Micro‐Level Discursive Strategies for Constructing Shared Views around Strategic Issues in Team Meetings

Winston Kwon; Ian Clarke; Ruth Wodak

doi:10.1111/joms.12036

Micro‐Level Discursive Strategies for Constructing Shared Views around Strategic Issues in Team Meetings

Winston Kwon¹; Ian Clarke²; Ruth Wodak³

¹ Lancaster University Management School · ² University of Edinburgh Business School · ³ Lancaster University, Department of Linguistics

Journal of Management Studies 2014

Abstract Management scholars have explored how certain actors in meetings – especially leaders – shape social processes of interaction and use different linguistic devices, as methods, to affect how sense is made of strategic issues. Less attention has been paid to interactions between members of the team as a whole and the repertoire of discursive strategies, or goal‐directed behaviours, that they deploy to create shared views around issues. We analyse rare empirical episodes of team discussions of strategic issues in board meetings to inductively conceptualize how this is achieved. To do this we use theDiscourse‐HistoricalApproach (DHA) to critical discourse analysis (CDA). We reveal five discursive strategies teams use to develop shared views around strategic issues (Re/defining,Equalizing,Simplifying,Legitimating, andReconciling) and demonstrate how they are skilfully operationalized through a range of linguistic devices or means.

DOI: 10.1111/joms.12036
Volume: 51 (2)
Pages: 265-290
Language: en
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Sources: crossref