Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Struggles over legitimacy in global organizational restructuring
T2 - a rhetorical perspective on legitimation strategies and dynamics in a shutdown case
AU - Erkama, N.
AU - Vaara, E.
PY - 2010/7
Y1 - 2010/7
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - legitimacy
KW - legitimation
KW - resistance
KW - restructuring
KW - rhetoric
KW - shutdown
U2 - 10.1177/0170840609346924
DO - 10.1177/0170840609346924
M3 - Journal article
VL - 31
SP - 813
EP - 839
JO - Organization Studies
JF - Organization Studies
SN - 0170-8406
IS - 7
ER -