Battle in the Boardroom: A Discursive Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the centrality of storytelling in achieving managerially relevant outcomes, with a focus on the in-situ performance context of corporate storytellers influencing one another. The Ricoeurian concept of speech act, capturing both the intentionality of organisational discourse and the social context of its production and reception, implicitly guided our research effort. The article has at its core a story of how senior organizational officers exploited the volatile circumstances of a major public offer in Singapore. By looking at the social construction of narratives in their many fragments we come to see how a key protagonist carves out a position of power. The efficacy of his performances can be seen to be dependent upon the effective use of poetic tropes and the receptiveness of listeners to particular Chinese archetypal relationship-driven themes. In crafting our story we use multiple texts which were produced in and around two case organizations. As such we offer a carefully constructed collage, a mixture of production and reproduction, sticking closely to forms of communication that key organizational actors used to plan, enact and interpret their actions and those of others. Whilst our story offers insights to readers with an interest in organizational discourse, corporate governance and Asian management practices, we refrain from imposing an authoritarian interpretation that insists on identifying with the intentions of the authors.

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