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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 - Using Verbal Irony to Move on with Controversial Issues
AU - Kwon, Winston
AU - Clarke, Ian
AU - Vaara, Eero
AU - Mackay, Rowan
AU - Wodak, Ruth
PY - 2020/7/19
Y1 - 2020/7/19
N2 - Irony is an effective means of dealing with controversy in organizations, but there is a paucity of knowledge of the various ways in which irony helps managers to do so without necessarily ‘solving’ those issues. By drawing on discursive incongruity theory, we examine the use of irony when managers are confronted with controversial issues in a multinational company. As a result, we identify and elaborate on four distinctively different pathways of how irony helps participants to move on: ‘acquiescing’ (framing understanding as having no alternative because of environmental constraints), ‘empowering’ (synthesizing a view through broad inputs from different individuals), ‘channelling’ (subsuming other interpretations under a single and often dominant view) and ‘dismissing’ (rejecting alternative interpretations and often reinforcing the status quo). On this basis, we develop a theoretical model that elucidates the process dynamics in dealing with and moving on with controversial issues and elaborates the specific characteristics of each of these four pathways. Our analysis also leads to a fuller understanding of the discursive underpinnings and intersubjective dynamics in irony use in organizations.
AB - Irony is an effective means of dealing with controversy in organizations, but there is a paucity of knowledge of the various ways in which irony helps managers to do so without necessarily ‘solving’ those issues. By drawing on discursive incongruity theory, we examine the use of irony when managers are confronted with controversial issues in a multinational company. As a result, we identify and elaborate on four distinctively different pathways of how irony helps participants to move on: ‘acquiescing’ (framing understanding as having no alternative because of environmental constraints), ‘empowering’ (synthesizing a view through broad inputs from different individuals), ‘channelling’ (subsuming other interpretations under a single and often dominant view) and ‘dismissing’ (rejecting alternative interpretations and often reinforcing the status quo). On this basis, we develop a theoretical model that elucidates the process dynamics in dealing with and moving on with controversial issues and elaborates the specific characteristics of each of these four pathways. Our analysis also leads to a fuller understanding of the discursive underpinnings and intersubjective dynamics in irony use in organizations.
U2 - 10.1287/orsc.2019.1333
DO - 10.1287/orsc.2019.1333
M3 - Journal article
VL - 31
SP - 865
EP - 886
JO - Organization Science
JF - Organization Science
SN - 1047-7039
IS - 4
ER -