Organizational Discourse Research Articles

A Reflexive Guide to Organizational Visual Research: Key Considerations and Alternative Stance

This article answers to the call for methodological consolidation in the fragmented research field of organizational visual studies by identifying the crucial considerations confronting researchers. Noting the comparability between visual and discourse studies, we draw on the discussion in the more matured field of organizational discourse analysis to inspire our inquiry. First, turning to the common philosophical and methodological considerations confronting both fields, we translate the discussion in organizational discourse analysis to reflect on 1) the philosophical stance and 2) the research focus in organizational visual studies. Second, attending to the particularity of visuality and visual studies, we identify the additional challenges of organizational visual studies regarding 3) the role of the researcher, 4) the analytical object, and 5) the analytical procedure. For each of these considerations, we clarify the alternative stances and elaborate on their potential and challenge.

Queens of Drag: A Multidimensional Perspective on Core Stigma

This paper critically assesses RuPaul’s Drag Race as a stigmatized organization which has built its success on the active spectacularization of its core stigma, through the showcasing of specific organizational discourses and transgressions. Drag Race is an interesting case as the organization does not conceal stigma; on the contrary, it leverages the transgressions associated with the social deviance of drag queens, enhancing success and acceptance with wider audiences over time. We focus on how audiences generate discourses that trigger this acceptance and how the organization fuels these discourses, using them as strategic resources for organizational performance. We adopt a performativity perspective to analyze discourses generated by the audiences and by the organization itself, primarily focusing on online discourses. We contribute to a better understanding of how organizations can leverage the factors that lead to their stigmatization and make them acceptable for different audiences.

The Sounds of Silence: A Multimodal Approach to Silencing Strategies in Corporate CSR Discourse

The aim of this paper is to better understand how multimodal organizational discourse on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate sustainability (CS) silences many of the most significant negative impacts of those organizations on society. Drawing on theories of the rhetoric of silence and using a social semiotic approach, we examine how the corporate production of a series of interconnected reports, webpages and social media posts abstract, simplify, minimize and omit important people, actions and events. Moving beyond the concept of greenwashing, our analyses of the tactics deployed at the granular and the ideological levels uncover organizations’ strategies of silence. These strategies violate the commitment to transparency implicit and explicit in corporate communication on non-financial performance. While there is an increasing interest in the visual in organization studies, few authors have explored how verbal and visual representations convey discourse. In this study, we go further than investigating each mode in isolation to show how their combination creates meaning.

Beyond Exogenous Models: Mexican Journalism’s Modernization in its Own Terms

ABSTRACT Mexican journalism scholars have resorted to exogenous models of the press to study this country’s news production. This has imported standards developed abroad and has hindered the analysis of Mexican journalism in its own terms. In order to reverse this trend, this article develops an inductive approach focused on the organizational discourses which gave form to Mexican journalism’s modernization. Identifying the development of the “prensa vendida” (sold-out press) stigma as a key public discourse, it exposes how different journalists and journalism entrepreneurs created diverse paradigm repairs with the intention of overcoming Mexican journalism’s credibility crisis. Through a multiple modernities perspective, it shows how these organizational discourses and paradigm repairs reproduce, resist and reconfigure the liberal model of the press’ norms, standards and values. This article could contribute to transitional journalism studies at large as it presents a theoretical framework and a research design for them to go beyond the normative perspectives embedded in exogenous models of the press.

Retooling methods for approaching discourse–materiality relations: a new materialist framework of multimodal sensitivity

PurposeWhile recent theoretical discussions around discourse–material relationality have facilitated important conceptual and analytical advancements within the broader field of CMS, less progress has been made methodologically with regard to innovating empirical methods and data modes. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to contribute to strengthening the methodological focus in the literature when grappling with the relationality of discourse–materiality and co-constitution. This includes a method-retooling framework inspired by new materialism.Design/methodology/approachIn this article, the authors engage at the methodological level by developing a method-retooling framework that combines insights from organizational discourse studies and new materialist thinking. This framework enables a retooling of existing methods to become sensitive to multimodality and offers two concrete examples that were developed during fieldwork for a multi-sited and multi-method case study in 2018.FindingsBased on the framework for retooling methods for multimodality, two illustrations are offered. These include retooling interviews by employing multimodal vignettes and retooling observations by using multimodal mappings. They are unfolded and discussed regarding their appropriation of discourse–material relationality.Originality/valueThis paper includes original research and method developments – adding a critical focus on the methodological aspects and potential advancements that are necessary in the wake of the ongoing debates around discourse–materiality across CMS and specifically within studies of organizational discourse and CCO. By suggesting a framework, the authors stimulate methodological explorations and contribute to furthering method developments that are equal to the rich conceptual progress made within the field.

Comunicação orientada para cultura de paz nas organizações: uma proposta de análise da comunicação organizacional digital de três empresas do Pacto Global no Brasil

This article aims to understand some aspects of communication in organizations in order to identify which elements are essential for a communication dynamic focused on the culture of peace in a context that may or may not naturalize organizational violence. Although it may seem controversial, both dynamics (focused on a peace culture or violence) can be strained in the organizational environment as they value and legitimize strategic elements of communication in these same organizations. This conception is based on the understanding that companies, through the diffusion of their media discourses, either through their own official spaces or by other means, assume a significant role in society to schedule matters and establish standards. Thus, a demand arises for responsible communication, which has been used by companies as a form of competitive advantage to create and / or strengthen bonds with their audiences and, therefore, differentiate themselves in a market with competition fierce. For this, based on the principles discussed in Peace Studies and considering its multidisciplinary nature, there is in the Communication for Peace the debate about the appearance (or not) of violence through communicational dynamics. For this reason, we also support this paper in the strategic elements of Peace Journalism, which indicates forms of communication that stimulate a culture of peace in conflict scenarios. From this, it was possible to construct analytical categories, in order to list the essential characteristics that could indicate a direction of organizational communication as a potentializer of actions directed to the culture of peace or legitimizing organizational violence. This is because the communicational actions of companies, especially when referring to an institutional positioning, can influence behaviors and, consequently, in the consolidation of the organizational culture itself. In an attempt to check in a practical way the formulation of the developed categories, we selected three Brazilian companies that have long been committed to the Global Compact, an initiative of the United Nations, which seeks to bring elements linked to ethical and sustainable management into the organizational sphere, they are: Natura, Copel and ArcelorMittal. Therefore, we analyzed the institutional speeches propagated in the three selected videos of these companies, “Natura – The most beautiful tune”; “Institutional Copel Energia” and “Safety Day - ArcelorMittal” referring to the institutional campaigns of these companies that were published in the first half of 2019 on their official YouTube channels. The analysis of the material was performed based on the discursive proposal of stereotypes offered by Amossy (2008), which aligns the aspects of the enunciator's search for legitimation before an audience. To this end, four analytical categories were established to identify a communication directed towards peace, that is, one that is concerned with promoting dialogue, building collective values, generating social transformation and considering the historical and socio-cultural context in which they are inserted. The development of these categories was inspired by the perspective of Journalism for Peace (Lynch and Mcgoldrick, 2007; Cabral and Salhani, 2017) and by the dimensions of essential communication skills (Calonego, 2018). With the study, it was possible to identify that although organizations are committed to the goals established by the Global Compact, these elements are not necessarily presented in their institutional campaigns, indicating the need for organizational communication focused on peace. In addition, problems related to the alignment between the formulation of organizational discourse and its institutional communication were detected.

Underlying Equity Discourses of the World Health Organization

Background: Globally, increasing attention has been paid to the concept of equity in the context of health, largely stemming from the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) beginning in the late 1970s with the Declaration of Alma-Ata (WHO, 1978) and more recently following the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH, 2008) and their final report in 2008. Despite increasing attention to this issue, there is global ambiguity on the true definition of “health inequity”, “health inequalities”, or “health disparities” (Braveman, 2006, p. 167; Braveman & Gruskin, 2003).
 Methods/Design: This original scoping review clarifies how the WHO conceptualizes equity. It also identifies the theoretical underpinnings guiding the WHO’s approach to equity and its broader implications. This protocol followed the PRISMA guidelines for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) (Tricco et al., 2018), with details discussed in the full protocol.
 Discussion: To date, much of the research on health equity globally has been restricted to chronological discussions over time or specific research fields (Borde & Hernández, 2018, p. 3). Therefore, researching the WHO’s approach to equity in terms of alignment with theory and broader normative standpoint(s) becomes increasingly important in addressing a gap in the literature. In addition, because the definition of equity in the context of health has practical implications for its operationalization (Guerra, Borde, & Salgado De Snyder, 2016), this work seeks to clarify in the concept of equity used by the WHO in hopes of moving towards a shared understanding to bridge action [e.g. in measurement and accountability (Braveman & Gruskin, 2003)].

Gendered practices and tacit knowledge sharing in organizations: a structuration perspective

ABSTRACT This paper aims to explore gendered practices in the context of tacit knowledge sharing from the perspective of female managers. It specifically explores these practices in two different gendered contexts. Drawing on structuration theory and a social constructionist perspective on knowledge sharing, the authors conducted a qualitative study utilizing semi-structured interview data gathered from 32 female managers working in two distinct and different gendered spaces. The study findings reveal that gendered practices in tacit knowledge sharing occur through organizational structures and processes, organizational informalities and discourse and communication. Therefore, gendered practices in the context of knowledge sharing are informal, invisible, socially situated and involve issues of power. We, therefore, advance understanding of the gender dynamics of knowledge sharing and in particular highlight the inherent tensions between structure and agency which are heightened in spaces governed by gendered hierarchies. We highlight research and practice implications of our findings.

PROPAGANDA INSTITUCIONAL ACERCA DA SUSTENTABILIDADE EMPRESARIAL: ANÁLISE DA CONSTRUÇÃO DISCURSIVA EM PEÇAS PUBLICITÁRIAS

Analisar o discurso organizacional em quatro peças oriundas da Propaganda Institucional (PI) de um Instituto, cujo negócio versa sobre à promoção do desenvolvimento sustentável e do bem-estar social, é o objetivo deste trabalho. Assim, este estudo focou na Responsabilidade Ambiental (RA), um dos pilares da Sustentabilidade Empresarial (SE), e em investigar como este discurso é construído para persuadir e sensibilizar o leitor/co-enunciador a adquirir um posicionamento pró-ambiente. Para tanto, estudou-se a construção do ethos organizacional (via léxico e argumentos) e a embreagem textual presentes nessas peças publicitários. Foi utilizado como aporte teórico os pressupostos da: SE (focando-se na RA), da PI e da Análise do Discurso (AD) de linha francesa, esta última também constitui a metodologia seguida para o exame do material selecionado. Na AD, teoria e metodologia são indissociáveis, isto é, só é possível se falar em metodologia envolvendo os elementos teóricos. Igualmente, para se empreender esta pesquisa, foram realizados dois tipos de análises: a dos dados linguísticos e a dos argumentos usados nas produções textuais examinadas.

Toward a typology for negotiating layered identities: An oppositional discourse analysis of girls’ youth sport

ABSTRACT This study documents how participants in an all-female youth sport organization negotiate oppositional discourses of identity. Employing Fairhurst and Putnam’s (2019) integrative method of organizational discourse analysis, the findings revealed hegemonic and alternative discourses related to gender (i.e., boys and girls are different; boys and girls are the same), which influenced how participants negotiated a nested feminine-athletic identity and nested identity discourses. Finally, this study offers a typology for how members negotiated oppositional nested and higher-order identities through (a) fleeing, (b) challenging, (c) constricting, and (d) expanding. Practical implications for how these oppositional discourses affect participation in life enrichment groups are discussed.

Biodiversité/biodiversity : dynamiques discursives des fonctionnements collocationnels dans le discours lexicographique et les discours environnementalistes en français et en anglais

L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser en francais et en anglais le fonctionnement collocationnel des mots « biodiversite » et « biodiversity », d’une part dans la dynamique du discours lexicographique a partir d’un dictionnaire electronique des cooccurrents et en la comparant, d’autre part, a celle des discours environnementalistes a partir des sites web des organisations internationales non gouvernementales comme Greenpeace ou World Wide Fund (WWF). Cette double comparaison, entre deux types de discours et dans deux langues, permet de comprendre comment s’organisent actuellement les traits de contenus associes a « biodiversite »/« biodiversity ».

‘ANNE GOES ROGUE FOR ABORTION RIGHTS!’ EXPLORING DISCURSIVE MATERIALIZATION ACROSS AND BEYOND ONLINE PLATFORMS

This presentation examines the social media campaign #SupportIslandWomen that was undertaken by reproductive rights activists in Prince Edward Island (PEI). The initiative gained popularity in 2016 due to both the off- and online circulation of posters throughout PEI landmarks depicting the Green Gables-like image of a young girl (“rogue Anne”) wearing red braids and a bandana. These posters showcased specific hashtags that encouraged debates on various online platforms. For this study, we underline how human actors invoked the symbolic ‘figure’ of rogue Anne to give weight to their own arguments by speaking or acting in her name. By ‘figure’, we mean any symbolic entity that is materialized through interaction and that possesses agency, or the ability to make a significant difference in interaction. Hence, our study examines the processes through which rogue Anne was made present in interaction, the role of digital (online) and physical (offline) affordances in the materialization of this figure, and the differentiated effects that these invocations generated. To do so, we build our dataset by performing non-participant observation on social media platforms and by exploring Canadian blogs and newspapers. Drawing from organizational discourse theory, our results show that invoking the figure of rogue Anne allowed for pro-choice collectives to assert their authority in abortion debates by labelling the fictional character as a modern feminist icon. They also underline the importance of studying the intervention of symbolic figures, their effects, and their materialization within political initiatives that incorporate and go beyond the practice of ‘hashtagging’.

Organizational discourse and dysfunctional leadership.

Organizational discourse and dysfunctional leadership.

Studying Change in Religious Organizations: A Discourse-Centered Framework

Abstract This article highlights the discourse-driven nature of contemporary processes of religious change. Drawing on the textually-oriented discourse theory and discourse analysis of Fairclough supplemented by additional perspectives from organizational discourse studies, the article outlines a discourse-centered analytic framework for the empirical study of the changing discursive practices and modus operandi of contemporary religious organizations. The framework consists of four analytic factors, each of which highlight the role that discourse plays at various levels of processes of religious organizational change. The article demonstrates the application of the framework in actual practice in relation to empirical examples from five traditional Christian churches in three different national contexts, thus bringing the tangible effects of changing discursive practices on the operations and practices of religious organizations into clear focus.

Denaturalizing the Environment: Dissensus and the Possibility of Radically Democratizing Discourses of Environmental Sustainability

The aim of this article is to introduce the concept of dissensus as an important perspective for making current organizational discourses of environmental sustainability more radically democratic. It presents the Anthropocene as a force for social naturalization—one that paradoxically acknowledges humanity’s role in negatively impacting the environment while restricting their agency to address this problem to those compatible with a market ideology. Radical democratic theories of agonism help to denaturalize the relation of organizations to the environment yet risk reproducing values of anthropocentrism and patriarchy in doing so. Dissensus, by contrast, emphasizes the need to ‘redistribute the sensible’, treating organizations as a space for continually denaturalizing and renaturalizing our socio-material relation with the world. Yet it also puts forward a radically democratic political ethics demanding that firms ecologically preserve the environment to allow for positive dissensus while internally resisting institutional power structures that naturalize these organizational environments. This paper, thus, seeks to show the significance of dissensus for enhancing radical democracy both in regards to discourses of environmental sustainability specifically and more generally within organizations.

Bilingualism in the scientific and educational discourse of China: psychophysiological, organizational and pedagogical aspects

The article analyzes certain aspects of the representation of modern scientific, educational and organizational discourse, characterizing the state of research in the field of theory and practice of bilingualism. It is emphasized that the problem of cultivating bilingualism has acquired particular relevance in modern China, which pursues a policy of active use of national languages in regions and administrative units inhabited by representatives of other, non-Han, ethnic groups. Based on the content analysis, the activity of foreign researchers of the problems of bilingualism and trilingualism in China has been established. Three thematic clusters are identified and characterized, within which modern research is carried out and the policy of bilingualism in China is implemented.

A tale of three approaches: Leveraging organizational discourse analysis, relational event modeling, and dynamic network analysis for collective leadership

How can we enhance theory-method alignment when studying collective leadership? We propose that leveraging methodological approaches that are powerful enough to address three primary challenges of collective leadership—the incorporation of time, context, and multiple levels—will promote a more robust body of collective leadership research and practice. In particular, we review and integrate three complementary methodological approaches—organizational discourse analysis, relational event modeling, and dynamic network analysis—which have the flexibility to address these challenges. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the utility of these methodological approaches for addressing major methodological challenges within the field of collective leadership. Through this effort, we aim to facilitate conversation across disparate streams of research and encourage researchers to explore how novel research questions and perspectives might be advanced through leveraging these methods, either in isolation or in combination.

A Methodological Framework for Organizational Discourse Activism: an Ethics of Dispositif and Dialogue

In the article, we elaborate an interdisciplinary methodological framework that enables us to study and prepare the grounds for the development of organizational practices through discourse perspectives. The framework differs from mainstream monological and complexity reducing tendencies within organizational studies in that it argues for an approach that takes in historical, broad, and situational power relations and discourses into consideration when we engage in ethical organizational development. We place the framework within organizational discourse studies (ODS) and discuss how the intersection of Bakhtinian and Foucauldian ideas and concepts, as well as their diverse analytical strategies and focuses, contributes to the field. The combination entails taking a dissensus approach to organizational discursive phenomena that we view as dynamic features that are historically and locally (re)created through battles of unifying (centripetal) and diversifying (centrifugal) force relations. Following similar ideas of Deleuze and Bakhtin, we argue that dialogue and every (organizational) situation is seen as a plurivocal, open-ended, and unique time-space in which subjects have agency to change and transform the power relations and lines of subjectification that they are embedded in. We arrive at a methodological framework that bridges the gulf that often exists between discourse perspectives that tend to either focus on situated or more abstract and historical discursive dimensions. Furthermore, the frame involves an ethics of dispositif and dialogue that insists that organizational discourse scholars engage in organizational discourse activism furthering local change processes.

Hybrid logics in the resource strategies of US public research universities

ABSTRACT US public research universities face increasing pressures to compete in higher education, but receive fewer resources from their states than in previous eras. Prior research suggests that these institutions adopt market-driven mentalities and practices to generate revenues while eschewing their public missions. We posit that US public research universities may employ competition and profit-seeking (market mechanisms) to resource the campus as a whole and serve the broader society. As such, these institutions could potentially bend some industry-oriented principles and behaviors to bolster social goals, as reflected in their newer resource-centered organizational discourses and strategies. In this study, we apply theory of institutional logics to illuminate these discourses and strategies. The logics perspective focuses on underlying theories of action that shape organizational structures and processes. It informs, here, a qualitative document analysis of materials and longitudinal numeric data spanning 2000 to 2014 from three sampled universities. Findings suggest that the study universities amplify over time their appeals to the public good to justify market efforts. They also indicate a complex interplay among multiple logics. These blended, hybridized logics offer strategies and behaviors to reconcile conflicting organizational imperatives. We discuss prospects for research on the managerial tools used as instruments of good.

Persuasive language of responsible organisation? A critical discourse analysis of corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports of Nigerian oil companies

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate how language (choice) in CSR reports of leading oil companies in Nigeria is used to portray an image of “responsible organisation”.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws insights from communication studies (persuasion theory) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) studies to discursively unpack all those subtle and visible, yet equally invisible, linguistic strategies (micro-level elements): wording (single words), phrases and chains of words (clauses/sentences). These linguistic strategies (micro-level elements) proxy organisational discourses (meso-level elements), which are reflective of wider social practices (macro-level elements). The authors base the investigation on CSR reports of six leading oil companies in Nigeria from 2009 to 2012.FindingsThe findings of this study reveal that (leading) Nigerian oil companies linguistically use CSR reports to persuasively construct and portray the image of “responsible organisation” in the eyes of wider stakeholders (the communities) despite serious criticism of their corporate (ir) responsibility.Originality/valueAs opposed to the previous content analysis based studies, this paper contributes to the emerging stream of CDA studies on CSR reporting by providing a finer-grained linguistic analytical schema couched in Fairclough’s (2003) approach to CDA (and persuasion theory). This helps to unravel how persuasive language/discourse of responsible organisation is enacted and reproduced. The authors thus respond to the calls for theoretical plurality in CSR reporting research by introducing persuasion theory from communication studies literature which has hitherto been rarely applied.