Organizational Discourse. A Language‐Ideology‐Power Perspective

Citation

Tampere, K. (2007), "Organizational Discourse. A Language‐Ideology‐Power Perspective", Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 214-215. https://doi.org/10.1108/13563280710744865

John and Renata Fox wrote quite a “fresh” and interesting book about organizational discourse. This book's focus is special – we are not talking about organizational discourses from language‐power‐ideology perspective very often. I realised in organization's management practice, and also in scientific field, that talking about organizations from ideology view of point is some kind of taboo. But John and Renata Fox are opening up these themes from a very practical, and also from an interesting and innovative theoretical point of view. For corporate communications practitioners and also for scientists this book is important – because of the presentation of a new way of thinking in organizational communication processes. Very inspiring and also sophisticated for the reader is author's way of criticising some traditional ways to look for organizational communication processes. Their criticism is delicate and argued very logically by its nature. In my opinion, authors are against routines in thinking, they are trying to destroy stereotypes about organizations, also from academic point of view.

As authors are saying:

When thinking of corporations, most of us take them – and their goods and services – for granted. We think of them simply as entities signified by names and acronyms such as Aventis, Honda, Microsoft, Nestle, Shell, BMW, BP, GE, HP, IBM, and so on. This is a convenient and necessary illusion; in reality a corporation is a dynamic and eruptive process of movement, change, and production. The taken‐for‐granted impression of a corporation as an entity is a result of order imposed upon disorder. That which imposes order is, of course, power … A power practiced not through coercion but through consent – that is, through cultural processes such as language and ideology (Fox and Fox, 2004, p. xi).

In the preface of book the authors ask some questions: How do corporations (and people in corporations) use language and ideologies to practice power through consent? What is that language about? What are those ideologies about? What are the effects of those cultural processes on society? (Fox and Fox, 2004, p. xi)

The authors promise in the beginning of book (Fox and Fox, 2004, p. xi):

Answers to these questions, it might be expected, would be found in organizational discourse (OD): a filed of study focused on researching discourse – language in social action – in organizations and its influence upon organizational structure and behavior,

In the book all together we can find seven parts and 19 subchapters. Introduction is opening up authors' research perspective, also defining important notions as ideology, legitimacy power, etc.

In Part II authors are talking about corporate public discourse (CPD), also defining CPD and presenting the four concurrent functions of CPD. In this part, they are also opening up a corporate ideology concept and talking about a total corporate communication approach. According to Balmer and Gray (2000, p. 260 cited via Fox and Fox, 2004, p. 25) authors are writing that:

… the inseparability of corporate identity, corporate communication, corporate image, and corporate reputation has been captured in a total corporate communication approach whereby everything an organization says, makes and does is seen to communicate.

In same part authors are also talking about organizational politics. “Within organizational studies, a corporation's ideology is treated as a domain of organizational politics,” authors are talking (Fox and Fox, 2004, p. 29). By content similar things (as organizational communication, identity, management, etc.) are presented in different studies, but present authors choice to use words from political science – as ideology, power, politics, nomenclature, etc. – is in my opinion very groovy and delineate. Using such unusual language (terms) for organizational studies, authors are handling more deeply and purport their research materials.

In Part III, authors are talking also about corporate management – from a disclosure of power, leadership, and social position point of view. Part IV is analyzing media of CPD, also mass media and CPD. Part V is presenting authors quantitative analyses results, and Part VI is presenting specific research perspectives.

In my opinion, Part VI and Chapter 19 are especially interesting, where authors are presenting the theory of CPD and an interdisciplinary approach:

OD offers the unique potential of providing organizational studies … Organizational studies are claimed to be multidisciplinary, they still rely primarily on accredited – and therefore seemingly dependable and orderly – theories, notably, management theory, a theory of organization, human resource management, and organizational studies, such as, for example, a theory of CPD as developed in this book, might initially seem to bring chaos to the field of organizational studies and make it unstable. The acknowledgment of such an (unfamiliar) theory by researches in organizational studies will, we assume, initiate a major shift of organizational studies' research parameters from resisting such theories towards supporting them.

 Accordingly, organizational studies theories, which under the currently dominant paradigm are considered supportive, will suddenly start to appear stagnant and regressive. Vice versa, nonaccredited theories considered resistive will suddenly start to appear creative and progressive … (Fox and Fox, 2004, p. 184).

Special additional value of the present book comes also from practical examples – case studies and analyses of such kind of huge corporations as Schell, IBM, etc.

And last but not least – this is important approach for young practitioners and researchers, and also place for deep musing point for older generation. I personally, with my long practical communication manager experience and also with my academic researcher experience, got a very “fresh” emotion, I was happy to read this material, because I recognized quite often my own feelings and deep secret thoughts, which I had not enough knowledge to fix in my own book. I'm happy that John and Renata did it.