Power and resistance in a multinational organization: Discursive struggles over organizational restructuring

Abstract

Summary Restructuring organizations are sites of discursive struggles where different organizational groups drawing on various discourses compete to shape the social reality of the organization for their own benefit. This study focuses on the temporal development of resistance and discursive struggles following a unit shutdown decision and the broader restructuring plan of a global industrial organization. The paper reports how the discourse of globalization and discourse of local capitalism were employed to justify and challenge the restructuring plans. I argue, that although resisting organizational groups are rarely able to reverse restructuring decisions, resistance contributes to the evolution of shared organizational discourse themes, employed discursive resources, identity construction, and the formation of organizational ideology. Through these means, resistance has an important role in developing organizational discourses towards mutual understanding and, at the organizational level, finding ways to confront the discourse of globalization.