Taking the Linguistic Turn in Organizational Research

Abstract

This article takes the linguistic turn, or turns, in the social sciences as its point of departure and discusses the implications for methodology, empirical research, and field practices in social and organizational studies. Various responses can be identified: grounded fictionalism, giving up the hope of making substantive, empirical claims in terms of research texts capturing social phenomena; data-constructionism, where the ambiguous and constructed nature of empirical material gives space for a more relaxed, freer, and bolder way of interacting with empirical material; and discursivism, in which the researcher concentrates on the details of empirical material that lends itself to representations in the form of language, for example, conversations and texts. The article develops some ideas for a more reflective way of dealing with language issues in empirical social research. It argues for a more discourse-near but not discourse-exclusive approach to organizational research and refers to this as discursive pragmatism.

Introduction: Organizational Discourse: Exploring the Field

“…A sweep of the pertinent literature (see, e.g., Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000aGrant et al, 1998aGrant et al, , 2001Hardy et al, 2004;Iedema, 2003;Phillips & Hardy, 2002;Putnam & Fairhurst, 2001;Woodilla, 1998) suggests that one key methodological issue relates to whether studies place an emphasis on language in use as opposed to language in context, while an important epistemological issue relates to the exposition of plurivocality.…”

Language in International Business: A Review and Agenda for Future Research

“…Brannen et al (2014) name technical or electronic language as potentially insightful avenues of research, whereas a large stream of discourse, rhetoric, and narrative analysis by organization theorists investigates how top managers recontextualize content through language, thus shaping sensemaking, organizational identities, and strategic orientations (Boje et al 2004;Phillips et al 2004). Future research could fruitfully connect the ''linguistic turn in organizational research'' (Alvesson and Kärreman 2000) focusing on rhetorical and metaphorical language with the linguistic turn in international business targeting on the multilingual realities in global corporations.…”

The Visual Dimension in Organizing, Organization, and Organization Research: Core Ideas, Current Developments, and Promising Avenues

“…Such work can advance the growing literature on rhetoric in and around organizations, including critical approaches (e.g., Alvesson & Kärreman, 2000;Grant, Hardy, Oswick, & Putnam, 2004;Green, 2004;Sillince, 1999;Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005). Visual rhetoric is, for instance, linked to issues of power and accountability: Acknowledging the observation that in Western cultures verbal text has traditionally been controlled more strongly than visual text, visual images should be a domain where subtle resistance and subversion in the face of overwhelming powers can thrive.…”