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Despite increasing interest in the narratives of entrepreneurial failure, the understanding of how entrepreneurs reconstruct their identity as they advance from experiences of failure to new ventures remains partial. Based on a narrative analysis of 49 entrepreneurs' experiences, we uncover three narrative types used by entrepreneurs when moving on: shielding, transformation, and authenticity. In particular, we elaborate on how the entrepreneurs employ specific discursive practices in their narratives to deal with three central aspects of identity reconstruction: construction of responsibility, identity transition, and identity validation. Thus, our analysis elucidates the narrative underpinnings of dealing with failure and deepens our understanding of entrepreneurial identity construction in the context of moving on.

In this article, based on a Symposium held at the 2022 Academy of Management Meeting, we present a moderated discussion between established scholars in the field of grand challenges—Shahzad (Shaz) Ansari, Natalie Slawinski, and Eero Vaara—focusing on the role of institutional, paradox, and practice theories in research on grand challenges. Our goal for the symposium was to bring these theoretical perspectives into conversation, reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the lenses, and discuss potential intersections for future research on grand challenges. We present the panelists’ prepared remarks as well as the interactive discussion covering four topics: the limitations of existing concepts and theories, materiality, impact, and relations between theory and practice. As part of these four discussion topics, we also present questions and reflections from the audience. We conclude by summarizing insights gleaned from the symposium about critical gaps and avenues for future research.

Miten Helsingin Sanomien tuottavuuskeskustelu rakentaa institutionaalista todellisuutta? Miten eri näkökulmia legitimoidaan? Miten keskustelu heijastaa instituutioiden historiaa? Tutkimukseni etsii vastausta näihin kysymyksiin. Työni asettuu osaksi diskursiivisen legitimoinnin tukimusta, joka kuuluu institutionaalisen teorian tutkimusalaan ja laajemmin organisaatiotutkimukseen. Tutkimuskysymykseni ovat yhteiskunnallisesti olennaisia, koska tuottavuus on taloudellisen hyvinvoinnin perusta. Tuottavuuskeskustelu ulottuu laajemmalle alueelle yhteiskunnassa kuin tuottavuuskäsitteen määritelmän mukainen soveltamisalue. Siksi on luontevaa tutkia diskurssianalyyttisesti, miten tuottavuuskeskustelu itsessään legitimoi instituutioita. Helsingin Sanomien tuottavuuskeskustelu jäsentyy neljään diskurssiin: työ, kansantalous, digitalisaatio ja kehitys. Tuottavuuskeskustelu rakentuu institutionalisoituneista käsitteistä. Institutionalisoitumisella tarkoitan, että käsitteellä on vakiintunut merkitys, jota ei juuri pohdita. Esimerkiksi osallistumisesta puhutaan mainitsematta, mihin osallistutaan. Osallistumisen merkitykset ovat abstrakteja. Työtä tekemällä voi osallistua bruttokansantuotteen kasvattamiseen. Merkittävin instituutio tuottavuuskeskustelussa on työmarkkina. Työmarkkina on alun perin ollut teoreettinen malli työn kysynnän ja tarjonnan kohtaannolle. Tuottavuuskeskustelussa työmarkkinat ovat kuitenkin joukko organisaatioita ja vakiintuneita toimintatapoja. Kohtaanto-ongelma ei ole työmarkkinan keskeinen merkitys vaan yksi työmarkkinainstituutioiden toimintaan vaikuttava tekijä. Tuottavuuskeskustelussa tärkeimmät legitimointistrategiat ovat moralisointi, rationalisointi ja normalisointi. Moralisoinnin ydinsanoma on, että jotkin tavat osallistua yhteiskuntaan ovat parempia kuin toiset. Rationalisointi sopii luontevasti tuottavuuskeskusteluun. Tuotanto, tuottavuus ja rationaalisuus ovat teollisen yhteiskunnan peruspilareita. Normalisointi esiintyy tuottavuuskeskustelussa enne, How does productivity discourse in Helsingin Sanomat construct institutional reality? How does the discourse legitimize different perspectives? How does the discourse reflect the history of the institutions? With these research questions, I build on the earlier research on discursive legitimization. This research can be classified as organization research using institutional theory. My research questions are practically relevant, because productivity is a key factor for economic performance. Productivity discourse is used in larger contexts than the context where productivity as an economic measure has been defined. That is why it is relevant to research how the productivity discourse itself legitimizes institutions. The research material in Helsingin Sanomat can be classified into four discourses: work, national economy, digitalization and development. The discourse builds on institutionalized concepts. The concepts are routinely used without analyzing or describing their meaning. For example, the word participation is routinely used without any target of participation. The meanings of participation are abstract. Working is participation into the growth of the gross domestic product. Labor market is the most prevalent institution in productivity discourse. Originally, labor market is a theoretical abstraction of matching the supply and demand of labor. However, in the productivity discourse, labor market is a set of organizations and ways of working. Matching or not matching the supply and demand of labor are just factors that affect the labor market institutions. The most prevalent legitimation strategies in productivity discourse are moralization, rationalization and normalization. Moralization can be summarized so that some ways to participate into society are better than others. Rationalization is a natural strategy in discourse about production, productivity and rationality. Normalization practically means that the discourse does not question the institutional

Research Summary This paper examines how strategy-makers attempt to reconcile change initiatives with organizational values and principles laid out long before, still encased in strategic identity statements such as corporate mottos and philosophies. It reveals three discursive strategies that strategy-makers use to establish a sense of continuity in time of change: elaborating (transferring part of the content of the historical statement into a new one), recovering (forging a new statement based on the retrieval and re-use of historical references), and decoupling (allowing the co-existence of the historical statement and a contemporary one). By so doing, our study advances research on uses of the past, establishes important linkages between identity and strategy research, and enhances our understanding of the intergenerational transfer of values in family firms. Managerial Summary Crafting a new corporate philosophy or mission statement can help implement strategic change, but can also be experienced as a disruption in people's sense of "who we are" as an organization. This paper reveals a variety of strategies that managers can use to deal with the tension between promoting change and maintaining a sense of continuity with a distant, revered past. By doing so, it helps managers confronting these issues deal with the enabling and constraining effects of the past. While this is a more general challenge for organizations with historical legacies, it is a particularly delicate issue for family firms grappling with the need to transfer values from one generation to the next, while retaining flexibility to change and adapt over time.

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.

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.

This thesis examines media discourses related to a mergers and acquisitions process concerning Finnish cranes and industrial lifting equipment manufacturer and service provider Konecranes. The focus is on investigating legitimation dynamics and various strategies utilized to discursively construct legitimacy in the media. Past research has examined legitimation strategies and dynamics in M&As but little is known of the evolution of such dynamics in times of strategic change. Therefore, particular attention is paid to the changes in these strategies over time when an intended merger is cancelled and an acquisition takes place. The objective of this study is to answer the following research questions: ““What are the discursive legitimation dynamics and strategies in a merger and acquisition process?” and “How do these dynamics evolve over time when a merger is cancelled and an acquisition takes place?”. By adopting discourse analysis as a qualitative research method, I examine the micro-level processual dynamics of legitimation in the media. My data consists of 201 media accounts covering the M&A process. These are gathered from four Finnish newspapers and a magazine. Through abduction, I identify five independent and one dependent discursive strategies utilized in the media to (de)construct legitimacy. Rationalization, authorization, normalization, moralization, narrativization and politicization are demonstrated to be utilized both intentionally and unintentionally to either legitimate or delegitimate organizational actions. My findings indicate that legitimation strategies are utilized in various ways during different periods of a M&A process. It is shown that rationalization and authorization function as primary strategies and that when a merger is cancelled and an acquisition takes place, intentional legitimation efforts focus on positive aspects of the new deal instead of comparison between the two. I also argue that the amount and nature of source material avai

This paper marks a departure from the focus on external stakeholders in much research on legitimacy and Multinational Corporations, adopting a social psychological approach to study how MNCs build internal legitimacy for controversial decisions with their subsidiaries. We explore this through a longitudinal, real-time qualitative case study of a regional office relocation, since office relocations represent rare yet significant strategic decisions. We analyze the interplay between the legitimation strategies of senior managers and subsidiary legitimacy judgments, based in instrumental, relational, and moral considerations, and how the relationship between the two develops over time. From this analysis we derive inductively a process model that reveals the dynamics of building internal legitimacy with subsidiaries, and how an MNC moves on even in the absence of full legitimacy, when dealing with controversial MNC decisions. The model highlights two important dynamics. The first is a dynamic between legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments and how this is influenced by local subsidiary contexts. The second is a temporal dynamic in how both the legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments evolve over time. Our model contributes to research on legitimacy in MNCs, what we know about tensions that characterize MNC sub-unit relationships, and research on headquarters relocation.

This paper focuses on research on the “human side” of global mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We argue that there is a need for a more fine-grained understanding of the “human side,” which requires conceptualizing M&As as practice-oriented processes. Drawing on the practice approach, we outline avenues for further research on the “human side” of global M&As. The research directions include (1) multilayered identity dynamics, (2) emotional processes, (3) participation and change agency, (4) resistance, (5) human resource management (HRM) practices and tools, and (6) new forms of communication.

This paper focuses on research on the “human side” of global mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We argue that there is a need for a more fine-grained understanding of the “human side,” which requires conceptualizing M&As as practice-oriented processes. Drawing on the practice approach, we outline avenues for further research on the “human side” of global M&As. The research directions include (1) multilayered identity dynamics, (2) emotional processes, (3) participation and change agency, (4) resistance, (5) human resource management (HRM) practices and tools, and (6) new forms of communication.

This paper marks a departure from the focus on external stakeholders in much research on legitimacy and Multinational Corporations, adopting a social psychological approach to study how MNCs build internal legitimacy for controversial decisions with their subsidiaries. We explore this through a longitudinal, real-time qualitative case study of a regional office relocation, since office relocations represent rare yet significant strategic decisions. We analyze the interplay between the legitimation strategies of senior managers and subsidiary legitimacy judgments, based in instrumental, relational, and moral considerations, and how the relationship between the two develops over time. From this analysis we derive inductively a process model that reveals the dynamics of building internal legitimacy with subsidiaries, and how an MNC moves on even in the absence of full legitimacy, when dealing with controversial MNC decisions. The model highlights two important dynamics. The first is a dynamic between legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments and how this is influenced by local subsidiary contexts. The second is a temporal dynamic in how both the legitimation strategies and legitimacy judgments evolve over time. Our model contributes to research on legitimacy in MNCs, what we know about tensions that characterize MNC sub-unit relationships, and research on headquarters relocation.

New organizational structures where employees have equal decision-making power have been introduced and the overall atmosphere in business has been shifting towards more inclusive organizations. It has been claimed that flat and democratic organizations represent the new generation of organizations in general. Also, in Finland the role and power to influence employees rise a lot of debate in the field of business and mass media at the moment. Giving power to the employees is seen as a tool to create commitment and agile ways to serve the customer. Finnish working life and companies are very inclusive compared to other parts of the world. We have a long history in involving employees via employee representatives, but there are also many young companies that see the role of employees in a completely new way. However, the majority of companies in Finland have a long history and can be perceived as traditional. What role employees currently have in these companies when it comes to decision-making? This thesis work is to study the role employees have in strategy work and strategic decision-making in organizations that are perceived traditional. In this qualitative multi-case research, the research data was collected through semi-structured interviews with altogether 32 employees from three different-sized industrial production companies. The interviewees represent different levels of the organization from the production employees to top management. Data analysis was conducted as an iterative and explorative process, where data was transcripted, categorized and synthesized. Finally, the research findings were discussed with existing literature in order to improve the finding’s validity. According to the study findings, participation in strategy is seen very differently compared to participation in decision-making. There were also big differences between the different employee groups represented. The production employees (blue-collars) were largely satisfied with

Mergers and acquisitions are common in today’s business world. However, they do not always end up as profitable as expected since a large part of them fails. The people aspect in these mergers has been found more and more important lately, as well as the post-merger integration. Post-merger integration is a crucial phase in the merger success and this thesis focuses on the role of organizational culture in post-merger integration. This thesis presents an intensive single-case study about company Eniram, which was acquired by Wärtsilä in the summer 2016. The focus is on the employees of Eniram and how they have experienced the change of organizational culture in the post-merger integration phase and what the biggest cultural challenges and factors contributing to the development of these cultural challenges are. The primary data for this thesis was collected through qualitative semi-structured interviews and it was combined with secondary data from employee satisfaction surveys, exit interviews and the researcher’s own observations at the workplace. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that cultural clashes, weak cultural knowledge, resistance to change, distrust and injustice as well as engagement and motivational challenges were experienced challenging by the employees in the post-merger integration. The main findings for the factors contributing to the development of these challenges were the cultural differences in the companies’ ways of working, weak communication, poor involvement of employees and the remaining identification with the old organization. These were experienced in all organizational levels and throughout the different teams. Thus, the practical implications of this thesis are to emphasize the importance of HR practices, suh as diminishing the cultural differences and creating new common culture, two-way communication, involvement of employees and helping the employees to change their identities. These factors enable the merger success and to

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how shutdowns are legitimated in the media coverage of four recent shutdown cases. A specific approach to metaphors as vehicles of legitimation is adopted. Thereby, the study contributes to the research focusing on discursive construction of the sense of legitimacy in organizational restructurings. The research question the study aims at answering is: “How are metaphors used to legitimate shutdowns and related layoffs in Finnish media texts?” A critical discourse analysis approach is adopted and applied on a data set of 107 articles covering four Finnish shutdown cases and collected from five Finnish newspapers. The data set is analyzed by identifying metaphorical expressions and categorizing them into thematic groups. Finally, underly-ing metaphorical thought concepts are suggested and their potential implications for the sense of legitimacy of the shutdowns discussed. The findings reveal that metaphors are frequently used to discuss shutdowns and that the most recurring metaphors are those related to war, sports, journey, and life and death. Based on this observation, it is concluded that metaphors engage in both legiti-mating and resisting shutdowns by portraying them in terms of one or several of these categories.

It is more and more common that international organizations select team members and leaders based on their skills and capabilities without restricting the choice with physical location, and not even asking the selected person to move closer to the team. It is also more and more common to work in a multicultural team, where team members are from many different nationalities and represent different cultures with different mother tongues. Multicultural teams with many languages and a remote leader are the three elements of work life this research is focused on. The literature related to this research includes topics on remote leadership, cross-cultural teams and language related issues. Remote leadership and the implications of it have not been studied by the academic world very much yet. This field of study is extremely interesting and very timely, as the improvements in technology provide the organizations vast possibilities in re-organizing teams based on skills rather than physical location, and thus non-co-located teams and remote leadership are trends that are here to stay. With these new possibilities, the number of cross-cultural teams with multiple languages will increase especially in international organizations. A research that combines the three elements gives important insights on how everything is intertwined and how organizations should prepare their employees when a set-up of this type is planned. This research is a qualitative case study to an international company. The research question of this study is: “What are the opportunities and challenges of having a leader in a different country and from a different culture?” The study focuses on exploring the implications of remote leadership to the team, the leader, and the organization. This study also explores the effects cross-cultural teams with different cultures and mother tongues have on the team performance. The research was done by selecting three units from the case company, all with a Swedish rem, Yhä useammissa kansainvälisissä yrityksissä työntekijät ja johtajat valitaan heidän taitojensa ja kykyjensä perusteella. Henkilön fyysisen sijainnin ei anneta vaikuttaa valintaan, eikä valitun henkilön odoteta muuttavan lähemmäs tiimiään. Yhä useammin tiimit koostuvat eri kansallisuuksista ja eri kulttuureista, ja tiimin jäsenet puhuvat eri kieliä äidinkielinään. Tämä tutkimus keskittyy tutkimaan monikulttuurisia tiimejä, joissa puhutaan montaa kieltä, ja joita johtaa etäjohtaja. Kirjallisuus joka tutkimukseeni liittyy, sisältää etäjohtajuuteen, monikulttuurisuuteen sekä kieleen liittyviä aiheita. Etäjohtajuutta ja sen vaikutusta työyhteisöön ei ole tutkittu kovinkaan runsaasti vielä. Aihealue on erittäin mielenkiintoinen ja ajankohtainen, koska teknologian kehityksen mukanaan tuomat muutokset antavat yrityksille mahdollisuuksia muokata ja koota tiimejä aivan uusilla tavoilla. Tiimit voidaan luoda taitojen ja kykyjen perusteella, eikä henkilöiden tarvitse olla fyysisesti samassa toimistossa. Etäjohtajuus ja fyysisesti hajallaan sijaitsevat tiimit ovat työelämän trendejä, jotka ovat tulleet jäädäkseen. Teknologian suomien uusien mahdollisuuksien takia myös monikulttuuriset tiimit, joissa puhutaan montaa eri kieltä, lisääntyvät erityisesti kansainvälisissä organisaatioissa. Tutkimus, joka yhdistää nämä kolme elementtiä, tuottaa tärkeää tietoa kuinka nämä asiat yhdistyvät toisiinsa ja kuinka yritykset voivat valmentaa työntekijöitään työskentelemään etäjohtajan johtamassa monikulttuurisessa ja monikielisessä ympäristössä. Tämä tutkimus on laadullinen tutkimus, joka toteutettiin kansainväliselle yritykselle. Tutkimuskysymys johon etsittiin vastausta, on: ”Minkälaisia mahdollisuuksia ja haasteita eri maassa oleva ja erimaalainen johtaja tiimiin tuo?” Tutkimus keskittyy löytämään etäjohtajuuden vaikutukset sekä tiimille, johtajalle että työyhteisölle. Monikulttuurisuuden ja monikielisyyden vaikutuksia tiimin toimintaan arvioidaan myös. Tutkimus toteutettiin valitsemalla k

Managing strategic change is a challenge, especially in the large multinational companies that dominate the business arena of today. Utilizing and leveraging the middle management can be an effective way to facilitate strategy implementation and thus manage strategic change initiatives. This study investigates the role of middle managers as change agents in strategic change and seeks to investigate their role in the strategic change process. In addition, the aspects potentially hindering and on the other hand facilitating the work of these change agents is also explored in this study. This research is as a case study on a network of change agents at Nokia Corporation. Thus, the context of this study is a network of change agents – the Nokia Change Management Network within the Operations-function. The individuals of this network, called change managers, are industry specialists working partly with change management within their organizational units, in which they are responsible for making change happen. The role of these change agents was reflected on strategic management literature, especially from a strategy practice perspective, and also on the research conducted on the middle manager role in strategizing. The empirical part of this study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 18 of these change managers in the research context. The strategic role of the change managers was in accordance with the roles mapped out in the strategic management literature: they synthesize information from various sides of the organization and raise topics upwards in the organization. They also promote, communicate and implement change downward towards the operational levels of the organization. In addition to these tasks, change managers must personally understand the change and assist others in strategic sensemaking. The challenges change managers experienced were related to time and resource pressure, the interconnections between strategy and change and the virtual

Mergers and acquisitions continue to be prevalent despite frequently yielding disappointing outcomes. Post-merger integration plays a critical role in M&A success, yet many questions about M&A implementation remain unanswered. We review research on post-merger integration, which we organize around key themes of reconfiguration and renewal; culture; identity; justice; trust; and learning. We lay out a research agenda that centers on understanding and explicating dynamic processes. We focus on opportunities related to temporality; emotions; practices, tools and learning; networks; and decision-making processes.

Mergers and acquisitions continue to be prevalent despite frequently yielding disappointing outcomes. Post-merger integration plays a critical role in M&A success, yet many questions about M&A implementation remain unanswered. We review research on post-merger integration, which we organize around key themes of reconfiguration and renewal; culture; identity; justice; trust; and learning. We lay out a research agenda that centers on understanding and explicating dynamic processes. We focus on opportunities related to temporality; emotions; practices, tools and learning; networks; and decision-making processes.

While research on strategy-making has begun to focus attention on identity construction, we nevertheless lack a critical understanding of the ways in which socio-historical understandings of strategy are (re)constructed at the level of identity. In this article, we draw on Judith Butler’s theorizing on performative subject formation—first to explore identity constructions grounded in the simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the socio-historical discourses of strategy and second to consider the subversion of discourses and identities enabled by this simultaneity. We distinguish between three performative identity constructions and demonstrate that by submitting to specific understandings of strategy discourses such as the illusion of control (the analytical strategist), omnipotence (the strategic leader), and personal glory (the state-of-the-art strategist), managers face the unattainability of these projects, which drives them to increase their mastery of the dominant discourses in order to win acceptance from others. Highlighting the dynamics of identity construction in strategy-making, we argue that subversion of the dominant discourses and identities is at best subtle. This enables us to better comprehend the persistence of dominant conceptions and related problems in strategy-making such as the overemphasis on technical rationality, anxiety in the face of uncertainty, heightened expectations of heroism, and the inability to engage in genuine dialogue with others and to consider broader social and societal issues as part of strategy-making.

We study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm’s history, building on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors’ narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia’s metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies, and thus, warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.

Although narrative analysis has made significant advances in organization and management studies, scholars have not yet unleashed its full potential. This review provides an understanding of key issues in organizational narrative analysis with a focus on the role of narratives in organizational stability and change. We start by elaborating on the characteristics of organizational narratives to provide a conceptual framework for organizational narrative analysis. We elaborate on three key approaches to narrative analysis on stability and change: realist, interpretative and poststructuralist approaches. We then review several topic areas where narrative analysis has so far offered the most promise: organizational change, identity, strategy, entrepreneurship and personal change. Finally, we identify important issues that warrant attention in future research, both theoretically and methodologically.

Despite the proliferation of strategy process and practice research, we lack understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices. In this paper, we present three historical approaches with the potential to remedy this deficiency. First, realist history can contribute to a better understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes; in particular, comparative historical analysis can explicate the historical conditions, mechanisms, and causality in strategic processes. Second, interpretative history can add to our knowledge of the historical embeddedness of strategic practices, and microhistory can specifically help to understand the construction and enactment of these practices in historical contexts. Third, poststructuralist history can elucidate the historical embeddedness of strategic discourses, and genealogy can in particular increase our understanding of the evolution and transformation of strategic discourses and their power effects. Thus, this paper demonstrates how in their specific ways historical approaches and methods can add to our understanding of different forms and variations of strategic processes and practices, the historical construction of organizational strategies, and historically constituted strategic agency.

The paper advances our understanding of managerial identity work in the context of HQ-subsidiary relations. We argue that a key part of this identity work is related to cultural stereotypes. On the basis of an analysis of two Finland-based MNCs operating in Russia, the paper elucidates three forms of stereotype-based identity work with enabling or constraining power implications. The first form, stereotypical talk, refers to identity work whereby managers enact their stereotypical conceptions of ‘the other’ to bolster their self-image and ‘inferiorize’ ‘the other’. The second form, reactive talk, is identity work that emerges as a reaction to stereotypical talk whereby managers aim at renegotiating the proposed social arrangement for their own benefit. Finally, the third form, self-reflexive talk, refers to identity work whereby managers attempt to go beyond the social arrangement produced through stereotypical and reactive talk by distancing themselves in a self-reflexive manner from essentialist cultural conceptions. Overall, the paper offers an initial attempt to elucidate how stereotype-based identity work is used to justify or resist existing power structures and power asymmetries in HQ-subsidiary relations within the MNC.

Although narrative analysis has made significant advances in organization and management studies, scholars have not yet unleashed its full potential. This review provides an understanding of key issues in organizational narrative analysis with a focus on the role of narratives in organizational stability and change. We start by elaborating on the characteristics of organizational narratives to provide a conceptual framework for organizational narrative analysis. We elaborate on three key approaches to narrative analysis on stability and change: realist, interpretative and poststructuralist approaches. We then review several topic areas where narrative analysis has so far offered the most promise: organizational change, identity, strategy, entrepreneurship and personal change. Finally, we identify important issues that warrant attention in future research, both theoretically and methodologically.

While research on strategy-making has begun to focus attention on identity construction, we nevertheless lack a critical understanding of the ways in which socio-historical understandings of strategy are (re)constructed at the level of identity. In this article, we draw on Judith Butler’s theorizing on performative subject formation—first to explore identity constructions grounded in the simultaneity of submitting to and mastering the socio-historical discourses of strategy and second to consider the subversion of discourses and identities enabled by this simultaneity. We distinguish between three performative identity constructions and demonstrate that by submitting to specific understandings of strategy discourses such as the illusion of control (the analytical strategist), omnipotence (the strategic leader), and personal glory (the state-of-the-art strategist), managers face the unattainability of these projects, which drives them to increase their mastery of the dominant discourses in order to win acceptance from others. Highlighting the dynamics of identity construction in strategy-making, we argue that subversion of the dominant discourses and identities is at best subtle. This enables us to better comprehend the persistence of dominant conceptions and related problems in strategy-making such as the overemphasis on technical rationality, anxiety in the face of uncertainty, heightened expectations of heroism, and the inability to engage in genuine dialogue with others and to consider broader social and societal issues as part of strategy-making.

The paper advances our understanding of managerial identity work in the context of HQ-subsidiary relations. We argue that a key part of this identity work is related to cultural stereotypes. On the basis of an analysis of two Finland-based MNCs operating in Russia, the paper elucidates three forms of stereotype-based identity work with enabling or constraining power implications. The first form, stereotypical talk, refers to identity work whereby managers enact their stereotypical conceptions of ‘the other’ to bolster their self-image and ‘inferiorize’ ‘the other’. The second form, reactive talk, is identity work that emerges as a reaction to stereotypical talk whereby managers aim at renegotiating the proposed social arrangement for their own benefit. Finally, the third form, self-reflexive talk, refers to identity work whereby managers attempt to go beyond the social arrangement produced through stereotypical and reactive talk by distancing themselves in a self-reflexive manner from essentialist cultural conceptions. Overall, the paper offers an initial attempt to elucidate how stereotype-based identity work is used to justify or resist existing power structures and power asymmetries in HQ-subsidiary relations within the MNC.

Despite the proliferation of strategy process and practice research, we lack understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes and practices. In this paper, we present three historical approaches with the potential to remedy this deficiency. First, realist history can contribute to a better understanding of the historical embeddedness of strategic processes; in particular, comparative historical analysis can explicate the historical conditions, mechanisms, and causality in strategic processes. Second, interpretative history can add to our knowledge of the historical embeddedness of strategic practices, and microhistory can specifically help to understand the construction and enactment of these practices in historical contexts. Third, poststructuralist history can elucidate the historical embeddedness of strategic discourses, and genealogy can in particular increase our understanding of the evolution and transformation of strategic discourses and their power effects. Thus, this paper demonstrates how in their specific ways historical approaches and methods can add to our understanding of different forms and variations of strategic processes and practices, the historical construction of organizational strategies, and historically constituted strategic agency.

We study the changing explanations of success and failure over the course of a firm’s history, building on a discursive approach that highlights the role of narrative attributions in making sense of corporate performance. Specifically, we analyze how the Nokia Corporation was framed first as a success and later as a failure and how these dimensions of performance were explained in various actors’ narrative accounts. In both the success and failure accounts, our analysis revealed a striking black-and-white picture that resulted in the institutionalization of Nokia’s metanarratives of success and failure. Our findings also reveal a number of discursive attributional tendencies, and thus, warn of the cognitive and politically motivated biases that are likely to characterize management literature.

This paper examines the discursive legitimation of controversial investment projects to provide a better understanding of the ways in which corporate social responsibility is constructed in international settings. On the basis of a discursive analysis of an intense dispute between Finnish, Uruguayan and Argentinean actors over a pulp mill project in Uruguay, we develop a framework that elucidates four legitimating discourses: technocratic, societal, national-political, and global-capitalist. With this framework, our analysis helps to better understand how CSR involves discourse-ideological struggles, how CSR is embedded in international relations, and how CSR is mediatized in contemporary globalizing society. By so doing, our analysis contributes to critical studies of CSR as well as research on legitimation more generally.

We conceptualize the roots of cognitive, linguistic, and communicative theories of institutions and outline the promise and potential of a stronger communication focus for institutional theory. In particular, we outline a theoretical approach that puts communication at the heart of theories of institutions, institutional maintenance, and change, and we label this approach communicative institutionalism. We then provide a brief introduction to the set of articles contained in the Special Topic Forum on Communication, Cognition, and Institutions and describe the innovative theorizing of these articles in the direction of communicative theories of institutions. Finally, we sketch a research agenda and further steps and possibilities for theory and research integrating communication and institutions.

In this paper, we focus on the role of language in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and explore how organization members’ language skills, or fluency, in the adopted lingua franca may impact their reactions to a merger. Drawing on a qualitative study of the post-merger integration between a French and Dutch airline where English was adopted as a lingua franca, we illustrate how language fluency influences the ability of individuals to give meaning to their changed circumstances. Moreover, we elaborate on how language fluency indexes social groupings and identities, and may thus be a driver of perceptions of status inequality and identity politics between different groups of employees. With our study we draw attention to the multi-faceted role of English as a lingua franca. Our findings also contribute to research on sociocultural dynamics associated with post-merger integration and the role of language in mergers and acquisitions, as well as in multinational companies more generally.

This paper examines the discursive legitimation of controversial investment projects to provide a better understanding of the ways in which corporate social responsibility is constructed in international settings. On the basis of a discursive analysis of an intense dispute between Finnish, Uruguayan and Argentinean actors over a pulp mill project in Uruguay, we develop a framework that elucidates four legitimating discourses: technocratic, societal, national-political, and global-capitalist. With this framework, our analysis helps to better understand how CSR involves discourse-ideological struggles, how CSR is embedded in international relations, and how CSR is mediatized in contemporary globalizing society. By so doing, our analysis contributes to critical studies of CSR as well as research on legitimation more generally.

In this paper, we focus on the role of language in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and explore how organization members’ language skills, or fluency, in the adopted lingua franca may impact their reactions to a merger. Drawing on a qualitative study of the post-merger integration between a French and Dutch airline where English was adopted as a lingua franca, we illustrate how language fluency influences the ability of individuals to give meaning to their changed circumstances. Moreover, we elaborate on how language fluency indexes social groupings and identities, and may thus be a driver of perceptions of status inequality and identity politics between different groups of employees. With our study we draw attention to the multi-faceted role of English as a lingua franca. Our findings also contribute to research on sociocultural dynamics associated with post-merger integration and the role of language in mergers and acquisitions, as well as in multinational companies more generally.

In this chapter we review practice-based studies that have examined the ontological and epistemological conditions for producing strategy research that proves relevant to management practice. Drawing on these works, we argue that researchers inevitably adopt a scholastic point of view, which makes it impossible to capture directly the logic of strategy practice. However, scholars can increase the practical relevance of their research by developing theories based on practical logic. We have outlined three approaches to capture the logic of management practice (1) theorizing through practical rationality, (2) the application of ‘participant objectivation’, and (3) the consideration of the dissociation process. We argue that if strategy-as-practice research builds on these insights, it can prove a particularly fruitful approach to generate knowledge that is of conceptual relevance to strategy practice.

This paper focuses on the multi-faceted role of language and language-sensitive recruitment processes in knowledge transfer in multinational corporations (MNCs). In particular, we develop a framework that helps to better understand how language-sensitive recruitment is related to competence, networks, identity and power. We started by conducting a qualitative interview-based study of 101 MNC subsidiaries. This analysis elucidates the productive and counterproductive effects of language-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer related to communication competence, networks, identity, and power. To further understanding of the productive and counterproductive effects, we conducted a quantitative study in 285 MNC subsidiaries. We found an inverted U-shaped relationship between language-sensitive recruitment and knowledge transfer. Together, these two studies provide a better understanding of the multifaceted and at times counterintuitive implications of language-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer in MNCs. By elucidating these effects, this paper contributes to the stream of research examining the role of language in MNCs and international business more generally. It also adds to research on MNC knowledge transfer that to date has focused little attention on language. By elaborating on the potential unintended consequences of language-sensitive recruitment, this paper also has implications on international human resource management research.

There has been increasing interest in the discursive aspects of strategy over the last two decades. In this paper we review the existing literature, focusing on six major bodies of discursive scholarship: post-structural, critical discourse analysis, narrative, rhetoric, conversation analysis, and metaphor. Our review reveals the significant contributions of research on strategy and discourse, but also the potential to advance research in this area by bringing together research on discursive practices and research on other practices we know to be important in strategy work. We explore the potential of discursive scholarship in integrating between significant theoretical domains (sensemaking, power, and sociomateriality), and realms of analysis (institutional, organizational, and the episodic), relevant to strategy scholarship. This allows us to place the papers published in this special issue on Strategy as Discourse: Its Significance, Challenges, and Future Directions among the body of knowledge accumulated thus far, and to suggest a way forward for future scholarship.

This article focuses on the discursive underpinnings of the legitimacy crisis that the Eurozone as a transnational institution is facing. By adopting a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective, the empirical analysis focuses on the media discussion in Finland. The analysis shows how discourses of financial capitalism, humanism, nationalism and Europeanism played a central role in legitimation, delegitimation and relegitimation. Furthermore, the analysis elaborates on the legitimation strategies that were often used in the media texts: position-based authorizations involving institutionalized authorities and ‘voices of the common man’, knowledge-based authorizations focusing on economic expertise, rationalizations concentrating on economic arguments, moral evaluations based on unfairness used especially for delegitimation, mythopoiesis involving alternative future scenarios and cosmology used to construct inevitability. By so doing, this study adds to our understanding of the discursive and ideological underpinnings of the social, political and financial crisis in Greece and other European countries and contributes to research on discursive legitimation more generally.

Although slow to enter mainstream strategy research, ethnographic methods play an important role in studies of strategy processes and practices. In this article, however, we argue that the potential of “strategic ethnography” has not yet been fully realized. In particular, we maintain that there is a need to complement conventional non-participant, observation-based ethnography with other ethnographic methods. This leads us to suggest four methods that will help advance contemporary research in strategy processes and practices: auto-ethnography which can provide a better understanding of the lived experiences of different types of strategists in different settings; video-ethnography, which allows detailed analysis of strategic practices in their sociomaterial context; comparative ethnography, which enables comparison of processes and practices in different settings, and virtual ethnography, which will further our understanding of the virtual aspects of organizational strategy work.

This chapter discusses salient concepts of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) in respect of analyzing organizational communication and discourse with a focus on decision-making. More specifically, this chapter juxtaposes Process Theory with the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) in CDS. The chapter claims that these two approaches complement each other well and that systematic linguistic analysis could contribute to a more macro-oriented process approach. Some key patterns of interaction in meetings and some discursive strategies which are highly influential in decision-making are illustrated while drawing on the range of meeting data from EU organizations from ethnography and fieldwork. Finally, in the conclusion, the salient implications of such an integrated approach are discussed.

This paper focuses on the multi-faceted role of language and language-sensitive recruitment processes in knowledge transfer in multinational corporations (MNCs). In particular, we develop a framework that helps to better understand how language-sensitive recruitment is related to competence, networks, identity and power. We started by conducting a qualitative interview-based study of 101 MNC subsidiaries. This analysis elucidates the productive and counterproductive effects of language-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer related to communication competence, networks, identity, and power. To further understanding of the productive and counterproductive effects, we conducted a quantitative study in 285 MNC subsidiaries. We found an inverted U-shaped relationship between language-sensitive recruitment and knowledge transfer. Together, these two studies provide a better understanding of the multifaceted and at times counterintuitive implications of language-sensitive recruitment on knowledge transfer in MNCs. By elucidating these effects, this paper contributes to the stream of research examining the role of language in MNCs and international business more generally. It also adds to research on MNC knowledge transfer that to date has focused little attention on language. By elaborating on the potential unintended consequences of language-sensitive recruitment, this paper also has implications on international human resource management research.

In this paper, we seek to understand how individuals, as part of a collective, commit themselves to a single, and possibly erroneous, frame, as a basis for sensemaking and coordinated actions. Using real-time data from an anti-terrorist police operation that led to the accidental shooting of an innocent civilian, we analyse how individual actors framed their circumstances in communication with one another and how this affected their subsequent interpretations and actions as events unfolded. Our analysis reveals, first, how the collective commitment to a framing of a civilian as a terrorist suicide bomber was built up and reinforced across episodes of collective sensemaking. Second, we elaborate on how the interaction between verbal communication, expressed and felt emotions, and material cues led to a contraction of meaning. This contraction stabilized and reinforced the overall framing at the exclusion of alternative interpretations. With our study we extend prior sensemaking research on environmental enactment and the escalation of commitment and elaborate on the role of emotions and materiality as part of sensemaking.