Narrating organizational change: an applied psycholinguistic perspective on organizational identity
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Amelia Manuti
Amelia Manuti (PhD Psychology of Communication, University of Bari) is Assistant Professor in Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Bari, Italy. Her main research interests include the relation between sense-making processes and discursive practices within the organizational context (e.g., both at a formal and at an informal level of the organizational interaction); the link between organizational discourse and the process of organizing (i.e., exploring how language concretely shapes organizational identity through the use of specific rhetorical strategies such as metaphors, metadiscursive cues, argumentation, etc.); a critical approach to communicative practices within the workplace, thus investigating the relationship between power and discourse. Address for correspondence: Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology and Communication, University of Bari, Italy.
and
Giuseppe Mininni
Giuseppe Mininni is Full Professor of Psychology of Communication and Cultural Psychology at the University of Bari. His main interests are pragmatics and social psychology of discourse. Address for correspondence: Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology and Communication, University of Bari, Italy.
Abstract
According to the traditional mainstream perspective in organizational research, organizations are conceptualized as environments basically oriented toward the production of goods and services and/or to the implementation of the skills mastered by their operators. However, according to a narrative approach to organizations, workplaces – as well as organizations in general – could be conceived of as discursive constructions, that is, as social spaces where a thick network of narrations and discourses are informally produced and “packaged,” thus shaping and featuring the most authentic dimension of organizational identity. Therefore, in order to capture the actual ethos of an organizational context, researchers should be ready to disentangle the network of collective narrations and discourses which is shaped through and by the shared and/or contested/negotiated practices of accounting. In line with such premises, the paper analyzes a corpus of empirical evidence, collected within the organizational context through focus group discussions, in an attempt to show how discursive and narrative cues actually work as yeast for the self, even within a critical moment of transition, such as organizational change, which challenged cohesion and stability of both organizational and individual identities.
About the authors
Amelia Manuti (PhD Psychology of Communication, University of Bari) is Assistant Professor in Work and Organizational Psychology at the University of Bari, Italy. Her main research interests include the relation between sense-making processes and discursive practices within the organizational context (e.g., both at a formal and at an informal level of the organizational interaction); the link between organizational discourse and the process of organizing (i.e., exploring how language concretely shapes organizational identity through the use of specific rhetorical strategies such as metaphors, metadiscursive cues, argumentation, etc.); a critical approach to communicative practices within the workplace, thus investigating the relationship between power and discourse. Address for correspondence: Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology and Communication, University of Bari, Italy.
Giuseppe Mininni is Full Professor of Psychology of Communication and Cultural Psychology at the University of Bari. His main interests are pragmatics and social psychology of discourse. Address for correspondence: Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology and Communication, University of Bari, Italy.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Interaction in early modern news discourse: the case of English witchcraft pamphlets and their prefaces (1566–1621)
- Constructing “Remorse”: the preparation of social discourses for public consumption
- Narrating organizational change: an applied psycholinguistic perspective on organizational identity
- Personification and ideology in the American media coverage of the Iranian Green Revolution
- Economy is an organism – a comparative study of metaphor in English and Russian economic discourse
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Interaction in early modern news discourse: the case of English witchcraft pamphlets and their prefaces (1566–1621)
- Constructing “Remorse”: the preparation of social discourses for public consumption
- Narrating organizational change: an applied psycholinguistic perspective on organizational identity
- Personification and ideology in the American media coverage of the Iranian Green Revolution
- Economy is an organism – a comparative study of metaphor in English and Russian economic discourse
