In their concluding chapter, Renata Fox and John Fox suggest that the recent trend to focus on discourse in organizational studies provides the potential for an “epistemological break.” This break, they argue, is both necessary and inevitable, given the seemingly dependable and orderly theories common to organizational studies, such as management theory, a theory of the firm, human resource management, and organizational behavior. While many organizational scholars view their own research as multidisciplinary, the authors note that such scholarship still remains discipline-driven and, as a result, relatively narrow in scope. In time, Fox & Fox contend, this dominant paradigm, once deemed standard and legitimate, will increasingly appear stagnant and regressive. The seeming order and stability of organizational studies will be disrupted, if not enlightened and strengthened, by an emerging emphasis on organizational discourse, which is the primary focus of their book.
Although the authors' claims regarding an epistemological break may be more wishful thinking than scholarly reality, there is growing evidence that, at the least, a rupture has developed within the traditional research trajectories of business/management schools (see, e.g., Grant, Hardy, Oswick & Putnam Reference Grant, Hardy, Oswick and Putnam2004). Increasingly, scholars in a wide range of disciplines have begun to realize the constitutive nature of discourse within and among organizations. In their own work, for example, Fox & Fox draw on theoretical linguistics, sociolinguistics, critical discourse studies, and media and organizational studies, among others. These approaches have entered into the conversation, they suggest, at least partly because of the void left by management research, where organizational discourse has been largely taken for granted. At best, discourse has been understood and taught in business schools as a mere tool in the effort to seek greater efficiency and effectiveness – a vehicle toward other ends. This bias against legitimizing discourse is evident in the common “cultural preference for action over mere talk” (Oswick, Keenoy & Grant Reference Oswick, Keenoy and Grant1997:5) among managerial scholars and practitioners alike.
As a contrast, Fox & Fox begin their book with a nod to Peters & Waterman's In search of excellence (Reference Peters and Waterman1982), noting that the popular book made a brief, albeit important reference to a true “people” orientation within an organization that “can not exist unless there is a special language to go with it” (p. 260). This simple sentence, they suggest, represented an early moment in the budding development of discursive studies in organizations. Yet, at closer glance, Peters & Waterman spend much of their best-selling book discussing a “bias for action” and almost none of it discussing “a bias for talk.” As Weick (Reference Weick and Grant2004:406) reminds us, most organizational practitioners, including Peters & Waterman and many others later, “act as if talk is cheap, things are easier said than done, you can't start acting until you stop talking, action is preferable to talk, discourse is passive while ‘doing’ is active, and talking and doing are consecutive rather than concurrent.” As a result, Weick reminds advocates of discourse analysis that they are likely to confront serious difficulties in their efforts to seek legitimacy.
This uphill battle is made more challenging, I would argue, when authors such as Fox & Fox don't provide a careful assessment of the current state of discourse studies. Although the example is relatively minor in some respects, the depiction of Peters & Waterman as early innovators regarding the importance of discourse is misguided. In many respects, Peters & Waterman may have done more to stunt the development of organizational discourse, as an area of study and practice, than any authors since their influential book. Similarly, Fox & Fox regularly repeat the refrain that there has been a near absence of research on the discourse of organizations, particularly from a language-power-ideology perspective. However, a closer analysis of the research literature would have revealed more than 50 years of discourse-related research in organizational communication. It is unfortunate that Fox & Fox appear to miss an ongoing conversation that has been occurring around them in the discipline of communication (see May & Mumby Reference May and Mumby2004 for an overview), which has explored a wide range of discursive phenomena. But, as they accurately note, business/management scholars tend to overlook, if not ignore, relevant research being conducted in other disciplines.
More important, the authors do not take into account an additional three strands of critical organizational discourse studies that have, in fact, focused on language, power, and ideology (Mumby Reference Mumby and Grant2004). These strands include a series of summer conferences in Vancouver, British Columbia in the late 1970s and early 1980s (e.g., Frost Reference Frost1980), the emergence of the journal Organization Studies in 1979 under the direction of the European Group on European Studies (e.g., Alvesson Reference Alvesson1985), and the biannual conference on organizational discourse at King's College, London over the past decade (e.g., Grant, Keenoy & Oswick Reference Grant, Keenoy and Oswick1998). Each strand, in addition to that found in organizational communication, has produced a body of research that is both expansive and nuanced, exploring the relationship between discourse and a host of related topics such as organizational culture, leadership, change, identity, gender, race, globalization, and technology.
Although troublesome, these limitations do not minimize the remaining strengths of the book. Organized in seven distinct but related sections, it is designed to examine how corporations use discourse to practice power through consent. After an introductory chapter, the authors define their primary focus, corporate public discourse, and develop a theoretical framework for integrating language, power, and ideology. In Part III, “Corporate management,” Fox & Fox explore the discursive strategies utilized by corporate CEOs to legitimize themselves, their corporations, and their ideologies. Part IV, a brief section on “Media of corporate public discourse,” examines both written and mass-mediated forms of discourse, with particular attention to the ways in which media companies frame corporate discourse. In the section that follows, the authors examine, quantitatively, genres of corporate public discourse, including mission statements, media interviews, business guidelines, advertisements, annual reports, and web sites. During Part VI, Fox & Fox transition to a more specific analysis of topics of current interest, such as metaphor, globalization, gender, and promotion. Finally, in the concluding section, the authors revisit their theory of corporate public discourse and reconsider corporations' social, political, and economic capital to secure “positions of possibility.”
It is perhaps these possibilities that are most meaningful in the process of deconstructing and then, ultimately, reconstructing corporate discursive practices. Not surprisingly, though, the authors focus their attention on the former rather than the latter, an all too common practice among critical discourse scholars. Yet, the range and scope of discourses deconstructed alone merit a thorough reading of this book. While no single book can fully capture the varied nature of corporate discourse, Fox & Fox offer readers a captivating array of examples from such visible companies as Hewlett-Packard, GE, IBM, and Shell. Using a range of methodologies for, and sources of, corporate public discourse, the authors provide readers with a more complicated and thorough understanding of the content of the discourses. Although the processes of constructing discourse are largely relegated to brief asides in the book, the seemingly common content of corporate mission statements, company websites, and CEO interviews is intriguing and informative. The conclusion made by Fox & Fox, which is quite compelling, is that corporate public discourse performs four concurrent functions – institutionalization, legitimization, capitalization, and inculcation of values – that serve to reaffirm corporate ideology.
Notably, the authors contend that, at least in the case of Shell, corporate discourse often constitutes an “interactive model of communication” in which both the company and various stakeholders simultaneously participate in the construction of a company's ideology. While corporate executives and communication specialists may often consider stakeholder views as they create mission statements, advertisements, and annual reports, it is a clearly an overstatement to suggest simultaneous participation in the process of message construction. There is some indication that a value shift toward greater stakeholder involvement has emerged (Paine Reference Paine2003). However, there is still conflicting evidence regarding whether corporate leaders have moved from stakeholder “management” toward stakeholder “engagement,” particularly with regard to their public communication (May, Cheney & Roper Reference May, Cheney and Roper2007). This being the case, Fox & Fox tend to overemphasize the shared, collaborative, and unified nature of corporate public discourse, at the expense of the contested terrain of discourse, rife with competing interests, conflicts, and, occasionally, resistance. This absence is somewhat surprising given their emphasis on power and ideology.
Nevertheless, Fox & Fox drive yet another stake in the ground toward greater legitimacy of discourse studies in organizations. They do so by providing readers with clear and accessible definitions and a range of methodologies that both supplement and complement one another. Not the least, they have also offered a passion for the significance and relevance of discourse that supports Mike Reed's (Reference Reed and Grant2004:419) assertion that we need to “get real about organizational discourse.” In that respect, the book is further testament that “discourse matters.” It does things to us, with us, and for us – and our organizations.
