Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of a dialogical approach, associated with the Russian literary critic and philosopher Bakhtin, in understanding the portrayal of managerial identity in management narratives. In particular, it applies these ideas critically to understand how managers' identities are partly shaped by the dominant discourse or idea about what a manager should “be.”

The paper draws on three written narratives of managers. It applies a dialogical approach to consider how they position themselves interactionally in the narratives in such a way as to highlight a managerial identity based on being “enterprising” and “for change,” while simultaneously voicing alternative identities negatively. The use of the written narratives of managers and the application of a dialogical approach is an important contribution to the literature.

The findings suggest that managers, when reflecting on organizational events through narrative, assume a managerial identity that reflects current dominant discourse about what a manager should “be.” In doing so they reject other possible discourses that offer alternatives, not only to managerial “being,” but also to what management and organizations might reflect and represent. The paper also, however, recognizes that some managers reject this identity and its implications for organizational activity.

The paper suggests that managerial identity is partly a product of a dominant discursive/ideological formation rather than individual choice. Although managers may reject this interpellation creating an alternative is constrained by the regime of truth that prevails about what management is at any given time. The approach might be considered overly deterministic in its view of managerial identity.

The paper extends the understanding of managerial identity and how it is portrayed through narrative by using a dialogical approach to interpretation.

The purpose of this article is to review the use of linguistic methods such as narrative and discourse analysis in workplace management research.

Ten journals are reviewed in a time period of six years between years 2004-2010. The journals are categorized into three linguistic methodological journals and seven journals on built environment. Additionally articles were gathered with search words of workplace management, discourse and narrative analysis. Out of the total 2,245 articles, 40 articles were considered to be relevant for this research.

The linguistic methods of narrative and discourse analysis are not recognized in the workplace management research in a comprehensive way by combining the research on built environment to the research on organization and culture. In the workplace management research methods of narrative and discourse analysis were applied to the processes of built environment. Additionally methods were applied to the research of space and place as means of communication and means of identity construction.

Linguistic approach would reveal underlying messages behind evident structures of workplace and give new insights on understanding and developing workplaces both in design and in use.

The linguistic methods of narrative and discourse analysis are rarely used in workplace management research and should be considered as a new resource in the research of WPM.

This paper aims to examine the process by which the social entrepreneurial identity can be constructed through narrative, concentrating specifically on the construction of the identity of the ideologically inclined social‐activist entrepreneur.

A case study approach is employed of a social‐activist entrepreneur who established a refugee help centre in a major Australian city. The data are presented through the genre of allowing the narrator to enjoy the primary voice in the form of an extended narrative.

The findings show how the social entrepreneur constructs his identity through crafted divisions based on oppositional and appositional principles of setting apart (a claim of separation) and bringing together (a claim of similarity). It is emphasised how the impact of the particular audience and the possibility of narrative omissions can both influence the narrative product as it is constructed by the social entrepreneur.

The analysis has implications for our manner of understanding how ideologically inclined social entrepreneurs can experience the tension of lacing together potentially contrasting discourses while maintaining the overall integrative nature of their narrative.

The findings possess value and originality by making two major contributions to the extant literature. First, we challenge the central tendency in the literature to concentrate on dominant discourses by analysing the manner in which ideological social entrepreneurs construct their identity through their joint crafting of the discourses of “Me” and “Not‐Me”, and the non‐discourse of “Suppressed‐Me”. Second, we add to the literature on how informants deal with the tension of managing conflicting discourses by analysing the concept of “discourse suppression” as the narrative tendency of social activist entrepreneurs.

The purpose of this paper is to construct historical perceptions of coal use in India and Japan in different historical time periods through the process of analyzing the narratives and discourses in academic, media and trade literatures.

In terms of methodology, this paper will utilize discourse theories/analysis and interpretive history to study the subject matter. In this paper, specific literatures on energy as well as general literatures on themes like technology are utilized.

The finding of the paper is that discourses and narratives about coal energy for example are constantly negotiated, constructed and then deconstructed again to fit and adapt to new realities, including the availability of newer technologies or priorities and concerns about the environment.

The research implication and originality of the paper is to demonstrate empirically the idea of the existence of narrative communities debating the use of coal energy in India and Japan. It highlights the communities of stakeholders interested in coal energy resource. The practical application and value of the ideas is the intellectual process of categorizing various contemporary narratives about coal energy use specific to two of the largest consumers and importers of coal in Asia. Through historical narratives of its past and recent coal use, the role and function of coal in the overall energy mix of India and Japan are instructive. The research limitation lies in its non‐quantitative nature and reliance on a combination of academic and trade secondary sources.

This chapter offers to higher education research a theoretical and methodological proposal based on narrativity, pointing to the articulation between metanarratives, public, conceptual and individual narratives. Stemming from social constructionism, it draws on concepts such as floating signifiers and nodal points, borrowed from discourse analysis, to explore the conflict and struggle between discourses. The examples provided focus on how individual narratives enact discourses on higher education institutional governance, as expressed in public narratives, and on how narratives influence the perceptions of institutional actors. Our goal in this chapter is, on the one hand, to propose an operationalization of discourse analysis, and, on the other hand, to signal the contribution of the narrative approach in revealing research findings based on the process of meaning construction.

The paper explores university leaders' employee-focused sensegiving discourse during the COVID-19 health crisis. The aim is to reveal how leadership sensegiving narratives construct emotion in the rhetor-audience relationship.

A social constructionist, sensemaking approach centres on the meaning-making discourse of university leaders. Using rhetorical discourse analysis (RDA), the study analysed 67 emails sent to staff during a three-month period at the start of the global pandemic. RDA helps to reveal how university leaders help employees make sense of changing realities.

Three core narratives: organisational competence and resilience; empathy, reassurance and recognition; and community and location reveal a multi-layered understanding of leadership sensegiving discourse in which emotion intersects with material and temporal sensemaking dimensions. In supporting a process of organisational identification and belonging, these core narratives help to mitigate audience dissonance driven by the antenarrative of uncertainty.

An interpretivist approach was used to analyse qualitative data from two UK universities. While focused on internal communication, the employee perspective was not examined. Nevertheless, this paper extends the human dimension of internal crisis communication, building on constructionist approaches that are concerned with emotion and sensegiving.

This paper expands the domain of internal crisis communication. It integrates the social construction of emotion and sensemaking with the underexplored material and temporal dimensions in internal crisis communication and applies RDA.

This paper aims to recount the genesis of a successful innovation cluster among Irish-based divisions of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and Irish universities in the pharmaceutical industry. This cluster was actively “narrativized” through the language of obligation, desire, competence and know-how. As such, it is typical of the “hero’s quest” literary genre in which challenges are faced, obstacles are overcome and victory is ultimately won. Importantly, in this story, the cluster was morally and pragmatically charged with dealing with significant challenges faced by the Irish pharmaceutical industry. Broader societal discourses operated as a resource for actors to use in proposing collaboration and innovation as the appropriate response to such challenges. Specifically, through narrative and discourse, actors created the necessary conditions conducive for a cluster to develop. These created a discursively constituted shared purpose which ultimately ensured successful innovation collaboration. Essentially, through narrative and discourse, the key actors identified the collaboration a protagonist in pursuit of a quest. By linking theoretical and empirical insights, the paper offers a conceptual framework that can be used in future studies to understand the emergence of clusters.

Adopting Wengraf’s (2001) structured approach to narrative interviewing, 18 key actors shared their understanding of how the cluster came into being. Each interview began with a single question intended to induce narrative, in this case “tell me the story of the cluster as you see it.” This allowed participants to be in control of their own story (Wengraf, 2001). Each interview was transcribed in full and appended to notes taken at the time of the interview. Each narrative offered a “purposeful account” (Jovchelovitch and Bauer, 2000) of how and why the cluster was formed and the centrality of the participants’ roles. In line with recognised protocols, in the authors analysis of data, they paid specific attention to how stories were told, the roles assigned to key protagonists, as well as how events and actors were linked in stories (see Czarniawska, 1997).

This paper further demonstrates how language, metaphor and narrative and discourse (Hatch, 1997) becomes a strategic resource on which actors can draw to create desired realities (Hardy et al., 2000) particularly in terms of collaboration and innovation. Further, this case highlights how dialogue was encouraged throughout the process of establishing the cluster and has continued to be an important element. Rather than imposing some grand design, the SSPC cluster is and always will be emergent. In this sense, in the early stages of collaboration, detecting and supporting existing and emergent communities is essential to success, and shared identity which is the outcome of members’ discursive practices appears to be a powerful driver of collaboration.

There are important insights for cluster and innovation theory development that can be extrapolated from this study. First, context-specific narrative accounts provided in this study further extend the authors’ understanding of the process through which fundamental changes (innovation) in organisational activities are enacted (Ettlie and Subramaniam, 2004). Second, the authors’ understanding of how new ventures are attributed organisational legitimacy through language and story is augmented (Gollant and Sillince, 2007; Pentland, 1999). Third, the authors have articulated how different discourses are mobilised by actors at different stages of development and for different audiences to create desired innovation outcomes, illustrating that innovations can result from advances in knowledge (McAdam et al., 1998). Finally, the authors see how discourse and practice are dynamic as participants articulate their intention to exert further influence on innovation discourse through their lobbying activities.

By focusing on the specific problem of crystallisation, and using the discourse of collaboration, particularised ties emerged around SSPC and this inspired synergistic action. When seeking approval from host organisations, they spoke in terms of return on investment and the potential to add value, part of the discourse of organisational effectiveness. Consequently, the authors stress the benefits of understanding audiences and adjusting discursive approaches on this basis. As such, this study provides evidence that tailored discursive approaches can be used as a resource for managers and practitioners that are seeking to inspire innovation through collaboration.

The discourse of collaboration also became a resource upon which actors could draw to articulate how they might respond to the context and realise the vision. Because this discourse is promoted in government reports and embodied in government strategy, the protagonists were able to borrow from the discourse to secure the necessary resources (in this case funding) that would enhance the possibilities of more effective collaboration. This is because different stakeholders engage with discourse in ways that help to create the outcomes they desire. It was noticeable that the leaders within the Solid State Pharmaceutical Cluster recognised the importance of discourse to innovation collaboration, and on this basis, they successfully adjusted the use of terminology in relation to the exchange partners they were addressing. When addressing potential partners within industry and academia, they utilised both the “burning platform” and “Ireland Inc.” metaphors to create generalised membership ties around the need for innovation and action.

First, context-specific narrative accounts provided in this study further extend the authors’ understanding of the process through which fundamental changes (innovation) in organisational activities are enacted (Ettlie and Subramaniam, 2004). Second, the authors have articulated how different discourses are mobilised by actors at different stages of development and for different audiences to create desired innovation outcomes, illustrating that innovations can result from advances in knowledge (McAdam et al., 1998). Finally, the authors see how discourse and practice are dynamic as participants articulate their intention to exert further influence on innovation discourse through their lobbying activities.

Although we have seen a proliferation of studies examining the discursive aspects of strategy, the full potential of the linguistic turn has not yet been realized. This paper argues for a multifaceted interdiscursive approach that can help to go beyond simplistic views on strategy as unified discourse and pave the way for new research efforts. At the metalevel, it is important to focus attention on struggles over competing conceptions of strategy in this body of knowledge. At the mesolevel it is interesting to examine alternative strategy narratives to better understand the polyphony and dialogicality in organizational strategizing. At the microlevel, it is useful to reflect on the rhetorical tactics and skills that are used in strategy conversations to promote or resist specific views. This paper calls for new focused analyses at these different levels of analysis, but also for studies of the processes linking these levels.