Legitimation and institutionalization of managerial practices. The role of organizational rhetoric

Ideology and (de)legitimation: The Belgian public debate on corporate restructuring during the Great Recession

“…Legitimacy—a sense of ‘social acceptability bestowed upon a set of activities or actors’ (Washington and Zajac, 2005: 284)—currently attracts considerable research attention within the field of management and organization studies (MOS) (Suddaby et al, 2017). At a time of growing interest in sustainability and corporate social responsibility, much of this scholarly attention is driven by inquiries into the social construction of (il)legitimacy for controversial business activities such as mergers and acquisitions (Vaara et al, 2006; Vaara and Monin, 2010), investments with negative environmental effects (Joutsenvirta & Vaara, 2009, 2015; Livesey, 2001, 2002), and restructurings involving layoffs (Erkama and Vaara, 2010; Hosfeld, 2018; Vaara and Tienari, 2008; Vuontisjärvi, 2013). Emphasizing the discursive nature of (de)legitimation, these studies have significantly enhanced our understanding of how social actors employ particular argumentative and micro-textual rhetorical strategies to (de)legitimize a contested activity.…”

Uses of Rhetorical Reasoning Theories in Business Communication Researches

“…According to Hossfeld (2018), the best situation is one in which only arguments and assertions are explicitly expressed and which persuade effectively. But in most of our daily lives, there are many situations in which stakeholders do not agree on certain arguments but rather demand further support to judge the arguments.…”

“…To consumers, corporations need to sell their products and gain a higher level of trust and loyalty from consumers (Choi, 2013;Jaganathan, Mayr, & Nagaratnam, 2014;Kang, 2014;Kim & Benbasat, 2006;Kisicek, 2018). For example, they need to persuade inner members of the necessity of structural reform of the organization such as downsizing and relieve the dissatisfaction of members for smoother structural reform (Hossfeld, 2018). Corporations also need to get support from investors in two different scenarios; 1) When corporations need to keep and sustain their business, as they need to show how their business is healthy, they need to maintain their trust and loyalty (Al-Hindawi & Naji, 2018), and 2) When corporations need to start their new a project or business, they need to show how their plan is plausible and possible and how they can guarantee profits for investors (Spinuzzi et al, 2014;van Werven, Bouwmeester, & Cornelissen, 2019).…”

Rhetorical Enthymeme: The Forgotten Trope and its Methodological Import

“…Rhetoric is discourse with intent to persuade, posing instrumental and pragmatic concerns (Gill and Whedbee, ). The appropriateness of rhetorical devices and argument types depends on the situational context (Bitzer, ; Hossfeld, ), since according to Aristotle () rhetoric is ‘an ability, in each [particular] case, to see the available means of persuasion’ (Rhetoric, 1: 2: 1). In terms of classical rhetoric, this persuasive power can be accomplished through a combination of appeal to ethos , or the character of the speaker; to pathos , or emotional engagement of the audience; and to logos , or logical argument.…”

“…One fundamental aspect of rhetorical analysis, the study of enthymemes or arguments‐in‐use (Fisher, ), has remained scarce in our field. This is surprising given both the central role of enthymemes in rhetoric (Hartelius and Browning, ; Hossfeld, ), as well as the potential of enthymemes to provide access to agents' ideational worlds, and illuminate shared beliefs or mental models (Heracleous, ).…”