Search results
1 – 10 of over 2000This study approaches corporate sponsorship of sport as identification rhetoric to further understand the relationship created between consumers and corporate sponsors. The focus…
Abstract
This study approaches corporate sponsorship of sport as identification rhetoric to further understand the relationship created between consumers and corporate sponsors. The focus is on the corporate sponsorship of the NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) Sprint Cup Series, examining how sponsorship messages utilise identification tactics. The study finds that messages rhetorically create identification through common ground and unifying symbol strategies between the sponsor and sponsored activity, and between the sponsor and consumer.
Details
Keywords
This study aims to examine how systems for organizing information may present an authorial voice and shows how the mechanism of voice may work to persuasively communicate a point…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine how systems for organizing information may present an authorial voice and shows how the mechanism of voice may work to persuasively communicate a point of view on the materials being collected and described by the information system.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper synthesizes a conceptual framework from the field of rhetoric and composition and uses that framework to analyze how existing organizational schemes reveal authorial voice.
Findings
Through textual analysis, the mechanism of authorial voice is described in three example information systems. In two of the examples, authorial voice is shown to function as a persuasive element by enabling identification, the rhetorical construct defined by the literary critic Kenneth Burke. In one example, voice appears inconsistently and does not work to facilitate persuasion.
Research limitations/implications
This study illustrates the concept of authorial voice in the context of information systems, but it does not claim to comprehensively catalog all potential manifestations of authorial voice.
Practical implications
By analyzing how information systems work as a form of document, we can better understand how information systems communicate to their users, and we can use this understanding to facilitate design.
Originality/value
By creating designs that incorporate an enhanced conceptual grasp of authorial voice and other rhetorical properties of information systems, the construction of information systems that systematically and purposefully communicate original, creative points of view regarding their assembled collections can be facilitated, and so enable learning, discovery, and critical engagement for users.
Details
Keywords
Theories are crucial for addressing research questions and advancing the boundaries of knowledge. However, in the field of strategic management, the existence of diverse schools…
Abstract
Purpose
Theories are crucial for addressing research questions and advancing the boundaries of knowledge. However, in the field of strategic management, the existence of diverse schools of thought from various disciplines, including economics, politics, and sociology, poses significant challenges for researchers seeking to develop theories for argumentation and theorization. In this study, we have conceptualized a novel approach to selecting an appropriate theory for addressing specific research questions.
Design/methodology/approach
Thought experiment, disciplined imagination, and a conceptual examination of a diverse set of theories.
Findings
Because the central focus in the field of strategic management revolves around how firms achieve sustainable high performance, a research question should initially clarify the fundamental phenomenological issues it aims to address. Subsequently, the process of problematization should identify the ontological assumptions and premises that establish a connection between the research question and existing theories. Finally, the identification and abstraction of rhetorical concepts derived from these assumptions and premises lead to theory selection criteria, namely connectedness, reliability, parsimoniousness, and falsifiability.
Research limitations/implications
Although we believe that our model for theory selection is generalizable to a wide range of management disciplines, we have primarily focused on its application in the field of strategic management. Future work could validate and further explore the applicability and effectiveness of this model in selecting appropriate theories for conceptual development in other domains.
Originality/value
While many researchers have proposed methods for writing theoretical papers, few have provided suggestions specifically focused on theory selection. This paper stands out as one of the few that not only attempts to address this gap but successfully develops a comprehensive model for theory selection.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to examine how client requirements undergo representational and transformational shifts and changes in the design process and explore the consequence of such…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine how client requirements undergo representational and transformational shifts and changes in the design process and explore the consequence of such changes.
Design/methodology/approach
A series of design resources relating to hospital departmental configurations are examined and analysed using a social semiotic framework. The findings are supplemented by practitioner opinion.
Findings
Construction project requirements are represented and transformed through semiotic resource use; such representations deliver specific meanings, make new meanings and affect project relationships. Requirement representations may be understood as socially motivated meaning-making resources.
Research limitations/implications
The paper focuses on one set of project requirements: hospital departmental configurations from a National Health Service hospital construction project in the UK.
Practical implications
The use of semiotic resources in briefing work fundamentally affects the briefing and design discourse between client and design teams; their significance should be noted and acknowledged as important.
Social implications
The findings of the paper indicate that briefing and design work may be understood as a social semiotic practice.
Originality/value
This original paper builds upon scholarly work in the area of construction project communications. Its fine-grained analysis of briefing communications around representations of specific requirements is novel and valuable.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on corporate sustainability reports (CSRs). In doing so, a number of rhetorical moves were identified in such reports and the rhetorical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to shed light on corporate sustainability reports (CSRs). In doing so, a number of rhetorical moves were identified in such reports and the rhetorical purposes of those moves were investigated. The findings helped understand the corporations’ eco-ideologies and priorities.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 12 CSRs from laptop-manufacturing companies were chosen. The CSRs then underwent data coding which led to the identification of rhetorical moves and sub-moves. The identified moves were then analyzed contextually to interpret the corporations’ larger-scale ideologies.
Findings
The findings identified a number of rhetorical moves. For instance, the corporations were shown to stress issues, such as resource management and waste management, in the CSRs. In addition, linguistic analysis of the CSRs indicated that the companies accepted their share in environmental issues and aimed to address such issues.
Originality/value
The present study is the first known attempt at analyzing the CSRs issues by laptop manufacturers. While some previous studies (Mason and Mason, 2012) have investigated the CSRs issued by a wide array of companies, no existing study has focused on tech companies.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the rhetoric used to promote enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which are complex organisation-wide software…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the rhetoric used to promote enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which are complex organisation-wide software packages inherently connected to the domains of management and organisation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a post-essentialist view on ERP systems and takes the form of a rhetorical analysis. Engaging in rhetorical scholarship in the area of technological change and management fashion literatures, this paper offers a close reading of a management text on ERP systems by Thomas H. Davenport published in 1998 in the Harvard Business Review.
Findings
The rhetorical analysis distinguishes and identifies three rhetorical strategies – namely, rationalisation, theorisation and contradiction – used to promote ERP systems and thus involved in the construction of the phenomenon revolving around ERP systems.
Originality/value
In spite of the importance of the rhetorical analysis of information technology in the context in which they operate, this paper argues that constructions of ERP systems should also be analysed beyond organisation-specific considerations. It further suggests that both researchers and practitioners should take seriously the rhetoric invoked by the well-known management writer that may easily go unnoticed.
Details
Keywords
Karim Messeghem and Marie-Pierre Fourquet-Courbet
Mass retail in France, as an organizational field, experienced an institutional change when the Dutreil Law was promulgated on August 2, 2005. This new text is the result of a…
Abstract
Purpose
Mass retail in France, as an organizational field, experienced an institutional change when the Dutreil Law was promulgated on August 2, 2005. This new text is the result of a long process through which different groups of opposing logics faced one another. Michel-Edouard Leclerc actively took part in the debate launched about the Galland Law reform. His institutional activism has contributed to this change and he can be qualified, on that account, as an institutional entrepreneur. Anchored in neo-institutional theory, this article contributes to understanding the part played by the institutional entrepreneur in the process of institutional change. Design/methodology/approach
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze Michel-Edouard Leclerc's discourse on his weblog to characterize the rhetorical strategies he adopts to legitimize change. The analysis is based on the works of the pragmatics of communication and on a detailed semantic analysis of reference fields (Tropes
Findings
This contribution has enabled the author to stress the part of the institutional entrepreneur in the transformation of an organizational field. The rhetorical strategies implemented here contribute to modifying institutional logic. From a theoretical point of view, this contribution links the neo-institutional approach with entrepreneurship by proposing to define the institutional entrepreneur as an actor pursuing political opportunities.
Originality/value
One important advantage of this work is that the authors have offered a methodological framework for studying the discourse of institutional entrepreneurs. The paper proposes empirical operationalization of rhetorical strategies. This contributes to improving the validity of the research because the identification of rhetorical strategies is no longer exclusively related to the researcher's subjective interpretation. The work also has practical implications for the actors: how can their discourse play a part in the institutionalization process?
Details
Keywords
Inger Askehave and Anne Ellerup Nielsen
The purpose of this paper is to account for the genre characteristics of non‐linear, multi‐modal, web‐mediated documents. It involves a two‐dimensional view on genres that allows…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to account for the genre characteristics of non‐linear, multi‐modal, web‐mediated documents. It involves a two‐dimensional view on genres that allows one to account for the fact that digital genres act not only as text but also as medium.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical framework of the article is the Swalesian genre theory used in academic settings all over the world to investigate the relationship between discourse and social practice and to teach genre conventions to students of language and communication. Up till now most genre research has focused on the characteristics of “printed” texts, whereas less has been done to apply the genre theory to digital genres.
Findings
The article discusses the characteristics of digital genres, notably the media constraints that have a significant effect on the production and reception of digital genres and suggests an extension of the Swalesian genre model that takes the digital characteristics into account.
Research limitations/implications
The suggestion for a revised genre model is not based on an extensive empirical study of various types of web sites. The observation is restricted to a limited number of commercial web sites.
Originality/value
The article proposes new insights into the concept of genre adapting traditional models of genre theory to web‐mediated texts. A revised two‐dimensional genre model incorporating media elements into the concept of genre thus takes account of the particular characteristics of the navigation and reading elements of web‐mediated genres.
Details
Keywords
Wen Lou, Jiangen He, Qianqian Xu, Zhijie Zhu, Qiwen Lu and Yongjun Zhu
The effectiveness of rhetorical structure is essential to communicate key messages in research articles (RAs). The interdisciplinary nature of library and information science…
Abstract
Purpose
The effectiveness of rhetorical structure is essential to communicate key messages in research articles (RAs). The interdisciplinary nature of library and information science (LIS) has led to unclear patterns and practice of using rhetorical structures. Understanding how RAs are constructed in LIS to facilitate effective scholarly communication is important. Numerous studies investigated the rhetorical structure of RAs in a range of disciplines, but LIS articles have not been well studied.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors encoded rhetorical structures to 2,216 articles in the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology covering a period from 2001 to 2018 with the approaches of co-word analysis and visualization. The results show that the predominant rhetorical structures used by LIS researchers follow the sequence of Introduction-Literature Review-Methodology-Result-Discussion-Conclusion (ILMRDC).
Findings
The authors' temporal examination reveals the shifts of evolutionary pattern of rhetorical structure in 2008 and 2014. More importantly, the authors' study demonstrates that rhetorical structures have varied greatly across research areas in LIS community. For example, scholarly communication and scientometrics studies tend to exclude literature review in articles.
Originality/value
The present paper offers a first systematic examination of how rhetorical structures are used in a representative sample of a LIS journal, especially from a temporal perspective.
Details