Communicating Organizational Change Reactions: Downsizing Survivors’ Discursive Constructions of Flexible Identities

The aim of this article is to study employees’ discursive construction of disparate survivor responses. The analysis reveals how employees position themselves simultaneously within different types of categories by use of discursive actions. Drawing on various discourses, the actors reject having one...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Business and professional communication quarterly 2014-12, Vol.77 (4), p.473-498
Main Author: Aggerholm, Helle Kryger
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrators
Anxiety
Cognitive Psychology
Denmark
Discourse Analysis
Employee Attitudes
Employees
Foreign Countries
Job Layoff
Job Security
Management theory
Organizational behavior
Organizational Change
Organizational Communication
Postmodernism
Self Concept
Semi Structured Interviews
Sensitivity
Studies
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:The aim of this article is to study employees’ discursive construction of disparate survivor responses. The analysis reveals how employees position themselves simultaneously within different types of categories by use of discursive actions. Drawing on various discourses, the actors reject having one solid core of identity and instead signal the existence of various flexible identities. The article contributes to a greater understanding of the importance of discourse within organizational change. An increased managerial sensitivity toward employee discourse may help to understand why employees obstruct organizational changes and subsequently make it easier to preempt and handle such reactions.
ISSN:2329-4906
2329-4922
2329-4922
DOI:10.1177/2329490614547757