"This is serious": enacting authority during managerial conversations

Abstract

AIMS | « M@n@gement » 2018/1 Vol. 21 | pages 611 à 645 Article disponible en ligne à Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour AIMS. © AIMS. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info ---44.224.250.200 -04/07/2020 09:55 -© AIMS Document téléchargé depuis www.cairn.info ---44.224.250.200 -04/07/2020 09:55 -© AIMS M@n@gement 2018 vol. 21(1): 611-645Abstract. This research aims at understanding how executives and managers interactively accomplish authority relationships through their communicative practices and how these processes give rise to power relationships in conversations. We analyze in depth three conversations in which executives of the French car manufacturer Renault accused three managers of having sold proprietary data to a foreign company. The conversations were recorded by Renault and later were leaked to the press. Following Discursive Psychology, we identify the pattern of discursive devices on which the executives and the managers relied to coconstruct authority. Our findings show that the enactment of authority relationships relies on the combination and adaptation of various discursive devices, through which: 1) the executives speak, give information and/or orders, interrogate and/or accuse in the name of the organization; and, 2) the managers react-frequently denying they committed an offensebut never contest the executives' rights to behave like they do. Four main contributions are outlined. First, the study shows how the enactment of authority actually relies on the power struggles that unfold during the conversation. Second, the authority accomplished during the interactions may mean different configurations of rights going from speaking in the name of the organization to interrogating, accusing and even sentencing the subordinates. Third, the enactment of authority does not necessarily fall in the compliance/resistance alternative, but can exhibit more or less alignment between the superior and its subordinate. Finally, the accomplishment of authority relies on a palette of discursive devices, the effects of which cannot be interpreted without taking into account the actual reactions of the participants.

“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working

“…Managers largely draw on space and materiality as apparatuses of government (Foucault, 1977) to construct discourses and perceptions that manage the meaning of their role as managers. In line with current research on performativity in organizations, our research thus contributes to a relational consideration of authority and the revelation of its socio-material dimension (Bourgoin et al, 2019) as a social process and a co-constituted, continual accomplishment (Allard-Poesi & Laroche, 2018;Taylor & Van Every, 2014).…”

“…However, recent research has shown that its enactment and justification in organizational contexts also rely on a set of discursive practices. Managerial authority often gives rise to power struggles, negotiations, and various political actions and relationships (Allard-Poesi & Laroche, 2018). Managerial authority indeed depends on others' perceptions and negotiations to exist as such and persist over time, such that managerial authority cannot be performed or enacted without the implicit acquiescence of others embedded in a specific political context.…”

“…In particular, they have disrupted taken-for-granted supervisory arrangements, based on direct supervision and the visibility of employees (Sewell & Taskin, 2015). Characterized by fragmentation (Kallinikos, 2003), liquefaction (Bauman, 2000), distantiation (Taskin, 2010), and "dis-location" of managers (Halford, 2005), subordinates, and peers, NWW imply that employees are less visible and escape managers' direct supervision (Allard-Poesi & Laroche, 2018). The capacity to decouple work activity from the physical constraints imposed by offices indeed alters managers' visibility over employees and, as such, the disciplinary force they can exert on their conduct (Sewell, 2012).…”