Search results

Offers a response to a discussion of the language of change, which appeared in an earlier issue of JOCM (Vol. 14, 2001).While applauding any attempt to develop an appreciation of the fluidity of the processes and politics of organizational change offers a critical response to the account of the language of change, which was prepared by Butcher and Atkinson. This critical response argues that Butcher and Atkinson's attempt to adjust and correct the language of change produces a rather conservative modelling of both management and organizational dynamics. Taking issue with this analysis argues that: Butcher and Atkinson continue to impoverish our understanding of organizational dynamics because they mix (and muddle) opposing and contradictory accounts of language in an attempt to refine an essentially managerialist change agenda; and their account of organizational dynamics produces a fixed and overly‐stabilized appreciation of change, which restricts and diminishes our understanding of the processes of change.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the change experience of a regional health centre that was merged in the late 1990s and shows how organizational talk becomes privileged in the change process, and how some talk becomes meaningful in the constitution of organizational identity.

The paper analyzes the process through which some talk is privileged in the organizational change process. The deconstruction of language used throughout this analysis highlights the relationship between sites of power and the ability to affect sensemaking among organizational members. Using a post‐structuralist approach, the authors apply the analytic framework of critical sensemaking (CSM) and critical discourse analysis.

Organizational talk is presented as the enactment of a sensemaking process and insights are offered into the process of how organizational identities are maintained, altered or constrained during change. The discursive effects of the language of change, including the belief that change is actually a discursive process about the mutual constitution of language and identity in a process of making sense of the discourse of change, are discussed.

The merging of critical discourse analysis with CSM provides an alternative means of understanding organizational change, including the socio‐psychological processes that occur within the privileging of the language of change.

For organizational change practitioners, the paper provides insights into the importance of how organizational members make sense of the change language discourse, which can affect how they introduce future change processes.

The paper provides a novel way of understanding the change process and furthers the empirical use of (critical) sensemaking as a method.

Whilst language is recognised as playing a key role in the shaping of organisational phenomena, the importance of managing language actively in the context of change has received less attention. The particular relevance of the active management of language in changing the mindsets that underpin models of organisational change is discussed, leading to the conclusion that language has a key role in making apparent and legitimising emerging models that challenge the conventional “top‐down” paradigm.

This article seeks to analyze retrospective and emergent narratives in a changing organization. It aims to uncover the emic meanings of resistance to diversity change.

This article is based on interpretative research in a German high‐tech company, informed by the anthropological frame of mind.

The organization studied needs to cope with an increasing number of foreign employees. As narrative analysis showed, English language and diversity are associated negatively with an organizational dark age. In the past, a focus on sameness and on German language has been a successful counter‐strategy. Yet, in the present, this strategy forces German and non‐German employees into a dichotomist relationship that hinders diversity change. Through narrative analysis, other values of the past, such as caring for each other, and the metaphor of organization as family, are discovered. These concepts are highly adaptable to the new present and should be supported and facilitated in order to create trans‐cultural sameness.

The contribution of this article is to show how to utilize identity‐based resistance for organizational change, in this case diversity change. Emergent and retrospective narratives of the self are a viable tool of analysis.

Identity‐based resistance to change originates in the inability to link the past collective self to present conditions. This is often seen as an obstacle to change. This article uncovers the emic meanings of resistance, thereby utilizing it for diversity change.

Environmental jolts and shifting membership challenge a group's efficacy and survival. Group identity is critical for a shared interpretation of and response to these challenges, but external and internal changes may require corresponding changes in a group's core identity. In a qualitative study of longshoremen in San Pedro, California, we observe an evolution in group identity as we track communication spoken and printed in the hiring halls, on the docks, and during casual social interactions. The emphasis in the shared language gradually shifts from safety and solidarity to safety, collaboration, and economic power. The newly developed language supports and shapes the longshoremen's identity and provides an interpretive guide for how to react to and benefit from disruptive external events.

The purpose of the paper is to shed additional light on the Englishisation process in higher education (HE), by exploring the contentious and divisive nature of language changes and the different ways in which individual academics experience that process and craft ways of resisting institutional attempts to naturalise the use of the English language in teaching and scholarly writing.

Based on a self-ethnographic insider study in a Portuguese university setting, the data were gathered from multiple sources and over an extended period of time and presented as stories selected as illustrative examples of resistance.

The Englishisation process goes beyond language issues and tends to be associated with increasing competitive pressures and the implementation of international standards that might challenge the cultural mind-set and long-established practices; by exacerbating old political divisions and tensions, the Englishisation process uncovers a confrontation between different visions of the role and nature of the university that seems to co-exist and compete in the same setting – the community of scholars and the market-led university.

The paper adds to the debate on the implications of the Englishisation process in HE showing that resistance to the growing use of the English language might not be about the language after all. It is the full package that comes with the Englishisation process that really seems to matter.

This paper aims to identify the role of language in international business context, especially in a post-merger integration (PMI) process, and to develop a framework for language strategies in a PMI context.

Based on the authors’ review and building on earlier works, this paper develops a conceptual model regarding the use of language in different PMI scenarios and identifies the key resource mix that may be suited for an effective deployment of language strategies.

The authors find that the use of a language at target firms depends on the degrees of strategic interdependence and organizational autonomy. They classify different constellations of targets in a PMI context and propose the most appropriate language strategies for different classification of PMI firms.

The authors develop five testable future research propositions based on our conceptual model. The paper is not without its limitations. The authors’ propositions need to be tested in future studies. It may be sometimes difficult to collect data based on all the four segments of firms using a quantitative design. It is also challenging to investigate about the language used at the target firms using quantitative designs.

The authors’ model has several practical implications for the managers. Bidder firm’s managers can decide the use of appropriate language depending on their acquisition strategy. It is very likely that target managers have to change the language following the acquisition, and because of this change, influence on their routines will be significant. This issue becomes most important if both firms do not speak the common corporate language – English language. The authors bring ideas for a best fit, which are applicable not just for merger and acquisition but also for other strategic sourcing areas such as outsourcing strategies.

There are several negative emotions that are invoked through language. Language is also power laden and affects social structure and group dynamics at work. By addressing the use of appropriate language strategies, people can potentially avoid the dark side of language.

The authors present testable propositions for future research in a PMI context.

Considers the language of professional development and demonstrates how principals with different professional beliefs and understandings interpret the language of education differently. This work is based on a two‐year study of eight principals in a school district undergoing a policy change in the supervision and evaluation of teachers. Because principals mediate through their professional beliefs the language of both policy change and professional development that leads to policy change, groups of principals within a single district may interpret and implement policy change differently. Shows that principals do not necessarily have a common understanding of the language of education. Without a common understanding of language, policy is open to individual interpretation.

This study aims to discover how domain familiarity and language affect the cognitive load and the strategies applied for the evaluation of search engine results pages (SERP).

This study used an experimental research design. The pattern of the experiment was based upon repeated measures design. Each student was given four SERPs varying in two dimensions: language and content. The criteria of students to decide on the three best links within the SERP, the reasoning behind their selection, and their perceived cognitive load of the given task were the repeated measures collected from each participant.

The evaluation criteria changed according to the language and task type. The cognitive load was reported higher when the content was presented in English or when the content was academic. Regarding the search strategies, a majority of students trusted familiar sources or relied on keywords they found in the short description of the links. A qualitative analysis showed that students can be grouped into different types according to the reasons they stated for their choices. Source seeker, keyword seeker and specific information seeker were the most common types observed.

This study has an international scope with regard to data collection. Moreover, the tasks and findings contribute to the literature on information literacy.

Drawing on the semantic field theory, the paper aims to uncover the challenges of importing and translating a management accounting concept into the Russian language and the semantic nature of resistance towards the imported management accounting concept.

The paper draws on the extensive literature review of the histories of accounting in the Soviet Union and the United States in the first part of the twentieth century and 17 interviews conducted with the Russian accounting academics.

We demonstrate the case of resistance in adopting the imported Anglo-Saxon management accounting concept. We also discuss historical underpinning and origins of this resistance in light of semantic field theory.

The paper calls for more research in the non-Anglo-Saxon contexts problematizing conventional assumptions and beliefs about objectivity and universality of accounting language.

The study demonstrates the importance of understanding historical and cross-cultural developments of accounting language for accounting educators and practitioners. Critical awareness of the differences in semantic fields of accounting can help accounting researchers and educators to develop contextualized research projects and context-relevant teaching practices.

The study contributes to the literature on translations of accounting concepts by demonstrating that accounting concepts are not understood in isolation, instead, they are interpreted in relation to each other. The present study demonstrates that the relationship between the management accounting concept (the signifier) and its meanings (signifieds) is fluid, culturally and historically contingent. To understand this relationship, we should attend to the historical development of semantic fields and associative relations between concepts.