Management and Marketing - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 8 of 8
-
ItemThe Rhetoric of Institutional Change(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2012-03)This paper analyses how a case for institutional change is made through rhetoric in an individual text. Drawing on Aristotle’s three types of rhetorical justification, logos, pathos and ethos, we make three contributions. First, we show that the multiple competing logics which often dominate a field can become incorporated into key texts. As a result, the notionally rational argumentation repertoires which underpin each logic exist in tension, and are prone to contradict each other, making it difficult for a text to support convincingly one logic rather than another on the basis of logos appeals. In such instances, the authors of a text may favour one logic over another through the strategic use of ethos (moralizing) and pathos (emotion-evoking) rhetoric. Second, we demonstrate how ethos and pathos function to construct social categories (identities) and draw on dominant cultural myths. Third, we theorize these textual strategies as acts aimed at reconfiguring relations of power/knowledge.
-
ItemOnline consultation: E-Democracy and E-Resistance in the Case of the Development Gateway(SAGE Publications, 2005-01-01)To explore the implications of the Internet for the relationship between organizational communication and power, this article compares two online forums established in response to the introduction of a new e-organization: the Development Gateway. The article analyzes postings to the forums to explore the capacity of the Internet to foster democracy, and to investigate how power and resistance are exercised through this medium. Findings show that, rather than equate resistance with participation, as some models of democracy do, the dynamics of power and resistance are more complex, and resistance and power can take participative and nonparticipative forms.!
-
ItemMind over body: Physical and psychotherapeutic discourses and the regulation of the older worker(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2009-08)We examine how physical and psychotherapeutic discourses regulate the identity work of older workers. We show that they have separate effects: physical discourse inferred that the loss of work for older workers would be permanent whereas psychotherapeutic discourse suggested that the solution to unemployment lay in the mind of older workers themselves. They also have combined effects through the notion of grief: older workers are expected to progress through the normative stages of grief to arrive at acceptance of job loss and continued exclusion from the labour market. Despite moments of resistance in the identity work of older workers, these individuals were subjected to these regulatory effects through three key processes: participation by individual older workers in these discourses through their own identity work; collaboration from a range of diverse actors in contributing to this identity work; and translation of the meaning as initial narratives are retold by other actors.
-
Item'A Blinding Lack of Progress': Management Rhetoric and Affirmative Action(WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2010-11)In this study we explore how versions of organizational reality and gender are constructed in management discourse and whether such patterns change over time. Specifically, we examine management explanations and accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations through their commentaries on their affirmative action programmes. In Australia private sector organizations with 100 or more employees are required to report to government on their affirmative action programmes for women. In these documents, management representatives outline objectives for the coming year and report on their progress in reducing employment‐related barriers for women. In doing so they account for the ‘problem’ of gender‐based discrimination that affirmative action is designed to address, justify their actions (or lack of action) and reproduce versions of gendered identity. Thus we use affirmative action reporting as cases of management rhetoric to explore how aspects of gender and organization are constructed, taken for granted, challenged or problematized. Comparing reports from the hospitality sector over a 14‐year period, we explore whether there is any evidence of discursive change in management accounts of the gendered nature of their organizations.
-
ItemLost in translation: the use of stories and statistics in processes of knowledge production(Academy of Management, 2010)
-
ItemFamilies divided: Culture and control in small family business(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2003-11)In this article, we explore the dynamics of control, compliance and resistance using two case studies where ‘family’ has symbolic, material and ideological significance. While the ‘family’ metaphor is often invoked to suggest a normative unity and integration in large organizations, we investigate the use of shared understandings of divisions (Parker 1995) and difference, as well as unity and similarity, in constituting organizational culture in two small family-owned firms. Diverging from mainstream family business research, we adopt a critical and interpretative approach that incorporates employee perspectives and explores how forms of control and resistance need to be understood in relation to their local contexts. We also argue that organization studies could benefit from revisiting progressive assumptions that equate developments in forms of organization with forms of organizational control.
-
ItemExpectant mothers and absent fathers: Paid maternity leave in Australia(WILEY, 2008-07)In this article we explore how the reluctance to introduce a national paid maternity leave scheme in Australia reflects gendered norms and constructions of parenthood and work. We report on the findings of a study of selected media texts that show how the public discourse that surrounded proposals to introduce such a scheme exhibited deep‐seated resistance to women who combine motherhood with continued attachment to the paid workforce. Using a multi‐modal approach to discourse analysis, we show how gender and maternity are constructed using cultural and historical discursive resources that reinforce a conservative national identity. By focusing on what is both absent and present in the media texts we show how ‘actual fathers’ are rendered invisible and the space filled by the government as ‘symbolic fathers’ impregnating a production line of maternal citizens.
-
ItemThe enterprising self: An unsuitable job for an older worker(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2008-05)The discourse of enterprise has permeated contemporary society with significant implications for government, organizations and individuals alike. In particular, enterprise prescribes an ideal identity, that of the `enterprising self'. This study examines the ability of the older worker to become part of this enterprise culture through the analysis of an Australian government inquiry. Our findings show that certain categories of identity—such as older workers—are unable to don the mantle of enterprise, although they are nonetheless subjected to it, helping to explain why the discourse of enterprise is so persistent and durable.