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14. Discourse analysis as intervention: a
case of organizational changing
Pascal Dey and Dörte Resch
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, researchers in management and organization studies
have devoted considerable attention to discursive research, so it is hardly
controversial to claim that discourse analysis is one of the field’s most
popular research methodologies. At the risk of simplifying, a key assump-
tion underlying much of the available literature is that discourse analysis
is primarily an excellent tool for producing knowledge (Heracleous, 2006)
and more generally an analytic mentality (Phillips and Hardy, 2002).
This interpretation is noteworthy as it consigns discourse analysis to its
epistemological function.
Although we agree that discourse analysis is inextricably connected
to questions of epistemology (knowledge), in this chapter we seek to
transcend this position by demonstrating that it can also be used pro-
ductively as a means of intervention. Conflating the epistemological and
interventionist trajectories of discourse analysis, we build on prior work
that conceives of ‘method’ and ‘research’ quite generally as a means for
enacting and changing reality instead of ‘only’ representing or interpreting
it (Law, 2004; Steyaert, 2011). Following this vein of thinking, we tenta-
tively outline the interventionist potential of discourse analysis against
the backdrop of organizational changing. Thereby, drawing on Tsoukas
(2005), we define organizational changing as the process through which
multiple discursive practices unfold, allowing members of organizations
to give meaning to the organizational reality of which they are part. Using
this approach, and analysing a consultancy project in a large German
voluntary organization, we reveal how discourse analysis can be used to
intervene in discursive practices that are characterized by tensions and
struggle. To this end, we pinpoint how the results from one such analysis
were used to break up a contracted conflict via two interrelated steps. First,
discursive spaces were created that offered members of the organization
an opportunity to vent their frustration and to create awareness of the
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314 A guide to discursive organizational psychology
antagonistic discursive practices that triggered the tensions and conflict.
Second, generative dialogue allowed them to foster more affirmative
re- interpretations of organizational changing.
This chapter is organized as follows. First, we advance a discursive
understanding of organizational changing. Then, we offer an intervention-
ist conceptualization of discourse analysis. In the third section we discuss
the context, the case organization, and the design of the consultancy
project. The fourth section offers a schematic outline of how discourse
analysis was used to engage members of the case organization in new
meaning- making practices by gradually shifting from ‘talking tough’ to
a more generative mode of exchange. We draw the chapter to a close by
identifying some areas for future research.
FROM ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE TO
ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGING
Organizational change is a central topic of Management and Organization
Theory, and has been advanced from behavioural, cognitive and discur-
sive perspectives (Tsoukas, 2005). At its simplest, a discursive perspective,
which has risen to prominence over the last two decades (Heracleous and
Barrett, 2001; Phillips and Oswick, 2012) emphasizes how discourses bring
organizations and organizational phenomena into existence. In spite of
the variety of interpretations of discourse, the notion of discourse mostly
attends to how language works, not as a medium of representation but as
an ‘ordering force’ of reality (Alvesson and Kärreman, 2000). Primarily
concerned with the constitutive role of spoken and written language, dis-
course is commonly envisioned as the meaning- making practices which
constitute the social reality which they ostensibly only describe. Discursive
practices comprise such diverse phenomena as talk, text, metaphor, myth,
narratives and images (Grant, Michelson, Oswick and Wailes, 2005).
Transposed to the topic of organizational change, a discursive per-
spective calls attention to how organizations are both constituted and
changed via discursive practices. A discursive perspective sees organiza-
tional change less as a one- time, episodic event than as an ongoing process
of discursively co- constructing meanings. As Hodge (2010, p. 34) points
out, change ‘is never final, but is always subject to changes, appearing and
disappearing arbitrarily’. In line with research that sees organizational
change as a process of ‘becoming’ and not as a ‘momentary disturbance
that must be stabilized and controlled’ (Graetz and Smith, 2010, p. 136),
Tsoukas (2005) suggests that we speak of ‘organizational changing’ instead
of organizational change in order to stress the processual aspect of the
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Discourse analysis as intervention 315
phenomenon, the fact that it can never really be finalized. Embracing
Tsoukas’ conceptual twist, in this chapter, we speak of organizational
changing to allude to instances where members of organizations invoke
different and sometimes contradictory discourses to redefine, re- label, and
reinterpret what happens within their organization, what their organiza-
tion stands for, or what is considered to be its raison d’être (Jian, 2011).
Organizational changing as an ongoing process of meaning- making thus
encompasses the interweaving of different discourses, conceived as rela-
tively coherent and (temporarily) stable patterns of meaning, which give
rise to our experience of ‘organization’.
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AS INTERVENTION
It follows from the above that organizational changing involves tensions
and struggle triggered by competing discourses. Tensions thus occur as
certain discourses might reinforce the status quo of an organization,
whereas others might transform established meanings. Although organi-
zations rarely attain a state of complete discursive domination (or what
Grant and Marshak (2011) call ‘discursive closure’) struggles do ensue over
the question of who is given the opportunity to determine the ‘what’ and
‘why’ of organizational changing (Grant and Marshak, 2011). As organi-
zational changing comprises competing discourses vying for dominance,
the question, then, is how different, and often incompatible, discursive
practices can be dealt with in ways that prevent open hostility, violence or
deadlock. The managerial answer would be that managers must ensure the
consent of their employees by making sure that they comply with and thus
act according to the strategic desideratum of organizational cadres.
And yet, we are reluctant to accept that executives and managers are the
only people in organizations who are entitled to ‘destroy existing meaning
systems and establish new ones in an effort to set strategic direction’
(Sonenshein, 2010, p. 477). Instead, envisioning organizational changing
less as a hierarchical (that is, top- down) endeavour and more as a dialogic
one (Marshak and Grant, 2008a), we contend that all members of an
organization should be given the opportunity to participate in defining the
‘what’ and ‘why’ of organizational changing (Grant and Marshak, 2011).
Granting all members an active role in the process of changing is in line
with accounts which advocate that ‘change recipients’ (that is, ordinary
employees) should also be granted voice in solving existing conflicts and in
deciding on the organization’s future direction (Ford, Ford and D’Amelio,
2008). The question that emerges here is how to best conceptualize such an
inclusive prospect of organizational changing.
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316 A guide to discursive organizational psychology
It is here that discourse analysis has an important role to play. As a start,
let us reiterate that discourse analysis can be productively used to intervene
in (the making of) realities instead of merely representing reality (Law
and Urry, 2005). Based on this premise, the overarching aim of discourse
analysis as a vehicle for intervention is to engage members of the organiza-
tion in generative dialogue (Scharmer, 2001) geared towards opening up
less conflict- ridden, more affirmative ways of co- creating organizational
reality. Such a shift towards generative dialogue fosters an openness to
engage in a collective process of re- negotiating what the organization
should stand for and how it should develop going forward. A crucial
step towards generative dialogue is creating discursive spaces (Hardy and
Maguire, 2010) where all members of a group, team or the organization at
large can meet, describe their experiences and concerns, and learn to listen
to other people’s points of view. Whilst such encounters permit actors to
exchange their dissenting viewpoints and gather a better understanding
of how the struggles and tensions within their organization emanate from
competing discourses, discourse analysis serves the purpose of making
palpable the antagonistic discursive practices upon which a given organi-
zation is premised. Overall then, a crucial merit of discourse analysis is its
ability to create minute insights into the ways that competing discourses
spark tensions and conflict, which in turn can be fed back into a generative
dialogue that gives all those in the organization a say in determining the
purpose and prospect of organizational changing.
It is not difficult to see that the interventionist usage of discourse
analysis involves an epistemological endeavour as a first step. That is,
the results of a discourse analysis, which essentially reveal the different
meaning- making practices that underpin a given organization, sensitize
the organization’s members about the ‘open- ended micro- processes that’
underlie ‘the (changing) trajectories’ (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002, p. 570). In
other words, by making transparent how the breadth of meaning- making
practices engenders tensions and conflicts (Grant and Marshak, 2011) dis-
course analysis allows all involved to understand that their organizations
change in particular ways, experience turmoil and crisis, or become stag-
nant because of the specific discursive practices in which people engage
(Thomas, Sargent and Hardy, 2011).
The actual intervention, then, is a matter of creating discursive spaces
(Hardy and Maguire, 2010) to which all members of an organization have
access and which do not privilege or exclude certain meanings and modes
of speaking. Discursive spaces constitute democratic spaces which allow
employees to freely express their ‘truth’, their vision of how things pertain-
ing to the change- at- hand are or should be. The overarching aim of a discur-
sive space is to provoke a generative dialogue geared towards the ‘reweaving
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Discourse analysis as intervention 317
of actors’ webs of beliefs and habits of action as a result of new experiences
obtained through interactions’ (Tsoukas and Chia, 2002, p. 570).
Before offering a vignette showing how we used discourse analysis as an
interventionist tool, we first provide some background information on our
empirical case material.
CONTEXT
This chapter had its beginning when our team, led by Annette Kluge, at
the Research Institute for Organizational Psychology at the University of
St.Gallen received an email invitation from one of the largest German vol-
untary organizations to partake in a tendering process. The focal attention
of the organization, which we refer to using the pseudonym Subvenio, was,
and still is, to support families and children in need. The project in ques-
tion was resolving a protracted conflict which had become intense enough
that the board of Subvenio sought external assistance. Two representa-
tives of Subvenio visited us in St. Gallen to explain the mandate of the
project and the conditions of the tendering process. During that meeting,
it became obvious that the mandate was still very inchoate and that what
the representatives told us strongly reflected their own interpretations of
the reasons for the crisis at Subvenio.
In their view, the crisis was caused by the introduction of new manage-
rial arrangements such as financial forecasting, budgeting, portfolio plan-
ning, and so on, which had estranged Subvenio’s employees, because they
ostensibly undermined values deeply entrenched in the organization such
as spending time with and caring for their clientele. The new accounting
systems took so much time to operate that people found it increasingly dif-
ficult to engage with others, be they colleagues or clients. By implication,
the managerial arrangement had a direct negative effect on employees’
ability to pursue the organization’s social mission. Though Subvenio had
overcome its precarious financial situation within less than two years, the
struggles between the promoters of the reforms (read managers) and its
sceptics had worsened as more and more employees raised their concerns
over the value- disrupting effects of the new managerial arrangements.
Shortly after the initial contact, we were invited to come to the organiza-
tion’s headquarters in Germany to present our team to the two directors
and select members of the board. On the sidelines of this gathering, the
directors gave us a very different interpretation about the sources of the
conflict at Subvenio. Although they agreed that the conflict was between
management and employees, the directors did not frame the introduction
of managerial tools and technologies as a sheer necessity in the face of
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