Interest‐Talk as Access‐Talk: How Interests are Displayed, Made and Down‐played in Management Research

Abstract

This paper addresses the methodological issue of how researchers gain access and build trust in order to conduct research in organizations. It focuses, in particular, on the role of interests (what actors want or what they stand to gain or lose) in the researchrelationship. The analysis shows how notions of interests, stake and motive were managed during an action research study in a UK subsidiary of a multinational corporation. The study uses an approach to discourse analysis inspired by the field of discursive psychology to identify four discursive devices: stake inoculation; stake confession; stake attribution; and stake construction. The paper contributes to the understanding of research methodology by identifying the importance of interest-talk in the process of doing management research.

Getting On With Field Research Using Participant Deconstruction

“…In order to operationalize participant deconstruction as a technique, we have argued for research participants (who may be selected by researchers) to apply a set of five questions (developed by researchers) to a text (which may—but need not—be selected by researchers). We acknowledge that our technique has the potential to elevate the power and agency of researchers over that of participants (Cunliffe & Alcadipani, 2016; Whittle et al, 2014). We recognize, too, that our five questions have their own silences and contradictions and thus it can be argued the questions themselves constitute the text (Kilduff, 1993).…”

“…While this second strategy mitigates the potential lack of critical distance and reflexivity that may affect insider researchers, an informant 6 may be even less critical and reflexive about the organizational world because of their socialization within it (Patton, 2002). Thus, this strategy may restrict the diversity of perspectives that come to the researcher's attention (Whittle, Mueller, Lenney, & Gilchrist, 2014).…”

Örgütlerdeki sözel etkileşimlerin analizi için argümantasyon teorisinin kullanımı

“…As an alternative micro-level discourse analysis method, discursive psychology focuses on rhetorical elements of speech to discover which interests are served by psychological and linguistic constructions (Lester, 2014;A. Whittle et al, 2014;Andrea Whittle and Mueller, 2015).…”

Motivations and stake management in producing YouTube 'bro-science' videos for baldness treatment

“…We want to go beyond looking at motives as the underlying basis for producing the videos, to looking at motives as a way of defending the video and making it persuasive. In many respects, the examination of this research question is in the tradition of research which examines "stake" and the investment of a speaker in their claims (Potter, 1996;Whittle et al, 2014;Whittle and Mueller, 2010). Such research points out that in efforts to persuade or uphold the facticity of an account, people need to show how they are personally invested or distanced from an account or claim.…”