Legitimating a Chinese takeover of an Australian iconic firm: Revisiting models of media discourse of legitimacy (original) (raw)
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Discourse and Society, 2012
Although increasing research attention has been given to the discourse of legitimacy in assisting mergers and acquisitions in Scandinavian countries, scarce research has been done on this topic in different geopolitical contexts. This study therefore aims to investigate the discursive struggle of delegitimizing a Chinese state-owned company investment in the Australian mining sector. We used a historical critical approach to further develop the theoretical and empirical capacity for analysing legitimacy discourses. Specifically, we have extended the research on the discourse of legitimacy research in three aspects. First, we have identified political-ideological discourse as a prominent discourse in addition to the commonly acknowledged rationalistic and nationalistic discourse. Second, we have found that the use of legitimation strategies is purposive and deliberate. Moralization strategy, in particular, was extensively used in a range of discourses (rationalistic, nationalistic and political-ideological) to delegitimize the proposed merger as not being aligned with the national interest. As a result, the legitimacy discourse failed and the deal collapsed.
Organization Studies , 2016
In this study, we explicitly engage with the historical dimension of discursive legitimation to understand how a sense of legitimacy is maintained for a controversial actor over a long period of time. Analyzing articles in The Economist that address opposition against multinational corporations during the current wave of globalization, we identify and situate the different multinational corporation-related controversies and discursive legitimation strategies in their specific historical context. Our historical interpretation suggests three phases, each representing the discursive creation of particular actor images that either legitimize multinational corporations or de-legitimize its opponents. From our findings, we propose that, over time, the nature of discursive legitimation changes and introduce ‘discursive antagonism’ and ‘discursive co-optation’ as two different forms of legitimation. We further reflect on our present understanding of multinational corporations, reinterpreting their current political role as a historical product of the legitimacy process over time.
Pulp and paper fiction: On the discursive legitimation of global industrial restructuring
Organization Studies, 2006
Despite the central role of legitimacy in social and organizational life, we know little of the subtle meaning-making processes through which organizational phenomena, such as industrial restructuring, are legitimated in contemporary society. Therefore, this paper examines the discursive legitimation strategies used when making sense of global industrial restructuring in the media. Based on a critical discourse analysis of extensive media coverage of a revolutionary pulp and paper sector merger, we distinguish and analyze five legitimation strategies: (1) normalization, (2) authorization, rationalization, (4) moralization, and (5) narrativization. We argue that while these specific legitimation strategies appear in individual texts, their recurring use in the intertextual totality of the public discussion establishes the core elements of the emerging legitimating discourse.
Making Sense of a Transnational Merger: Media Texts and the (Re)construction of Power Relations
Culture and Organization, 2003
In this study of symbolic power relations in a transnational merger, we suggest that the popular media can provide a significant arena for (re)constructing national identities and power in this kind of dramatic industrial restructuring, and are an under-utilized source of empirical data in research studies. Focusing on the press coverage of a recent Swedish-Finnish merger, we specify and illustrate a particular feature of discursive (re)construction of asymmetric power relations; superior (Swedish) and inferior (Finnish) national identities, which, we argue, are embedded in the history of colonization and domination between the two nations. The findings of the present study lead us to suggest that a lens taken from postcolonial theory is particularly useful in understanding the wider symbolic power implications of international industrial restructuring.
Global Capitalism Meets National Spirit Discourses in Media Texts on a Cross-Border Acquisition
Journal of Management Inquiry, 2003
In this article, the authors explore media coverage of a recent acquisition across national borders. Their starting point is that the media represent a key arena of -discursive strategizing‖ for actors such as corporate managers. They illustrate and specify how global capitalism, as discourse relying on economic and financial rationale and exemplified here by the acquiring firm's attempts to expand, meets national spirit, exemplified here by the complexity in selling the acquisition target to foreigners. The main contribution of this study lies in identifying how key actors draw on and mobilize rationalistic and nationalistic discourses in public discussion. The analysis illustrates that the same actors can draw on different-even contradictory-discourses at different points in time. Furthermore, different actors-even with opposing objectives-may draw on the same discourse in legitimizing their positions and pursuing specific ends.
Organization Science, 2011
A lthough extant research has highlighted the role of discourse in the cultural construction of organizations, there is a need to elucidate the use of narratives as central discursive resources in unfolding organizational change. Hence, the objective of this article is to develop a new kind of antenarrative approach for the cultural analysis of organizational change. We use merging multinational corporations (MNCs) as a case in point. Our empirical analysis focuses on a revelatory case: the financial services group Nordea, which was built by combining Swedish, Finnish, Danish, and Norwegian corporations. We distinguish three types of antenarrative that provided alternatives for making sense of the merger: globalist, nationalist, and regionalist (Nordic) antenarratives. We focus on how these antenarratives were mobilized in intentional organizational storytelling to legitimate or resist change: globalist storytelling as a means to legitimate the merger and to create MNC identity, nationalist storytelling to relegitimate national identities and interests, Nordic storytelling to create regional identity, and the critical use of the globalist storytelling to challenge the Nordic identity. We conclude that organizational storytelling is characterized by polyphonic, stylistic, chronotopic, and architectonic dialogisms and by a dynamic between centering and decentering forces. This paper contributes to discourse-cultural studies of organizations by explaining how narrative constructions of identities and interests are used to legitimate or resist change. Furthermore, this analysis elucidates the dialogical dynamics of organizational storytelling and thereby opens up new avenues for the cultural analysis of organizations.
Mining the Discourse: Strategizing During BHP Billiton's Attempted Acquisition of Rio Tinto
Journal of Management Studies, 2013
Using a discourse-analytic approach, we examine the strategizing that occurred during an attempted acquisition in 2007/08 of Rio Tinto by BHP Billiton. In doing so, we contribute to discursive studies of mergers and acquisitions in two significant respects. First, we show the importance of studying how actors external to, as well as those internal to BHP, exerted influence over the acquisition process and outcome. Their influence can be attributed, in part, to their use of rhetorical strategies during the negotiation of the meanings of three constructs that were central to the acquisition discourse. Second, our study shows how these rhetorical strategies were put into effect using not only linguistic, but also non-linguistic modes of discourse such as imagery, indicators, and location. We conclude that obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the role of discourse in relation to a strategic activity -in this case an attempted acquisition -requires consideration of the multi-modal rhetorical strategies brought to bear by both external and internal actors.
Organization Studies, 2010
Critical organization scholars have focused increasing attention on industrial and organizational restructurings such as shutdown decisions. However, little is known about the rhetorical strategies used to legitimate or resist plant closures in organizational negotiations. In this article, we draw from New Rhetoric to analyze rhetorical struggles, strategies and dynamics in unfolding organizational negotiations. We focus on the shutdown of the bus body unit of the Sweden-based Volvo Bus Corporation in Finland. We distinguish five types of rhetorical legitimation strategies and dynamics. These include the three classical dynamics of logos (rational arguments), pathos (emotional moral arguments), and ethos (authority-based arguments), but also autopoiesis (autopoietic narratives), and cosmos (cosmological constructions). Our analysis contributes to previous studies on organizational restructuring by providing a more nuanced understanding of how contemporary industrial closures are legitimated and resisted in organizational negotiations. This study also increases theoretical understanding of the role of rhetoric in legitimation more generally.