Using Verbal Irony to Move on with Controversial Issues

Abstract

Irony is an effective means of dealing with controversy in organizations, but there is a paucity of knowledge of the various ways in which irony helps managers to do so without necessarily ‘solving’ those issues. By drawing on discursive incongruity theory, we examine the use of irony when managers are confronted with controversial issues in a multinational company. As a result, we identify and elaborate on four distinctively different pathways of how irony helps participants to move on: ‘acquiescing’ (framing understanding as having no alternative because of environmental constraints), ‘empowering’ (synthesizing a view through broad inputs from different individuals), ‘channelling’ (subsuming other interpretations under a single and often dominant view) and ‘dismissing’ (rejecting alternative interpretations and often reinforcing the status quo). On this basis, we develop a theoretical model that elucidates the process dynamics in dealing with and moving on with controversial issues and elaborates the specific characteristics of each of these four pathways. Our analysis also leads to a fuller understanding of the discursive underpinnings and intersubjective dynamics in irony use in organizations.

Common Sense, New Sense or Non‐Sense? A Critical Discursive Perspective on Power in Collective Sensemaking

“…Finally, it is useful to consider how this analysis links with the stream of research using CDS and related perspectives in organisation studies (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 2010; Fairclough, 2005; Leitch and Palmer, 2010). Critical discursive perspectives have been used in a variety of ways and have advanced our understanding of a number of theoretical issues and empirical phenomena (Kwon et al, 2020; Phillips and Lawrence, 2004; Phillips and Sewell, 2008; Vaara and Tienari, 2008; Vaara et al, 2005). Interestingly, this has sometimes meant using sensemaking terminology without paying attention to the concepts used or the linkages to sensemaking ‘theory’.…”

Testing, stretching, and aligning: Using ‘ironic personae’ to make sense of complicated issues

“…5.1 Ironic personae as means to make sense of complicated issues in organization Despite the extensive empirical and theoretical work on verbal irony within the fields of pragmatics and organizational communication, there remains a paucity of understanding of the varied ways by which forms of humorous irony and aggressive humor facilitate strategic discussions about complicated and controversial issues in organizations (Gylfe et al, 2019;Hatch, 1997;Jarzabkowski and Lê, 2017;Kwon et al, 2020;Lynch, 2009;Tracy et al, 2006).…”

“…As illustrated above, ironic personae embolden a carnivalesque atmosphere that prompts individals to engage and align around feelings and ideas that are otherwise difficult to express in a non-face threatening way, such as the micro-dynamics of verbal irony in conversation (see Kwon et al, 2020). This effect enables a dynamic where the in-group leads others to conform, or otherwise remain in the out-group.…”

The Role of Language in Organizational Sensemaking: An Integrative Theoretical Framework and an Agenda for Future Research

“…The latter aspect enables us to ask: "what structuring effects, including power effects, does language have over those making sense?" While the agentic form of analysis has been well developed through studies of sensegiving, impression management, and rhetorical strategies, there is scope to examine more underdeveloped areas, including humor and irony in the process of rhetorical persuasion (e.g., Kwon, Clarke, Vaara, Mackay, & Wodak, 2020), and questions of how sensemaking is shaped by misinformation and fake news, conspiracy counternarratives, and bullshit (Christensen, Kärreman, & Rasche, 2019;Foroughi, Gabriel, & Fotaki, 2019;Spicer, 2017).…”