Organizational decision-making discourse and power: integrating across contexts and scales

Kwon, W and Clarke, I M and Wodak, R (2009) Organizational decision-making discourse and power: integrating across contexts and scales. Discourse and Communication, 3 (3). pp. 273-302. ISSN 1750-4813

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Abstract

Research has downplayed the complex discursive processes and practices through which decisions are constructed and blurs the relationship between macro- and micro-levels. The article argues for a critical and ecologically valid approach that articulates how discursive practices are influenced by, and in turn shape, the organizational settings in which they occur. It makes a methodological contribution using decision-making episodes of a senior management team meeting of a multinational company to demonstrate the insights that can be obtained from embedding the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) within a longitudinal ethnography. The approach illuminates the latent and intricate power dynamics and range of potentials of agents, triangulating micro-level discursive strategies with macro-level historical sources and background knowledge on the social and political fields. The article also makes a theoretical contribution by demonstrating the dependency of decision outcomes on often unpredictable and subtle changes in the power—context relationship.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Discourse and Communication
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3310
Subjects:
?? linguistics and languagecommunication ??
ID Code:
27252
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
09 Oct 2009 11:11
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
25 Sep 2024 00:21