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JAB397612 JAB47210.1177/0021886310397612Grant and MarshakThe
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
1University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales,
Australia2American University, Washington, DC, USA
Corresponding Author:David Grant, Work and Organisational
Studies, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney,
Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia Email:
[email protected]
Toward a Discourse- Centered Understanding of Organizational
Change
David Grant1 and Robert J. Marshak2
Abstract
Although organizational change involves a complex set of
communicative and language-based processes, discourse-based
approaches for understanding and managing change dynamics have been
relatively underutilized by researchers and practitioners. To help
address this situation, this article advances an analytic framework
for explaining how discourse and organizational change are mutually
implicated. Drawing on the research literature, the constructive,
multilevel, conversational, political, reflexive, and recursive
nature of organizational change discourses are presented and
discussed. Implications for research and practice are then
reviewed.
Keywords
discourse theory, organizational change, constructionism and
change
IntroductionThe linguistic turn in the social sciences (Alvesson
& Krreman, 2000a) has led to the emergence of the new field of
organizational discourse studies (Grant, Hardy, Oswick, &
Putnam, 2004) and increasing interest in the relationship of
organizational discourse with change processes in organizations
(Marshak & Grant, 2008). These develop-ments are documented in,
among other places, two special issues of this journal titled
Discourses of Organizing (Vol. 36, No. 2, 2000) and Organizational
Discourse and Change (Vol. 46, No. 1, 2010). The purpose of this
discussion is to advance this line of inquiry and application by
bringing together a wide range of the extant literature to
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science47(2) 204 235
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Grant and Marshak 205
suggest an analytic framework that encompasses multiple
interrelationships involving discourse and change in
organizations.
Before proceeding to a discussion of the benefits of such a
framework and an outline of the presentation, we wish first to
highlight two discursive difficulties we experienced in writing
this article. One was wishing to speak to both researchers and
practitioners interested in organizational change and not just
discourse scholars per se. The Journal of Applied Behavioral
Science is an ideal location for such a treatment, but we were
worried if we would be too academic for practitioners or not as
thorough or detailed enough for organizational discourse
specialists. In the end, we biased ourselves toward attempting to
provide an account that is both thorough enough and applied enough
to be valuable to multiple audiences. Although we hope there will
be enough of interest for this broader audience, we fully realize
that everyone might prefer more or less depth in the various parts
of the presentation that follows.
The second difficulty is inherent to the subject matter:
organizational discourse and change from a constructionist
orientation. Put simply, we confronted the difficulty of writing
about how discourse shapes social reality, including organizational
change pro-cesses, in ways that did not tacitly imply that
discourse and change were separate and independent phenomena, as
opposed to mutually implicated aspects of the social con-struction
of change in organizations. In other words, we sought to avoid
writing in a way that implied that there are things called a
discourse or change that lie over there and exist independently
from each other and our account of them. Such a style would imply
that discourses mostly serve a function of objectively reporting
the way things are or could be. This undermines the constructionist
orientation of this discussion wherein discourses shape and convey
how things should be experienced, interpreted, and what actions
should be taken (Gergen, 2000, 2009). Instead, the position of our
discus-sion is in line with the observations made by, for example,
Ford (1999) in his study of conversation and change, that there is
no objective separation of discourse and phenom-ena; discourses
construct phenomena and phenomena do not exist independent of
dis-course (which is itself a phenomenon). We found, however, that
the challenge of detailing this dynamic to a broader audience and
focusing more on explaining discourse and change than on
constructionist philosophy was a difficult oneat least for us. As a
con-sequence, there are places that may subtly read as if we are
writing about things that exist independently from our narrative
even as we are suggesting that narratives are inher-ently
constructive. Such a reading would not be our intent.
It may also be worth mentioning here the understanding of
organizational change as used in this discussion. In most ways, we
consider organizational change to mean some alteration (something
is stopped, started, modified, etc.) in the existing organizational
arrangements (strategies, structures, systems, cultures, etc.)
and/or processes (planning, coordination, decision making, etc.).
Again, however, a constructionist and discursive orientation frames
that understanding in a more nuanced way than conventional usage.
For example, the assertion that something is an existing
arrangement is itself a discursive account that frames something in
a particular way and for particular pur-poses. Thus, in one
specific organizational context existing might imply something
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206 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
is outdated and there is a need to change to something new,
whereas in another it might imply the benefits of stability based
on proven performance. Consequently, organiza-tional change
involves both things and the discursive accounts of those things in
recursive relationships. In essence, discourses shape how people
think about things (how they talk to themselves) and therefore how
they act, and how people act and think about things shape their
discourses. Changed actions therefore can lead to changes in
conversation and changed conversation can lead to changed
behaviors.
Bearing these understandings and caveats in mind, we turn to
considering the contribution of a discourse-based analytic
framework of organizational change. We believe that providing such
a framework addresses a key limitation of most exist-ing studies
that have considered organizational change from a discursive
perspec-tive (e.g., Barrett, Thomas, & Hocevar, 1995;
Heracleous, 2002; Heracleous & Barrett, 2001; Marshak, 2002).
As valuable as these studies are in highlighting the significance
of organizational discourse in relation to organizational change,
they tend to focus on separate or segmented aspects of discourse
and change rather than providing or suggesting a more encompassing
understanding of the multiple dimen-sions and their
interrelationships. Until more integrated approaches or frameworks
are available, it therefore seems likely that discursive studies of
organizational change will remain a relatively underutilised avenue
of enquiry and that their potential con-tribution to understanding
the processes and practices of organizational change will not be
fully realized.
Aside from enhancing the development and integration of
discursive studies of organizational change, our framework is
intended to provide a number of significant and practical benefits.
First, it directs attention to the communicative practices among
participants, which are critical to effective change, and thus
provides a basis for prac-tical insights into how discursive
practices such as conversations might be managed to increase the
likelihood of effective organizational change. In this way, we
build on other scholarly examinations of the role of language in
effecting organizational change (e.g., Buchanan & Dawson, 2007;
Bushe & Marshak, 2009; Doolin, 2003; Ford, 1999; Ford &
Ford, 1995; Ford, Ford, & DAmelio, 2008; Heracleous &
Barrett, 2001; Marshak & Grant, 2008; Robichaud, Giroux, &
Taylor, 2004).
A second benefit of our framework is that it highlights the
processual and temporal aspects of organizational change and, thus,
allows us to view change as a social accom-plishment that occurs in
an iterative, ongoing fashion over time. This contrasts espe-cially
with more episodic and teleological orientations to change (Van de
Ven & Scott Poole, 1995). Specifically, the framework allows us
to track change in a continuous fashion by following the
change-related discourses used by actors on an ongoing basis rather
than trying to ascertain their beliefs at discrete points in
time.
Finally, we hope our discussion of discourse and change
facilitates the further devel-opment of theory and research that
attends to the multiple levels of analysis over which change
occurs. Such an approach is attuned to the interrelationships
between these dif-ferent levels of analysis. For example, it can
show how the language of an individual draws on discourses
operating at group, organizational, and societal levels
(Alvesson
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Grant and Marshak 207
& Krreman, 2000b; Grant et al., 2004; Hardy & Phillips,
1999; Robichaud et al., 2004).
We present our argument in four main sections. First, we present
a theoretical overview of organizational discourse in which we
highlight four concepts that are critical to a discourse-centered
understanding of change: discourse, text, context, and
conversa-tion. In the subsequent section, we introduce the
dimensions of our discourse centered framework for understanding
change. In sum, these seven dimensions suggest that how things are
framed and talked about becomes a significant context that shapes
how change agents, affected employees, and other stakeholders think
about and respond to a change related issue or situation, or even
the possibility of change itself. Then, we discuss the ways in
which this framework further legitimates and hopefully advances
interpretive and, more specifically, discourse-orientated
perspectives of change. In doing so, we consider the implications
and benefits of the framework for organizational changerelated
research and practice. A final discussion provides some summary and
concluding comments.
Organizational DiscourseIn this section, we highlight the key
theoretical approaches to research on organizational discourse that
inform our analytic framework. Most discursive studies of
organizations contribute to understanding organizational phenomena
in two significant respects (Grant et al., 2004; Hardy, 2001;
Tsoukas, 2005). First, as Hardy, Lawrence, and Grant (2005) assert,
A discursive approach to organizational phenomena is more than a
focus on language and its usage in organizations. It highlights the
ways in which language constructs organizational reality, rather
than simply reflecting it (p. 59). Research on organizational
discourse thus pays attention to how actors draw on, reproduce, and
transform discourses and demonstrates that as they do so they
create, convey, and rein-force objects and ideas that come to
constitute the social world (Alvesson & Krreman, 2000a; Keenoy,
Oswick, & Grant, 2000; Mumby & Clair, 1997). Furthermore,
it high-lights the effects of these discursive processes and
objects for organizations in terms of their impact on members
perceptions and actions (Chia, 2000; Phillips & Hardy, 2002).
In other words, discourses are both integral to and constructive of
organizational dynamics and change.
Second, discursive studies show discourses to be created and
supported via socially constructive processes that involve the
negotiation of meaning among different organi-zational stakeholders
with different views and interests (Grant et al., 2004; Hardy et
al., 2005; Phillips & Hardy, 1997, 2002). These explicit and
tacit negotiations lead to the emergence of a dominant meaning that
becomes an accepted or privileged discourse. In examining how such
dominant meanings emerge, many discursive studies of orga-nizations
have adopted a critical perspective seeking to show how different
groups use their power to shape the social reality of organizations
in ways that serve their interests (Hardy & Phillips, 2004;
Mumby, 2004; Mumby & Clair, 1997). Dominant discourses are seen
to rule in certain ways of talking about a particular
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208 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
phenomenon that are deemed as acceptable, legitimate, and
intelligible while also ruling out, limiting, or otherwise
restricting the way key actors talk about or conduct themselves in
relation to the phenomenon (Hall, 2001). At the same time, such
studies have demonstrated that although some discourses related to
a particular organizational issue may seem to dominate, their
dominance is secured as part of an ongoing strug-gle among
competing discourses that are continually reproduced or transformed
through day-to-day communicative practices (Hardy, 2001, p. 28).
Consequently, demonstrat-ing the role of power in establishing or
challenging prevailing discourses is important to understanding
organizational change.
Four concepts are critical to our discourse-based frameworks
capacity to explain organizational change: discourse, text,
context, and conversation. Discourse is instan-tiated in the daily
communicative practices that are integral to social interaction and
thus social structure (Heracleous & Barrett, 2001). Discourse
is defined as a set of inter-related texts that, along with the
related practices of text production, dissemination, and
consumption, brings an object or idea into being (Fairclough, 1992;
Hardy et al., 2005; Parker, 1992). Discourses, therefore, play a
central role in constituting reality; they produce rules, identity,
context, values, and procedures (Taylor, Cooren, Giroux, &
Robichaud, 1996) and these in turn determine social practices
through the ways in which they shape what can be said and who can
say it (Deetz, 1992; Fairclough, 1992; Hall, 2001).
Discourses are embodied in texts, which come in a wide variety
of genres (Yates & Orlikowski, 1992), including written
documents, speech acts, pictures, and symbols (Grant et al., 2004;
Hardy, 2001; Iedema, 2007; Taylor & Van Every, 1993). These
texts are used to enact a variety of textual devices such as
narrative, rhetoric, metaphor, humor, and irony (Hardy &
Phillips, 2004). Studies of discourse highlight the importance of
appreciating that it has an existence beyond any individual text or
textual genre from which it is composed (Chalaby, 1996) and
recognize the significance of textual devices since these have a
performative effect. That is, they shape meaning, persuade others,
legitimate interests, and reproduce social structure (Hardy &
Phillips, 2004). The impli-cation of this approach is that when
analyzing discourse researchers and change agents one should aspire
to pay greater attention to the complex relationships among sets of
texts and the various devices within these texts that describe and
constitute organiza-tional realities (Phillips & Hardy,
2002).
Discourses do not exist or have meaning independent of context,
even as they also create context. Accordingly, the concept of
context and the fact that it is fundamental, not incidental, to the
existence of discourse has been the subject of considerable
dis-cussion and study among those interested in examining discourse
in organizational settings. Discourse is shown to be constituted
though temporal, historical, and social context (Sillince, 2007).
Furthermore, it is itself constituted by other discourses and the
texts therein; thus, notions of intertextuality come into play
(Broadfoot, Deetz, & Anderson, 2004; Fairclough & Wodak,
1997; Keenoy & Oswick, 2004). This means that the negotiation
of meaning surrounding any particular organization change will
unfold through the complex interplay of both socially and
historically produced texts
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Grant and Marshak 209
that are part of a continuous, iterative, and recursive process
(Grant & Hardy, 2004). Such a perspective sees specific,
micro-level instances of discursive action as contex-tually and
mutually implicated with other macro-level meta or grand discourses
that might exist within or external to the organization (Alvesson
& Krreman, 2000b). Moreover, it also recognizes that discourses
are always connected to other discourses which were produced
earlier, as well as those which are produced synchronically and
subsequently (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p. 277).
Finally, cross-contextual discursive work is carried out through
a variety of commu-nicative practices. One form that these
interactions can take is that of a conversation (Taylor & Van
Every, 1993). We define a conversation as a set of texts that are
produced as part of a dialogue among two or more people and that
are linked together both tempo-rally and rhetorically (Ford &
Ford, 1995; Robichaud et al., 2004). Bearing in mind our preceding
observations about context, texts only exist as part of the same
conver-sation if they are in some way responsive to each other
(Easley, 2010), either directly or indirectly (a rhetorical
connection), and if they are produced through chronologi-cally
sequenced discursive acts (a temporal connection). Conversations
are important in understanding the role of language in
organizations: consequential action is not so much the result of
disconnected utterances or isolated texts but, rather, is produced
through ongoing linguistic exchanges among actors that draw on
broader discourses and produce discursive objects that act as
resources for action and for further conver-sations (Fairclough,
1992). Thus, conversations exist in a recursive relationship in
which existing discourses provide resources to actors who engage in
conversations that in turn produce, reproduce, and transform those
discourses (Robichaud et al., 2004; Taylor et al., 1996).
In summary, we define organizational discourses and their
related practices of con-sumption, production, and distribution as
comprising sets of interrelated texts that can react to draw in and
transform other discourses. Discourses bring into being an idea or
object and can also challenge and change an existing idea or
object. The texts within discourses can comprise written or spoken
acts or they can be nonlinguistic and take the form of imagery and
symbols. Specifically, texts shape and are shaped by conversations
in which participants draw on, and simultaneously produce,
discursive objects and ideas. Such a definition means that our
discursive approach to organizational change is both inherently
processual and contextual. The focus in this article, therefore,
highlights the ongoing, often recursive and iterative processes
through which change is enacted over time. At the same time, we
acknowledge and examine the significance of context because it
generates the discursive objects and ideas that permeate and
influence the conversa-tions of the various actors involved in
organizational change.
Using Discourse-Based Theory to Understand Organizational
ChangeA number of studies have suggested that discourse theory and
the analysis of organiza-tional discourse offer considerable
potential for understanding the nature and complexity
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210 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
of organizational change. For example, Sturdy and Grey (2003)
have argued that discourse analysis, particularly where the
approach adopted is context sensitive, would help move us further
toward thinking beyond the organization as an isolated entity and
might offer fruitful insights where integrated into studies that
seek to iden-tify and evaluate the significance of institutional
factors in the change process. Tsoukas (2005) suggests that
compared with either a behaviorist or cognitivist perspective of
organizational change, a discourse analytic approach offers greater
potential for understanding the nature and complexity of
change-related issues, particularly those pertaining to the
construction of stability and change and the role of agency in
effecting change. Heracleous and Barrett (2001) conceptualize
discourse as a duality of communi-cative actions and deep
structures, mediated by the modality of interpretive schemes, and
develop a discourse analytic methodology based on the fields of
hermeneutics and rhetoric. Using a longitudinal field study of an
electronic trading implementation in the London Insurance Market,
they use their methodology to explore the role of discourse in
shaping organizational change through its influence on actors
interpre-tations and actions. Their approach enables a better
understanding of multiple perspec-tives in change processes,
especially those involving ICT-related change. Analyzing
ICT-related change in a New Zealand hospital during a period of
public sector reform, Doolin (2003) argues discourse analysis
enables the researcher to make sense of the processes that
constitute organizations and the various mechanisms of ordering and
orga-nizing employed by organizational actors. He shows how a
clinical leadership narrative at the hospital was simultaneously
discursive in its appeal to economic notions of effi-ciency and
enterprise, social in the development of new accountabilities and
relation-ships within the organization, and material in its use of
information technology.
These examples of discursive perspectives of change are not
meant to provide a comprehensive overview of such studies. Rather,
they are used to demonstrate some of the potential contributions
that a discourse-centered framework for addressing organi-zational
change might makeboth in terms of how we think about and understand
change and how we might go about researching and practicing change.
At the same time, they also exhibit two interrelated problems that
underlie such studies. First, taken either independently or as a
combination, none of the studies attempts to provide a
comprehensive or integrated discourse-based approach to change.
There seems to be an assumption that such an integrated perspective
exists, but it is not discussed, or is underspecified. In short,
such a perspective, if one exists, and any associated explana-tory
framework, is implicit and not fully articulated. Second, by virtue
of this under-specification, the value of the observations and
results of studies of organizational discourse and change are open
to question or even undermined.
What is therefore needed is a more explicit and comprehensive
framework inclusive of various considerations regarding
organizational discourse and change. Such a frame-work would have
several benefits. First, it would give discourse analytic studies a
more substantial grounding and might enhance their credibility.
Second, it would demon-strate the value of understanding the
important role and impacts of discourse in study-ing and effecting
change to the wider community, that is, nondiscursive academics
and
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Grant and Marshak 211
practitioners. More specifically, for those interested in
studying or managing discursive change, such a framework could
inform them of those discourse-related aspects of change that they
would need to practice or pay attention to.
Constructing a Discourse-Centered Analytic FrameworkIn the
remainder of this section, we suggest the interrelated dimensions
of a discourse-centered framework for organizational change (see
Figure 1). Its core premise is that basic assumptions about
organizing and organizational change are created, sustained, and,
over time, transformed through discourse (Barrett et al., 1995).
Thus, the ways things are framed and talked about plays a
significant role in shaping how change agents, affected employees,
and other stakeholders think about and respond to an organizational
changerelated issue or situation.
The framework comprises a number of key constructs that
highlight the need to take into account and understand the
significance of discourse in relation to planning and effecting
organizational change. In presenting the framework, we discuss
these constructs sequentially but do not imply some sort of
lock-step process; rather, we separate them for analytic purposes
only, fully realizing that they likely overlap in time and space.
This is why Figure 1 presents the framework as comprising iterative
and interrelated relationships and processes versus linear,
sequential ones. To illustrate the importance of thinking about
discourse and change in these ways, consider the following
abbreviated illustration about change at a fictitious companyAjax.
The illustration is intended to point to the need to think about
discourses and change in multidimen-sional and mutually implicated
ways:
Ajax companys strategy and operations have been shaped by
continual references to the founders maxim to always own and
control your destiny. This led to decisions to operate
independently, to own versus rent, and to use directive lead-ership
styles. Recently, influenced by media articles and business
conference presentations about out-sourcing and off-shoring, the
CEO suggested that the Ajax top team consider out-sourcing as a
strategy to improve financial perfor-mance. The ensuing discussions
drew on discourses about the quality of rented employees, the
family-centered values of the company, trends in the industry,
academic debates about out-sourcing, prospects for the future, and
so forth. When the Vice President of Human Resources worried aloud
about the unions reaction with a major contract re-negotiation
pending, the discussion polarized into a debate about out-sourcing
saving costs versus costing jobs. Convergence on a clear way
forward was not forthcoming and the CEO suggested having a task
force study the matter carefully and come back with a proposal in
six months. In later hallway conversations several of the top
executives wondered if the boss had gone soft because the CEO had
not made the decision and told people to implement it. Several
weeks later the CEO attended a business roundtable where one of the
topics was Executive Paralysis by Analysis Leads to
Underperformance. Reflecting on how
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212 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
the out-sourcing discussion was handled the CEO convened a
meeting of the top executives to press the urgency of improving
financial performance and then asked for specific proposals. When
none emerged the CEO again suggested out-sourcing as a way to
enhance share-holder value and forcefully argued for its adoption.
This time there was agreement to move forward, although a few of
the executives lamented to each other that the founder would never
have done this, and wait until it gets to the Divisions, theyll
never support this.
There are multiplelevels of linked
discoursesinfluencing
change
Change narrativesare constructed
and disseminatedvia conversations
Changediscourses emerge
from acontinuous,iterative and
recursive process
Alternativediscourses exist
and may be drawnupon
Reflexivityincreases theefficacy of the
discourses usedby change agentsand researchers
Power processesshape thedominant
discourse aboutchange
Discourse isconstructive;changing the
dominantdiscourse leads to
change
Figure 1. Discourse and organizational change: An analytic
framework
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Grant and Marshak 213
Here we can see many of the interrelationships we will be
highlighting in the frame-work and get a sense of the ongoing,
iterative and recursive nature of discourse and change.
Furthermore, as will be described in the framework, the
significance of power and the use of various discourses to support
or block out-sourcing are demonstrated.
The Constructive Properties of DiscourseWe begin our exposition
of the framework by reiterating a central premise that arose from
our introductory overview of theory pertaining to organizational
discourse and change: Discourse is constructive and shapes behavior
by establishing, reinforcing, and also challenging the prevailing
premises and schemas that guide how organizational actors interpret
experience. Therefore, changing the existing dominant discourses
will support or lead to organizational and behavioral change. In
the remainder of this section, we extend and elaborate further on
this fundamental premise to present a discourse-based framework of
analysis. We do so by considering several key additional
dimen-sions, nuances, and intervening factors.
Levels of Change-Related DiscourseBased on the research
literature, it is possible to identify five levels of discourse
that merit attention in relation to organizational changethe
intrapsychic, the micro, the meso, the macro, and the meta.
At the intrapsychic level, a discourse might manifest itself in
the form of internalized stories and introjected beliefs that an
individual tells himself/herself. As Gergen (1997, 2000) has
observed, we rely heavily on psychological language in making sense
of ourselves and others, and this language is built into many of
our patterns of relation-ship. Studies of various organizing
processes using an intrapsychic approach have demonstrated how
discursively constructed meanings rooted in cognitively unconscious
scripts, schemata, frames, and conceptual metaphors affect
sensemaking (Gioia, Donnellon, & Sims, 1989; Lakoff &
Johnson, 1999; Lord & Kernan, 1987; Marshak et al., 2000;
Weick, 1995) and form part of the subtext of social interaction.
Such cognitive frames and schemas both influence and are influenced
or shaped by discourses operating at other levels. The significance
of discourse at the intrapsychic level and specifically in the
context of organizational change has been recognized by, for
example, Jacobs and Heracleous (2005). These authors highlighted
how strategic innovation at a case study firm required shifts in
mental maps and models among employees and that these were
identified and altered through conversation. Despite this work,
intrapsy-chic approaches to the study of discourse and change are
relatively underdeveloped. Marshak et al. (2000) have suggested
that the paucity of such material stems from the relative infancy
of discourse studies within organization and management theory and
the dominance of researchers with organizational sociology rather
than psychology backgrounds. They also suggest that many discourse
scholars feel more comfortable with the conventional perspectives
of language found in sociolinguistics and, more
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214 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
recently, the postmodern turn such that they tend to focus on
discerning the social meaning(s) of discourse as opposed to
individual motivations and the psychological origins of words
(Marshak et al., 2000).
Analyses of discourses at the micro level focus on the detail of
language in use by individuals. Such analyses can offer a range of
insights into the attitudes, affiliations, orientations, motives,
and values of a given organizational stakeholder (Salzer-Morling,
1998; Watson, 1994). For example, a number of studies have focused
on the metaphors within individuals language to reveal their
thinking and perception about the organiza-tion at which they work
(Oswick & Montgomery, 1999) and specifically their disposi-tion
toward organizational change (Marshak, 1993; Palmer & Dunford,
1996).
Beyond the individual focus of the micro level, it is possible
to consider discourse at the meso level (Alvesson & Krreman,
2000b) to explore the interpersonal. Such analyses concern
talk-in-interaction (Silverman, 1999) and in many instances can be
said to be ethnomethodological in orientation in that they explore
the role of discourse in shaping social order in everyday
organizational conduct (Boden, 1994; Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997;
Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). At this level, discursive
interac-tions will have an impact on the actions and behavior of
individuals within a localized context, for example, a department
or among a specific group of actors who socially interact on a
regular basis. It is through discursive activities in such settings
that issues such as conflict, negotiation, roles, norms, and
cliques manifest themselves within organizations (Carroll &
Payne, 1991; Hamilton, 1997; OConnor & Adams, 1999; Woodilla,
1998). In this respect, meso-level interactions are highly
significant to effecting changethey can influence whether or not a
change is considered and then either impede or facilitate its
implementation.
Macro-level discourses (also referred to as grand discourses)
can be viewed as an aggregation and accumulation of an amalgam of
meso-level discursive interactions in organizations (Alvesson &
Krreman, 2000b; Boje, 2001; Grant et al., 2004). Interactions such
as conversations and texts coalesce to form the dominant think-ing,
institutional practices, and collective social perspectives within
an organization (Anderson-Gough, Grey, & Robson, 2000; Ford
& Ford, 1995; Phillips, Lawrence, & Hardy, 2004; Robichaud
et al., 2004). A number of change-related studies have shown how
this process plays out. For example, Fiss and Zajac (2006) suggest
that for man-agers to respond to market changes and instigate
successful strategic change, they will become involved in a series
of meso-level interactions with various actors within and external
to their organizations to persuade them of the value and purpose of
the change. These interactions require them to frame the change
using a language that fits with divergent stakeholder interests and
which decouples advocacy with actual implemen-tation of the change
itself.
Meta-level discourses (sometimes referred to as mega discourses)
have been described as discourses that are recognized and espoused
at the broader societal level and across institutional domains. As
such they might address more or less standard ways of refer-ring
to/constituting a certain type of phenomenon (Alvesson &
Krreman, 2000b, p. 1133). These include phenomena such as business
reengineering, the market,
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Grant and Marshak 215
new public management, sustainability, and organizational change
itself, as well as the taken-for-granted premises and possibilities
governing an industry or organiza-tional sector (Wolfram Cox &
Hussard, 2010).
We make two further points about the levels of discourse
highlighted in our frame-work. First, we do not suggest that there
is any hierarchy at play here. Thus, for exam-ple, we do not seek
to privilege our first level of discoursethe intrapsychicas the
basis for all discourses and the texts therein at subsequent
levels. Second, we acknowl-edge that discourses at different levels
do not exist independently of each other. A particular discourse
can simultaneously exist at several different levels, such that the
organization might be regarded as a meta-conversation (Robichaud et
al., 2004). In line with our earlier observations about context,
the texts within any level of discourse are linked to, and informed
by, discourses and the texts that operate from other levels. This
intertextuality means that it is important to identify and analyze
specific, micro-level discourses pertaining to change, within say a
conversation, and to then place them in the context of other meso,
macro, or even meta discourses (Boje, 2001; Robichaud et al.,
2004). For example, Fairclough and Thomas (2004) examine the
meta-discourse of globalization showing how it permeates and
becomes integral to other discourses operating at various other
levels within the organization. In the case of organizational
change, this might involve discourses of globalization being used
to explain and justify to the organizations members the need for a
range of changes in work and organization. The emerging
meta-discourses of Green or Global Warming are other examples.
The Construction Through Conversation of a Prevailing Narrative
of ChangeNarratives are textual devices that focus on common themes
or issues and that link a set of ideas or a series of events
(Czarniawska, 1999; Czarniawska-Joerges, 1997; Gabriel, 2004;
Polkinghorne, 1988; Rhodes & Brown, 2005; Ricoeur, 1983). In
par-ticular, Narrative constructs that relate consequences to
antecedents through event sequences in context over time thus
appear to be particularly relevant to understand-ing the unfolding
of complex organizational change processes (Buchanan & Dawson,
2007, p. 672). A key discursive practice in the construction and
dissemination of nar-ratives of change is conversation (Buchanan
& Dawson, 2007; Ford & Ford, 1995, 2008; Marshak &
Grant, 2008; Robichaud et al., 2004).
Conversations communicating a narrative pertaining to
organizational change often assume storylike qualities. That is,
they might evoke a plot in which the characters play out key events
as the narrator experienced them or wishes them to occur. As Cohen
and Mallon (2001) have observed, these storylike qualities have
meant that some theorists use the concepts of narrative and story
interchangeably (Polkinghorne 1988; Weick, 1995), whereas others
maintain that if they are to be valuable analytically, these terms
must be more clearly differentiated (Gabriel, 2004). In this
article, we adopt the same position on this matter to that of, for
example, Czarniawska (1999) and Polkinghorne
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216 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
(1988). This is that narratives move to being stories where they
bring a plot to the fore, which attempts to link events together,
and enables a better comprehension of one event in relation to
others.
The significance of storylines or narratives to effecting
organizational change can-not be underestimated for they convey the
prevailing or intended rationales supporting change or stability.
As Marshak and Grant (2008) have noted
Changing consciousness or mindsets or social agreementsfor
example about the role of women in organizations, or about
hierarchical structures, or even about how change happens in
organizationswould therefore require challeng-ing or changing the
prevailing narratives, stories, and so on that are endorsed by
those presently and/or historically in power and authority.(p.
14)
Brown (1998), for example, shows how managers charged with
implementing an IT-related change initiative deployed a particular
narrative to legitimate their actions and interests. Others have
shown how stories are a way of managing change, particu-larly
culture change, and how change is often constituted by changes in
the narratives that participants author themselves (Brown &
Humphreys, 2003; Kaye, 1995). Narratives and stories have also been
used as diagnostic tools by which to understand organiza-tional
norms and values and as a means to help people make sense of
change. They have also been used to enable people to envision
potential future realities derived from proposed strategic change
(Barry & Elmes, 1997, Boje, 1991; Dunford & Jones,
2000).
Discourse, Power, and the Political Milieu Concerning ChangeThe
ways in which power dynamics help shape the prevailing or
privileged discourse about a specific change and the phenomenon of
organizational change is a central concern of a constructive,
discourse-based approach to change. As Mumby (2004) has observed,
organizations are political sites where particular discourses are
formulated and articulated by particular organizational actors in
ways that shape and influence the attitudes and behavior of other
organizational members.
Where scholars have sought to examine the relationship between
power and dis-course, their work has been informed by the work of
Foucault (e.g., Foucault, 1976, 1980). A particularly helpful
studyone that assists in understanding the relationship of power
and discourse in the context of organizational changeis provided by
Hardy and Phillips (2004). These researchers propose analyzing the
relationship using a framework of analysis where power and
discourse are mutually constitutive. . . . In other words,
discourse shapes relations of power while relations of power shape
who influences discourse over time and in what way (p. 299).
The mutually constitutive relationship of discourse and power
and its significance to the change process is apparent in several
respects. For example, the conversations about change-related
issues held among actors with differing interests will involve the
meanings attached to these issues being negotiated, reinforced, and
privileged by those
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Grant and Marshak 217
actors drawing on their various power resources. Assuming there
is some social agree-ment resulting from these tacit discursive
negotiations, a dominant narrative emerges that will influence how
the change is conceived, understood, and should be implemented
(Marshak & Grant, 2008). For example, conversations may be used
to establish a need for change, in the shape of an environmental
shift, an organizational problem, or a political agenda (Ford &
Ford, 1995).
The power to control a narrative associated with a particular
change initiative enables the power holder(s) to sustain particular
ideological investments in dominance over other alternative
(including oppositional) practices (Rhodes & Brown, 2005).
Brown (1998), for example, has observed that leaders of
organizational change tend to be particularly aware of the
importance of fostering legitimacy for themselves and their change
initiatives to help secure employee acquiescence, enthusiasm, or
commitment. Fostering such legitimacy may involve the construction
and use of a narrative that omits and manipulates information about
a particular theme or issue in ways that attempt to influence the
understanding of others and reinforce the rightness of the change
initiators.
These dynamics illustrate the potential political component of
conversations and the narratives that may be constructed and
deployed through them. Moreover, they demon-strate that discursive
practices, including conversation, have the potential to render
sig-nificant political effects that result in the differential
distribution of advantage among individuals and organizations
(Fairclough, 1992; Mumby & Clair, 1997).
Alternative Discourses of ChangeWhat any particular group
believes is reality, truth, or the ways things are is a social
construct that is created, conveyed, and reinforced through
discourse. This implies the possibility that there may be
potentially multiple realities in any given situation (Boje, 1995,
2001). Moreover, it means that different groups or strata or silos
of an organiza-tion might develop their own discourses about a
particular change issue through nar-ratives that define the way
things are as they see and experience them (Shaw, 2002; Ford &
Ford 2009). The extent to which any groups particular discourse and
associ-ated narratives come to dominate the meaning attached to the
change issue is linked to power dynamics as discussed above. Often,
however, there may be a struggle among different actors and
interests to establish a dominant meaning, such that discursive
closure is rarely complete leaving space for more latent,
coexisting or counter discourses to gain attention or even
dominate. These discourses may be localized, that is, more
prevalent and representative of views about the change among a
particu-lar group within an organization or they may be more widely
held (Marshak & Grant, 2008). The extent to which they take
hold and are regarded as challenging dominant discourses will vary
from individual to individual and group to group (Ford et al.,
2008; Ford & Ford, 2009). Furthermore, they could be expressed
in several forms. Outright resistance would of course be one form,
but so too would be discourses that express denial, ambivalence, or
different perspectives about the organization and change
(Fossum,
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218 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
1989; Piderit, 2000; Scott & Jaffe, 2004; Teram, 2010).
Moreover, whether a discourse could be regarded as counter may
depend on ones position in relation to it.
Although there is a tendency to regard these alternative
discourses as operating to the detriment of change, two strands of
literature suggest they can be viewed in ways that can work to the
benefit of change processes and outcomes. First, alternative
discourses should be identified and rather than dismissed and used
to diagnose the reasons as to why change is failing to gain
traction among key actors (Ford et al., 2008; Rhodes & Brown,
2005). Second, some commentators have suggested that dominant
discourses define, constrain, and impose too much closure on
organizations (Czarniawska-Joerges, 1997; Czarniawska, 1998;
Gabriel, 1995, 2000). Thus, where leaders of change identify,
acknowledge, and sponsor the plurivocality (Boje, 1995) and
heteroglossia (Bakhtin, 1981) that alternative discourses
represent, a greater opportunity for more innovative and radical
change is provided (Boje, 1995, 2001; Rhodes, 2001). In like
manner, a number of commentators have suggested that those leading
or facilitating change engage in discursive practices such as
conversation and dialogue, narrative, and story-telling in ways
that intentionally draw out and use these alternative
discoursesoften so as to frame new shared meanings and change
mindsets that go on to create significant and beneficial change in
organizations (Bushe & Marshak, 2009; Ford & Ford, 1995;
Gergen, Gergen, & Barrett, 2004; Marshak & Grant, 2008;
Shaw, 2002; Stacey, 2001). For example, Gergen et al. (2004)
provide two examples of specific approaches used to this effectthe
Public Conversations Project (Chasin et al., 1996) and Appreciative
Inquiry (e.g., Bushe & Kassam, 2005).
In sum, then, the identification and implementation of
organizational change would seem to require recognition of the
existence and significance of alternative discourses and the
importance of managing them such that they are not detrimental of
the change process and its outcomes or may even work to its
benefit.
Discourse and Reflexivity on the Part of Change Agents and
ResearchersAn appreciation of the significance of discourse in
relation to change processes and their outcomes encourages change
agents to be open to the possibility that a pri-mary way to effect
change in social systems is by changing the prevailing discourse.
Changing the discourse involves changing the conversations and
narratives and the texts therein that create, sustain, and provide
the enabling content and context(s) for the way things are. This,
in essence, adds discourse, at multiple levels, as an impor-tant
target and lever for organizational change and further requires
change agents to be more reflexive about what they say and hear in
relation to change than is often the case. In particular, change
agents need to be sensitive to the emergence of discourses that are
different from their own, and if necessary respond to or even draw
on and appropriate these alternative discourses in ways that
benefit the change process (Ford et al., 2008).
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Grant and Marshak 219
Reflexivity on the part of change agents extends to appreciating
that discourses are co-constructed by those who author and
introduce them and by the various interlocu-tors and readers who
engage with them (Ybema et al., 2009). As such, change-related
discourses are a representation constructed to attain a particular
impact on their intended audience, and this effect is in fact part
of the construction process. The ways in which change narratives
are interpreted and the responses they receive may influence the
direction that those who author them make. This may, for example,
involve, through conversation, the author devising a narrative that
she/he believes to be commensu-rate with what the audience assumes
to be the case and wishes to hear (Brown, 1998; Czarniawska, 1998).
This suggests that for change agents there is a responsibility to
constantly reflect on and, if necessary, adjust their language in
response to its effects on the intended audience (i.e., those
charged with implementing and practicing the change). Here, notions
of argumentation, rhetoric, issue selling, and other linguistic and
semiotic devices related to dramaturgy, impression management, and
influencing tactics might come into play (Dutton, Ashford, ONeill,
& Lawrence, 2001; Fairhurst, 2007; Fairhurst & Sarr, 1996;
Harvey, 2001; Walker & Monin, 2001).
Given the mutually constitutive relationship between power and
discourse, there is also a need for change agents to reflect on the
discourses of change and how these might be indicative of, and
impact on, power relationships between themselves and those they
are seeking to influence as well as the power relationships between
and among other key actors. In other words, change agents need to
recognize and attend to the organizational power and political
processes underlying the situations they address and the methods
they employ. This should be seen as an ethical if not a practical
imperative (Marshak & Grant 2008).
Finally, several researchers have pointed out that the
researchers studying and report-ing on change related discourses
need to acknowledge that they are party to a process of positioning
(Davies & Harr, 1990) whereby they and the subjects jointly
produce narratives (Czarniawska, 1998). Others have observed that
discourse analysis requires the researcher to report their results
as a plausible story. As a result, their own version of events may
be privileged over the voices of those who they seek to study
(Brown, 1998; Easley, 2010; Knights, 1992; Kykyri, Puutio, &
Wahlstrm, 2010; Watson, 1995). In the form of published articles in
prestigious journals, these accounts contrib-ute to the narratives
about change and may be deployed later by those seeking legiti-macy
for their preferred storyline.
Change, Discourse, and RecursivityFor the authors and various
co-locutors of change-related narratives, these discourses are not
a one off experience. Rather, they are used on an ongoing basis to
maintain and further the interests of particular groups or
individuals, and people continually draw on them to make sense of
the events that continually unfold around them. Accordingly, as
suggested by the earlier Ajax example, discourses at multiple
levels are pro-duced, disseminated, and consumed as a continuous,
iterative, and recursive process
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220 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
(Grant & Hardy, 2004; Robichaud et al., 2004; Taylor et al.,
1996). This means, as Keenoy and Oswick (2004) observe that, The
past, the present and the future are simultaneously embedded within
a discursive event (p. 138), that is, what is said in the present
is influenced by the past and will influence the future. It is also
a process whereby the conversations and narratives associated with
a particular discourse do not simply appear from nowhere, imbued
with a particular meaning. Over a period of time, and through
negotiation, power, and various political processes, the meanings
that they convey, along with the socially constructed realities,
agreements, and mindsets that they construct, will emerge and alter
(Grant & Hardy, 2004; Mumby, 2004).
It is essential then that any discourse-based framework about
change include an appreciation of recursivity and these critically
important dynamics. As obvious as this point may seem, many
analyses of discourses in organizational settings, though based on
theories that emphasize recursivity, seem to take it as a given. As
a consequence, they insufficiently reflect on and demonstrate the
significance of this recursivity and the actual processes by which
it plays out. Instead, discourses are often studied as if they are
constructed at a fixed point in time without considering how it is
that the discourse has, over time, evolved into its present form.
In short, it appears that discourses tend to be studied in such a
way as to imply stasis over their more dynamic characteristics.
This emphasis on stasis is contrary to models of organizational
change that see it as having a temporal dynamicone in which change
whether planned or unplanned, continuous or episodic, seeks to take
effect over a period of time. For this reason, stud-ies by those
such as Brown and Humphreys (2003) have sought to show how
organi-zational change might be constituted by changes, over time,
in the narratives that participants author. Similarly, those such
as Vaara (2002) have shown how the mean-ings and discourses
attached to change are not fixed or determined but are instead
changed by key actors as they reflect on, interpret, and react to
the change itself. Others such as Rhodes (2001) have shown how over
a period of time particular meanings and discourses attached to
organizational changes become dominant and act as a means of social
control in the workplace by prescribing particular managerially
approved behavior and values.
We have sought in this section to outline an analytic framework
drawing on an exten-sive range of the discourse and change
literature to help explain and demonstrate the importance of
discourse in shaping the thinking and behavior of the key actors in
orga-nizational change. In the following section, we consider the
implications and benefits of this for further research and practice
concerning organizational change.
Discussion and ImplicationsOur discourse-based framework offers
three overarching contributions to the theory and practice of
organizational change. First, it invites researchers and change
agents to approach organizational change from an interpretivist
orientation and with an under-standing that language in its many
manifestations is constructive and central to the estab-lishment,
maintenance, and change of what is and what could be. A
discourse-based
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Grant and Marshak 221
researcher or change agent, therefore, might engage
organizational change situations by asking questions and taking
actions that other more objectivist perspectives might not consider
or even notice. Second, it brings together a range of studies and
ideas pertaining to organizational discourse and change that have
not previously been linked into a single framework. In doing so, we
recognize that it draws together research that is based in some
cases on differing theoretical positions and traditions. We
believe, how-ever, that the heuristic value of a single framework
that attempts to encompass much of the extant literature on
discourse and change is an important step in advancing discursive
theory and applied approaches to organizational change. We hope
this will encourage a more multidimensional and comprehensive
understanding of the complex role and impacts of discourse in its
many manifestations on organizational change processes and
encourage further integration and theory development. Finally, the
framework emphasizes the interactive and recursive aspects of all
of its components. In the past, many discursive studies of change
have focused on only one or a few of the components and not
infrequently with an implied or actual linear, causeeffect
orienta-tion. Although perhaps difficult to achieve, researchers
and practitioners should think about organizational change in more
contextual, nonlinear, and ongoing terms.
These three overarching contributionshow discourse and
organizational change is interpretive, multidimensional, and
recursively ongoingwill be further discussed below, along with
other implications for research and action. Table 1 provides a
sum-mary of some of the key research and change agent questions and
considerations raised by the framework and discussed below.
Research ImplicationsAn analytical framework that can be used to
consider how discourse contributes to stability and change in
organizations invites a range of inquiry and theoretical
specula-tion for researchers. Foremost is a clear focus on
language-based phenomena as being critical in the construction of
change processes and not just as reporting methods or archival
databases. The discursive construction of change should now be
added to the list of critical considerations in any change effort
(Marshak & Grant, 2008). For dis-course-oriented and other
researchers, it thus becomes important to consider questions such
as how, precisely, do discourses construct social reality,
especially regarding orga-nizational change. This includes whether
they can be intentionally planned and man-aged to achieve specific
change results or whether, as some have argued, they are the core
processes of nonlinear, continuous change (Shaw, 2002; Stacey,
2001). Such ques-tions invite researchers to move beyond the
analysis of existing discourses and their impacts on investigations
into the various ways by which influential discourses are
established, maintained, challenged, and changed. In other words,
to more explicitly consider the dynamics of discourse and change
processes rather than the implicit stasis found in many current
studies.
Unlike a great deal of current research that tends to focus
primarily on one or a few levels of discourse (e.g., micro, macro,
meta), the framework also suggests that discourses do not exist or
influence at one level of behavior alone. Nor are they stratified
and
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222 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
Table 1. Questions for Researchers and Change Agents to
Consider
Premise Research Questions Change Agent Questions
Discourse is constructive; changing the dominant discourse leads
to change
How do discourses influence behavior and construct social
reality, especially regarding organizational change?
Are some types of discourses more influential than others?
Can discourses be intentionally planned and managed?
What discourses (narrative, story, metaphor, etc.) are holding
things the way they are?
How can discourses that are supportive of an intended change be
established and maintained?
There are multiple levels of linked discourses influencing
change
How do different levels of discourse influence and inform each
other?
Are some levels more influential than others in general or in
certain settings?
Must all levels be changed for change to occur or can you just
change one or a few levels?
How might we seek to change the discourses at multiple levels to
support a change effort?
Changing a discourse at one level may be easier or more
important than at another, so what levels should we attempt to
target?
Change narratives are constructed and disseminated via
conversations
How do conversations construct and disseminate governing
narratives?
Are some types of conversations more influential than
others?
Are conversations to establish a change different from those to
maintain the status quo?
How can we use conversations as opportunities to construct new
premises and possibilities?
How are prevailing narratives reinforced in day-to-day
conversations throughout the organization and how might we change
those conversations?
Power processes shape the dominant discourse about change
How are dominant discourses established and maintained?
How can power be mobilized to change a dominant discourse?
Are some types of power, political processes, and/or actors more
influential in creating change and/or maintaining stability?
Who are the actors who will be most influential to the intended
change and how can their discourses and conversations be altered to
support your change?
How can we create settings where different actors and interests
communicate, or where there is greater power equalization among the
discussants, or where the nature of the conversation is
different?
(continued)
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Grant and Marshak 223
Premise Research Questions Change Agent Questions
Alternative discourses exist and may be drawn on
What are the sources of alternative discourses and how are they
sustained despite a dominant discourse?
How can an alternative discourse be appropriated and deployed in
a change situation?
What are the political processes involved in the use of
alternative discourses in change efforts?
How can we identify and use alternative discourses that may
exist at multiple levels to advance and support our change?
What forms of organizational power and political processes can
we use to suppress counter discourses to our change effort?
Reflexivity increases the efficacy of the discourses used by
change agents and researchers
In what ways might the favored discourse of the researcher or
school of thought influence research about organizational
change?
What methods, techniques, or processes might be most helpful to
support greater reflexivity in researcher studies and reports about
organizational change?
How might reflexive insights be best incorporated into the
research process?
How can we maintain a stance of reflexivity about our
orientations and biases in order to stay open to possibilities and
challenges?
How do we incorporate into and modify our discourse about change
to best respond to reactions and alternative discourses?
Change discourses emerge from a continuous, iterative and
recursive process
How are discourses about change established and maintained
during a continuous, iterative and recursive process?
Are there any particular bifurcation points or processes that
are particularly influential in change initiatives?
How might this continuous, iterative and recursive process be
managed to advance or support a specific change?
Because there is no specific beginning, middle, or end to a
change initiative, how will we continuously monitor and manage our
discourse to stay on message?
Because the discourses related to a desired change will be
subject to continuous alteration, how can we stay alert to new
opportunities and openings to advance our initiative?
Table 1. (continued)
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224 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
isolated from each other. Instead, multilevel discourses about
the ways things are, and should be, help frame and reinforce each
other in cyclical and recursive patterns (Marshak, 1998). For
example, societal narratives about globalization influence the
prevailing stories about what specific industries must do to
survive global competition; these then frame organizational debates
about what strategies to adopt, managerial con-versations about
specific actions to take, and individual stories to rationalize
behavior. In turn, conversations reinforce (or sometimes challenge)
these prevailing stories and narratives, thereby providing ongoing
data and linkages demonstrating the correctness (or incorrectness)
of the prevailing discourse. More multilevel research to determine
the degree and extent of discursive linkages and how they reinforce
or sometimes challenge the status quo are needed (Robichaud et al.,
2004). Such research might also include consideration of the
processes by which discourses are established, maintained, or
changed at different levels as well as how different levels of
discourse interpenetrate, influence, and inform each other.
Increased research focus on the discursive aspects of day-to-day
conversations that enliven and recreate the prevailing narratives
about the way things are, the nature of change, what changes are
needed or not, and so on, is also needed. For example, how,
specifically, do conversations construct and disseminate governing
narratives? When manager X talks with manager Y, or members of
Division P interact with members of Division Q, how do these
conversations convey, reinforce, and/or challenge the prevail-ing
storylines that interpret how things should be experienced and,
therefore, the need for and opportunities for change (Ford, 1999)?
This also raises the question of whether some types of
conversations are more influential in fostering change than others
in terms of who has them, what they are about, and when, where, and
how they take place (Ford & Ford, 2008). Moreover, in addition
to position and power, what other factors may be influencing
conversational impacts? It might also be important to begin to
distin-guish between conversations that reinforce stability and
those that might promote change or challenge the status quo. Are
conversations to promote a change different from conversations to
maintain the status quo and if so, in what ways?
The explanatory framework that we propose highlights a need for
more research into the specifics of power as linked to stability
and change at different discursive levels. There is a growing body
of literature about discourse and power (e.g., Hardy &
Phillips, 2004), but not necessarily directly linked to different
discursive levels during change episodes. What political processes
and resources of power are involved in, for exam-ple, how dominant
discourses are established and maintained at the different
discur-sive levels identified by the framework? Furthermore, are
discourses at some levels of system more influential than others;
perhaps by creating unacknowledged hierar-chical containers or
frames for thinking at other levels? For example, in organizational
change do higher or more encompassing levels of discourse (macro,
meta) have greater influence over lower levels (micro, meso) than
vice versa? In terms of power and stability versus change: Are some
types of power, political processes, and/or actors more influential
in creating change versus maintaining stability? Finally, more
research into the specific mechanisms through which stability is
challenged and new narratives
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Grant and Marshak 225
established in the workplace during everyday conversations and
communications is needed.
The view of organizations as inherently plurivocal (Boje, 1995),
even when a domi-nant discourse may exist, highlights the need for
further research on concepts and theories of plurivocality and how
it may impact on change in organizational settings. This would also
include inquiry into how latent, coexisting, or counterdiscourses
are dismissed, or can be appropriated and deployed in change
situations (e.g., Clark & Jennings, 1997). Finally, given that
power dynamics are involved in maintaining or overthrowing a
dominant discourse, more inquiry into how political processes are
involved in the way alternative discourses are defeated or deployed
in change efforts would advance our understanding of plurivocality,
power, and change.
The framework also suggests how discourse in its many
manifestations does more than simply convey information, but
instead frames, contains, and otherwise constructs the social
realities governing individual and organizational action. It thus
highlights the responsibilities for researchers to aspire to be
more reflexive about the frames and narratives that may be guiding
the construction of their research hypotheses and inter-pretation
of findings (Alvesson, 1999). Absent a reflexive stance that
encourages the researchers to both notice whatever is their favored
frame(s) and to consider the value of using some alternative(s),
and the potential for bias or misreading a situation from the point
of view of the actors involved is increased. Some specific
questions that might encourage a reflexive stance in conducting
research on organizational change include the following: In what
ways might the favored discourse about change of the researcher
influence this research project about organizational change? What
methods, techniques, or processes might be most helpful to support
greater reflexivity in research studies and reports about
organizational change, including the potential need for more
inter-disciplinary or multitheoretical studies? Furthermore, how
might reflexive insights be best incorporated into studies of
change, for example, through specific protocols or report
sections?
The ongoing and iterative nature of discourse and change
suggests the importance of adopting a research orientation guided
by premises of continuous interaction rather than stasis or
quasi-equilibriums that tacitly imply fixed starting and stopping
points (Lewin, 1947). For example, Stacey (2001) argues that
conversations are an essential aspect of a transformative teleology
wherein
movement is towards a future that is under perpetual
construction by the move-ment itself. There is no mature or final
state, only perpetual iteration of identity and difference,
continuity and transformation, the known and the unknown, at the
same time. (p. 60)
Shaw (2002) echoes the same theme:
Above all I want to propose that if organizing is understood as
a conversational process, an inescapably self-organizing process of
participating in the spontaneous
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226 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
emergence of continuity and change, then we need a rather
different way of thinking about any kind of organizational practice
that focuses on change. (p. 11)
These views add a discursive perspective to the current
theoretical debate about episodic versus continuous change concepts
(e.g., Weick & Quinn, 1999). In terms of research design, it
invites an orientation that the researcher is always stepping into
an ongoing conversation that may have certain established
boundaries but is also constantly evolving and changing. This
places additional emphasis on contextual studies particularly in
terms of process, temporal, and intertextual aspects (Barry,
Carroll, & Hansen, 2006). It also suggests the need to account
for the possible recursive effects of different levels of system
over the timeframe of the study or change effort. Illustrative
questions that researchers might consider include the following:
How can discourses about change be established and maintained if a
change itself is a continuous, iterative, and recursive process? If
discursive change is an ongoing process, are there any particular
points, stages, or types of processes that are particularly
influential in a change initiative? Finally, how might a
discursively continuous, iterative, and recursive process be best
managed to advance or support a specific change objective? Or, as
Stacey (2001) and Shaw (2002) from a complex responsive systems
perspective ask: Can it be?
Action ImplicationsFor the change agent, a discursive
orientation to change means going beyond most current advice (e.g.,
Cummings & Worley, 2009; Kotter, 1996) and applying methods
that foster attention to the ways in which discursive phenomena, at
multiple levels, and in multiple ways, create and hold the current
way things are (Bushe & Marshak, 2009). How do day-to-day
conversations reinforce preferred ways of thinking estab-lished by
historical, organizational, political, or other contexts? What are
the most salient or powerful discursive phenomena one should pay
attention to with respect to organizational change efforts:
stories, metaphors, narratives, discursive contexts, rheto-ric,
power processes, and so on?
There are a number of strategic implications for change agents
if, as indicated by our framework, change is a function of
multilevel, discursive phenomena. First is the need to better
understand how different levels of discursive phenomena influence
and rein-force each other and thereby create a web of reinforcing
narratives, stories, metaphors, and conversations that can make
alternative discourses and change more difficult. This means that
change agents may need to identify, use, or attempt to change the
discourses at different levels (e.g., micro, meso, macro) to
support a specific change effort. For example, it may do little
good for a unit leader to put forward a new narrative about social
responsibility if the prevailing tacit or explicit discourses at
corporate or more local levels reinforce contrary messages, for
example, about profitability above all else. Strategically, it is
also possible that changing discourses at one level may influence
discourses at other levels, thereby providing change agents with
alternative targets or levers depending on their resources, access,
and opportunities. One example of this
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Grant and Marshak 227
would be seeking to influence macro-level corporate discourses
by changing meso-level conversations among lower level
managers.
The importance of conversations to socially construct reality
and frame experience versus simply convey objective information
needs to be more carefully understood and cultivated by those
advancing change agendas. Change agents should realize that talk is
also a form of action (Marshak, 1998), so all conversations and
communications can be used to create new premises and
possibilities. This also means that they should pay attention to
how prevailing narratives are reinforced in day-to-day conversation
and dialogue throughout the organization (Gergen et al., 2004;
Thatchenkery & Upadhyaya, 1996). They would then need to seek
to intentionally introduce new narratives to alter those
conversations, possibly by changing the types of questions asked
(Block, 2008).
Change agents also need to acknowledge the mutually constitutive
nature of power and discourse captured in our framework. Doing so
opens up the possibility of better understanding the power and
political processes that may be shaping any given change effort and
of then attempting to engage in directly influencing, co-opting,
and altering those processes (Marshak & Grant, 2008). Such an
approach might, for example, involve asking key diagnostic
questions such as who are the most influential actors regarding the
intended change and how can their storylines and conversations be
altered to support the change? Change agents would also need to
cultivate skills and exercise actions asso-ciated with creating
settings where actors with different interests and power bases can
productively communicate, or where there is greater power
equalization among the discussants to foster the emergence of new
or different possibilities. Change agents might also benefit from
knowing how to identify and enlist alternative discourses to
advance and support desired changes. Understanding how various
forms of organiza-tional power and political processes are used to
suppress nonconforming discourses could lead to consideration of
new and different change tactics. For example, exploring ways to
amplify any accepted portions of an alternative discourse, as a way
to bring into question one or more aspects of the dominant
discourse.
For the change agent, reflexivity might be more difficult than
for the researcher. Change agents have more of an advocates
orientation than an analysts and may be more oriented toward
promoting their favored discourse about change than being reflexive
about the implicit narratives and frames that may be biasing how
they approach a change situation. If we assume plurivocality in
organizations, this may also predispose the change agent to ignore
or misinterpret important information coming from others who are
guided by alternative narratives. For example, the difference
between how change agents and change recipients interpret resistant
behaviors can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies and
self-protective stories by change agents (Ford et al., 2008).
Consequently, although difficult, it would enhance the
effectiveness of change agents to maintain a stance of greater
reflexivity to stay open to such possibilities and chal-lenges.
Otherwise change agents will always be limited by the bounds of
their own dominant ideologies and preferred narratives about
change.
Finally, our framework urges change agents, the same as
researchers, to view the change process as ongoing, iterative, and
recursive rather than as a linear journey from
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228 The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science 47(2)
a current state to some future state. Consequently, change
agents adopting a more discursive orientation will need to know how
to join an existing conversation, shift it in new directions, and
monitor and maintain new conversations over time (Bushe &
Marshak, 2008, 2009). In other words, they will need to be mindful
that there is no specific or discrete beginning, middle, or end to
an organizational change initiative. In addition, because
organizational discourses are open to continuous alteration, change
agents should watch for emerging opportunities and openings in the
prevailing discourse(s) to introduce their initiative into the
conversation. For example, changes in meta-level discourses (being
green) may be appropriated to create opportunities to introduce new
possibilities or practices into more localized conversations (it
might save energy if . . . ).
Concluding CommentsThe change-related framework that has been
developed in this discussion demonstrates the potential
contribution of a discourse-based approach to understanding and
manag-ing the processes and practices of organizational change. It
proposes that a number of critical constructs determine how
organizational change is framed and talked about and thereby
influence change processes and outcomes. Multiple levels of
discourse, and the historical, social, and political contexts in
which change occurs, are all shown to be significant. The
construction of change-related narratives and their communication
through conversations are shown to be fundamentally important to
the ways in which people think about, describe, and make sense of
change. The framework also sug-gests there are latent alternative
discourses that can be blocked, or activated and deployed, by key
actors in change efforts. The role of the change agent and
researcher in co-creating discursive realities and the significance
of their practicing reflexivity are also highlighted. The
recursive, iterative, and ongoing nature of discourse that leads to
alterations over time is shown to be significant to understanding
the nature of organizational change itself.
We hope this framework and discussion invites a more applied
orientation to orga-nizational change among discourse scholars and
a more scholarly orientation among change agents to the ways in
which discourse can be constructive of action. Finally, we hope
that our suggestion that change orientations need to be not only
discourse-based but also multilevel, plurivocal, reflexive,
iterative, recursive, and power sensitive will become part of the
ongoing narratives of those who plan, manage, and study
organiza-tional change.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interests with
respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research
and/or authorship of this article.
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Grant and Marshak 229
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