Organizational discourse

The field of organizational development, along with other prevalent perspectives on planned organizational change, is based in a unitary and instrumental perspective on organizational change in which leadership and change agents strategically articulate one primary direction for change in the organization. This approach assumes a high degree of leadership consensus on the nature and direction of change, based on a linear, planned process of gathering data to solve problems in the organization. Communication in this model of change is employed instrumentally to transmit information about the change throughout the organization with an emphasis on transmitting information clearly, unambiguously, and efficiently.

Some scholars argue that this traditional, instrumental perspective is far from universally successful empirically in the implementation of change, and that it neglects more recent pluralist, constructionist, and postmodern approaches to organizational theory and communication. Of these more recent approaches, discursive orientations to change stress how change occurs socially within organizations through communicative interaction in the form of verbal and written texts. This paper provides a brief overview of discursive perspectives on organizational change, with rationale for adoption of discursive perspectives within the field of HRD.

For decades, feminists have intervened in a sexually violent culture. Many public health professionals, educators, and activists who design these interventions have called for complex conceptualizations of communication, yet communication studies scholars have not written extensively on consent. Moreover, researchers outside the field rarely rely on insights from the discipline. Accordingly, I offer a critical review of consent activism and research, and I highlight disciplinary assumptions that could enhance existing knowledge. I argue that many feminist academic/activist interventions use false ideas about communication, what I call communication myths: discourse merely reflects reality, and local discourse is disconnected from larger social Discourse. I show how these communication myths resonate with rape-supportive arguments. By suggesting communication should be unambiguous during consent, anti- violence educators/activists lower the standard for communicative competence, disconnect it from historical-cultural context, and miss opportunities to politicize consent. I argue feminists can challenge communication myths to build on existing interventions while more fully dismantling rape culture.

This article evaluates the results of prior research on anaphoric reference in Latin, and tries to account for the various observations within a single explanatory framework. This framework combines insights from cognitive linguistic theory and from ongoing empirical research on the linguistic marking of discourse organization in Latin. After a brief discussion of recent cognitive linguistic views on the relation between deixis and anaphora, I concentrate on the various uses of the Latin demonstrative hic in Virgil’s Aeneid. The examples discussed show that hic’s deictic aspect of proximity can be discerned in all its uses, the variety of which can best be described in terms of a ‘cline’, running from canonical deixis to canonical anaphora. It is argued that in its anaphoric use, Latin hic behaves as a linguistic ‘anchoring’ device, and is used as part of a communicative strategy referred to as ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’.

Interest in the analysis of organizational discourse has expanded rapidly over the last two decades. In this article, we reflect critically on organizational discourse analysis as an approach to the study of organizations and management, highlighting both its strengths and areas of challenge. We begin with an explanation of the nature of organizational discourse analysis and outline some of the more significant contributions made to date. We then discuss existing
classifications of approaches to the study of organizational discourse and suggest that they fall into two main categories: classifications by level of analysis and classifications by type of method. We argue that both of these approaches are inherently problematic and present an alternative way to understand the varieties of approaches to the analysis of organizationaldiscourse based on within domain and across domain characterizations. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges that remain in the development of organizational discourse as an area of study and point to some of the opportunities for important and unique contributions to our understanding of organizations and management that this family of methods brings.

Although studies of organization certainly need to include analysis of discourse, one prominent tendency within current research on organizational discourse limits its value of for organizational studies through a  commitment to postmodernism and extreme versions of social constructivism. I argue that  a version of critical discourse analysis based upon a critical realist social ontology is potentially of greater value to organization studies, and I refer in particular to the contribution it can make to research on organizational change.

Anaakım  kuramlar  ve  metodolojilerin  yarattığı  hayal  kırıklığı,  son  yıllarda
örgütlerin analizinde kurmacı epistemelojinin büyüyen bir kabul görmesine neden
olmuştur (Reed, 2000). Dilsel dönüş (Rorty, 1992) olarak adlandırılan gelişmeler,
sosyal  bilimlerde  ve  örgüt  kuramında  söylemin  ve  söylem  analizinin  özellikle
Foucaultcu tarzının giderek önemini arttırmıştır. Söylem analizine olan bu yöneliş,
örgütsel  gözetim  ve  kontrol,  kimlik,  örgütsel  temsil  ve  iletişim  gibi  birtakım
araştırma  alanlarının  araştırma  programlarına  dahil  edilmesinde  etkili  olmuştur.
Söylem analizi, söylemi sosyal dünyanın en önemli öğesi olarak gören ve sosyal
dünyanın ancak söylemin incelenmesi ile anlaşılabileceğini savunan bir anlayıştır
(Phillips ve Hardy, 2002).
Bu  çalışmada  Foucaultcu  söylem  analizi  (FSA)  incelenmiş,  onun  yöntemini
operasyonel hale getirmeye çalışan çeşitli araştırmacıların önerdiği kimi prensipler,
öneriler  ve  örnek  analizler  incelenerek  benzer  çalışmalarda  modellenebilecek
bütünlüklü  bir  yol  haritası  çıkarılmaya  çalışılmıştır.  Çalışmada  sırasıyla,
eleştirel  söylem  analizlerinin  teorik  temelleri,  belli  başlı  yaklaşımlar,  FSA’nin
temel  prensipleri,  Foucault’nun  yöntemini  operasyonel  hale  getirmeye  çalışan
araştırmacıların  önerileri,  Foucault’nun  kendi  yöntemini  anlatan  ifadelerinin
rehber haline getirilmesi ve Foucaultcu analizin sınırlılıkları incelenmiştir.

ABSTRACT
This study investigates organizational leaders’ discourses and how they are embedded in organizational and national structures and relate to leadership and communication in two Swedish organizations. This study has social constructionist aspirations and invokes qualitative, discursive, and interpretive perspectives. The findings, based on 27 interviews with leaders at various levels in the two industries, indicate that leaders’ discourses are affected differently by national and organizational cultural structures and are related to the circumstances affecting the construction of communicative leadership in these organizations. In a strongly established organizational culture national, context has less influence because members are loyal to the communication and leadership views of the organization in question. Discourses of commu- nicative leadership and Swedish leadership are relevant to the organization that work to make its leaders more communicative. However, notwithstanding the predominance of national or organisational leadership and communication views, leaders remain viewing themselves as the main leadership actors. The study also seeks to extend the knowledge of the concept of communicative leadership contributing to the understanding of its definition in relation to characteristics of national and organizational cultures.
Keywords: communication; leadership; communicative leadership; discourse; national culture; organizational culture.
RESUMO
Este estudo investiga os discursos de líderes em duas organizações suecas e como esses estão envolvidos em estruturas organizacionais e nacionais associadas à liderança e comunicação. O estudo tem um enfoque social-construtivista e evoca perspectivas qualitativas, discursivas e interpretativas. As conclusões, baseadas em 27 entrevistas com líderes de diversos níveis hierárquicos, indicam que, nas ditas indústrias, os discursos dos líderes são influenciados de formas distintas por estruturas organizacionais e culturais. Também indicam que esses discursos estão circunstancialmente associados à construção da liderança comunicativa. Em uma cultura organizacional fortemente estabelecida, o fator nacional possui menos relevância, uma vez que os empregados das organizações estudadas aderem mais às visões de comunicação e liderança das próprias empresas. Discursos sobre liderança comunicativa e o estilo próprio de liderança sueca são relevantes para uma organização que objetiva investir no aperfeiçoamento comunicativo de seus líderes. Contudo, a despeito de os padrões de comunicação e liderança serem nacionais ou organizacionais, os líderes ainda se concebem como os principais agentes do processo de liderar. Esse estudo também procura expandir o conhecimento do conceito de liderança comunicativa e contribuir para a compreensão de sua definição em relação às características das culturas nacional e organizacional.
Palavras-chave: comunicação; liderança; liderança comunicativa; discurso; cultura nacional; cultura organizacional.
RESUMEN
Este estudio investiga los discursos de líderes de dos organizaciones suecas, cómo estos se involucran a los sistemas organizacionales y nacionales y cómo describen las nociones de liderazgo y comunicación. El estudio tiene un abordaje socio-constructivista y utiliza perspectivas cualitativas, discursivas e interpretativas. Las conclusiones, basadas en 27 entrevistas con líderes de diversos niveles jerárquicos, indican que en las industrias suecas citadas los discursos de los jefes son afectados diferentemente por la cultura organizacional y nacional. Además, esos discursos circunstancialmente colaboran para la construcción del liderazgo comunicativo en sus respectivas compañías. En una cultura organizacional fuertemente establecida, el con- texto nacional tiene menos influencia, ya que los empleados obedecen más a las visiones de liderazgo y comunicación de las mismas empresas. Los discursos de liderazgo comunicativo y el estilo sueco de liderar son relevantes para las organizaciones que anhelan desarrollar las competencias comunicativas de sus líderes. Sin embargo, independiente de que las visiones de comunicación y liderazgo sean organizacionales o culturales, los líderes aún se consideran como agentes principales del proceso de liderar. Esta investigación también busca ampliar el conocimiento acerca del concepto de liderazgo comunicativo, comprendiéndolo a partir de sus características culturales y organizacionales.
Palabras clave: comunicación; liderazgo; liderazgo comunicativo; discurso; cultura nacional; cultura organizacional.

In this article we argue that a component of structuration theory—the duality of structure—is a valuable heuristic for an integrative framework seeking to explain the role of communication in how membership is negotiated over time. The membership negotiations (MNs) ...