On the Narrative Construction of Multinational Corporations: An Antenarrative Analysis of Legitimation and Resistance in a Cross-Border Merger

Abstract

Although extant research has highlighted the role of discourse in the cultural construction of organizations, there is a need to elucidate the use of narratives as central discursive resources in unfolding organizational change. Hence, the objective of this article is to develop a new kind of antenarrative approach for the cultural analysis of organizational change. We use merging multinational corporations (MNCs) as a case in point. Our empirical analysis focuses on a revelatory case: the financial services group Nordea, which was built by combining Swedish, Finnish, Danish, and Norwegian corporations. We distinguish three types of antenarrative that provided alternatives for making sense of the merger: globalist, nationalist, and regionalist (Nordic) antenarratives. We focus on how these antenarratives were mobilized in intentional organizational storytelling to legitimate or resist change: globalist storytelling as a means to legitimate the merger and to create MNC identity, nationalist storytelling to relegitimate national identities and interests, Nordic storytelling to create regional identity, and the critical use of the globalist storytelling to challenge the Nordic identity. We conclude that organizational storytelling is characterized by polyphonic, stylistic, chronotopic, and architectonic dialogisms and by a dynamic between centering and decentering forces. This paper contributes to discourse-cultural studies of organizations by explaining how narrative constructions of identities and interests are used to legitimate or resist change. Furthermore, this analysis elucidates the dialogical dynamics of organizational storytelling and thereby opens up new avenues for the cultural analysis of organizations.

The Process of Postmerger Integration: A Review and Agenda for Future Research

“…Finally, in addition to work on specific measures and methods, there is a need to develop dynamic process models to conceptualize the emergent or stage-wise nature of PMI processes. Although there already are examples of such work (Clarke et al 2010;Monin, et al, 2013;Vaara & Tienari, 2011), new models could go further in elucidating the dialectical or dialogical dynamics involved.…”

“…Exceptions are offered by Vaara and Monin (2010), who studied the dynamics of discursive legitimation in PMI and highlighted the risk that overly positive communication can lead to a legitimacy crisis; and by Vaara and Tienari (2011), who examined how organizational actors and the media used various discursive resources and forms of storytelling to impact the course of PMI. On the whole, however, we know little regarding communication practices and tools in PMI.…”

“…Similarly, in the PMI context, senior managers -particularly from the acquiring firmwill need to devote attention to external parties like industry analysts, shareholders and the media (Vaara & Monin, 2010;Vaara & Tienari, 2011). Acquirers often make predictions to shareholders and industry analysts regarding synergies that will be realized from an acquisition, and senior management will likely be focused on achieving those targets.…”

“…Such a view is particularly relevant for understanding organizational phenomena involving complexity, unpredictability, uncertainty, and ambiguity (Corley & Gioia, 2004;Huy & Reus, 2011), characteristics that are typical of post-merger integration. Yet although both seminal studies (Haspeslagh & Jemison, 1991;Jemison & Sitkin, 1986) and some more recent works (e.g., Clark, Gioia, Ketchen, & Thomas, 2010;Monin, Noorderhaven, Vaara, & Kroon, 2013;Schweizer, 2005;Vaara & Tienari, 2011) have highlighted the importance of process issues, relatively few studies of post-merger integration have adopted the fine-grained, longitudinal approach required for fully explicating process dynamics. Thus, we believe that embracing a process lens will open promising new lines of inquiry regarding PMI.…”

Managing talent across advanced and emerging economies: HR issues and challenges in a Sino-German strategic collaboration

“…A detailed approach can appropriately address a locally contextualised situation (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Schwiezer, 2005). Following Siggelkow's (2007) recommendation that cases need to respond with particular questions and conditions, the AE-SME case demonstrates value because it offers insights into HR dynamics and a rare instance of seeing developed economy SME talent management in an emerging economy partnership (Schweizer, 2006;Riad, S., and Vaara, E. 2011;Teerikangas, Very, and Pisano, 2011;Vaara, E. and Tienari, J. 2011;Riad, Vaara and Zhang 2012).…”