Power, Politics, and Organizational Communication

Whittle, Andrea; Housley, William; Gilchrist, Alan; Lenney, Peter; Mueller, Frank

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703082.003.0004

Cited by 8 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…These include the ability to speak forms of knowledge, mitigate and observe the protocols of human interaction, question and query, display appropriate emotion, deploy metaphors, and put history to 'work'. More recently, Whittle et al (2013) analyse an extract of talk-in-interaction in a strategy meeting to show how members used power and politics to make sense of the internal organizational and external environments in which they worked. They showed the talk to be not 'just talk' but to be practical and consequential.…”

Section: Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Samra‐Fredericks (, , ) and Whittle et al. () highlight the potential of CA to explore order as ‘ accomplished “in and through details of on‐going, irremediably situated production of order in particular settings” ’ (Samra‐Fredericks, , drawing on Jayyusi, , p. 235, emphasis added). In other words, social order is an effortful performance involving the use of situationally specific knowledge.…”

Section: Perspectives On Strategy Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, Whittle et al. () analyse an extract of talk‐in‐interaction in a strategy meeting to show how members used power and politics to make sense of the internal organizational and external environments in which they worked. They showed the talk to be not ‘just talk’ but to be practical and consequential .…”

Section: Perspectives On Strategy Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Scholars have drawn on a variety of discursive approaches to study strategy in context. For example, they have adopted poststructuralist approaches (Ezzamel and Willmott, ; Knights and Morgan, ), critical discourse analysis (Balogun et al., ; Mantere and Vaara, ; Vaara et al., ), narrative perspectives (Barry and Elmes, 1997a; Fenton and Langley, ), rhetoric (Jarzabkowski and Sillince, ), ethnomethodology, and conversation analysis (Samra‐Fredericks, ; Whittle et al., ) as well as metaphors and analogical reasoning (Cornelissen et al., ; Heracleous and Jacobs, , ) to better understand the linguistic aspects of strategic phenomena. These different approaches provide a valuable set of theoretical and methodological resources that are adding significantly to our understanding of how language use shapes the work of strategy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Placing Strategy Discourse in Context: Sociomateriality, Sensemaking, and Power

Balogun

Jacobs

Jarzabkowski

et al. 2014

J Management Studies

246

251

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link AbstractThere has been increasing interest in the discursive aspects of strategy over the last two decades. In this editorial we review the existing literature, focusing on six major bodies of discursive scholarship: post-structural, critical discourse analysis, narrative, rhetoric, conversation analysis and metaphor. Our review reveals the significant contributions of research on strategy and discourse, but also the potential to advance research in this area by bringing together research on discursive practices and research on other practices we know to be important in strategy work. We explore the potential of discursive scholarship in integrating between significant theoretical domains (sensemaking, power and sociomateriality), and realms of analysis (institutional, organizational and the episodic), relevant to strategy scholarship. This allows us to place the papers published in the special issue Strategy as Discourse: Its Significance, Challenges and Future Directions among the body of knowledge accumulated thus far, and to suggest a way forward for future scholarship.

show abstract

Section: Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Perspectives On Strategy Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Perspectives On Strategy Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Placing Strategy Discourse in Context: Sociomateriality, Sensemaking, and Power

Balogun

Jacobs

Jarzabkowski

et al. 2014

J Management Studies

246

251

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Strategy implementation is thus central to effective strategizing. Yet, strategy implementation is complex, partially because it is critically affected by human dynamics such as resistance (Courpasson, Dany and Clegg, 2012), politics (Whittle et al, 2014) and tension (Jarzabkowski, Lê and Van de Ven, 2013). Rather than indicators of failure, such dynamics are an integral part of the way in which organizations negotiate multiple goals (Denis, Lamothe and Langley, 2001;Denis, Langley and Rouleau, 2007;Johnson, Melin and Whittington, 2003) and can improve the quality of strategy (Normann, 1977;Pettigrew, 1977).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Task and Process Conflict in Strategizing

Lê¹,

Jarzabkowski

2014

British J of Management

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link The Role of Task and Process Conflict in StrategizingThe implementation of strategic initiatives is central to organizational success (Balogun & Johnson, 2004;. Recent studies show that implementation does not simply operationalize and execute strategy, but also results in subtle adjustments or explicit reformulations of strategy content (Sminia & de Rond, 2012;Vaara & Whittington, 2012). Strategy implementation is thus central to effective strategizing. Yet, strategy implementation is complex, partially because it is critically affected by human dynamics like resistance (Courpasson et al, 2013), politics (Whittle et al, 2013) and tension (Jarzabkowski et al, 2013). Rather than indicators of failure, such dynamics are an integral part of how organizations negotiate multiple goals (Denis et al, 2001(Denis et al, , 2007Johnson et al, 2003) and can improve the quality of strategy (Normann, 1977;Pettigrew, 1977). It is thus important to understand the human dynamics underlying strategy implementation.While strategy scholars have studied the role of dynamics such as resistance, politics, and tensions during strategy implementation, little focus has been put on conflict. This is surprising as (i) conflict is specifically about incompatibility of goals, processes and relationships (De Dreu and Gelfand, 2008;Jehn and Bendersky, 2003), which are central to strategy implementation; (ii) conflict significantly impacts organizational outcomes such as performance (De Wit et al., 2012) and helps develop organizational capability (Danneels, 2008;Hinthorne, 1996); (iii) all organizations are affected by conflict to some degree (De Dreu & Gelfand, 2008); and (iv) conflict often precedes resistance, politics and tensions (Courpasson et al, 2013;Jarzabkowski et al, 2013; Whittle et al, 2013). Hence, conflict is a critical dynamic for strategist to understand.The few studies explicitly investigating conflict in the strategy process tend to focus on formulation by studying strategic decisions (e.g. Amason, 1996;Amason & Schweiger, 1994;Eisenhardt et al, 1997). Such studies show that conflict leads to increased scrutiny of information and, consequently, better decisions Kellermanns et al, 2008;Mooney et al, 2007). There has been little attention to conflict during strategy implementation (exceptions: Floyd & Lane, 2000;Regnér, 2003). Conflict is likely to impact implementation but do not know how. That is our focus.Employing a strategizing perspective, we theorize the role of human dynamics in strategy implementation, focusing on conflict. We then investigate these ideas in a detailed longitudinal study of implementing a strategy in real-time, highlighting the importance of task and process conflict. Our study shows that the interaction of task and process conflict, and the responses this interaction evokes, enables strategy to emerge as actors implement it. Both conflict types enable...

show abstract