using a structurational discourse perspective informed by social semiotics, our original contribution is a “business networks as discursive constructions” approach, in that discursive nets, webs of narratives and stories and labyrinths of tropes are considered just as important in constituting networks as networks of actor relationships and patterns of other activities and resources.
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