Hugo Gaggiotti and Margaret Page
The purpose of this paper is to explore the methodological challenges of developing a shared academic–student discourse of recovery with undergraduate students in their final year…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the methodological challenges of developing a shared academic–student discourse of recovery with undergraduate students in their final year at a British business school.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors reflect on the meaning of recovery and how it was negotiated and constructed by the relation established between students and academics, by analysing the visual- and text-based materials they produced and the discussions provoked by these materials using symmetric ethnology and content analysis.
Findings
The main finding is that students tended to reflect on the real, particularly the social, by creating copies and replicas; the authors, as academics, engaged with this practice with ambivalence. The article concludes that this as an attempt to manage what is felt to be unmanageable, echoing what some authors consider to be a contemporary practice of social justification (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991) and others consider to be a well-established cultural practice (Taussig, 1993).
Research limitations/implications
The paper contributes to a better understanding of how relatedness and reflexive inquiry become essential for when teaching and that is linked with academics being able to be openly related with students and their situation; to a better understanding of recovery and how it can be co-constructed by academics and students through a share narrative; to a methodology for the analysis of text and images, and its appropriateness for the study of ways in which imagination of the future may be co-constructed; and to an understanding of mimetic objects, replicas and copies.
Practical implications
The paper suggests that this approach could have practical implications when applying co-inquiry approaches of learning, the understanding of institutional and academic meaning of replication and relatedness in academic context of economic crisis.
Originality/value
The authors conclude that academic relatedness and students–tutors engagement is constructed differently when re-considering replication as a way of learning. Preference for copying and pasting found texts and images, rather than creating, served as a way of managing the unknown and of constructing recovery through a process of “mimeting” (Campbell, 2005).
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Chengcheng Miao, Hugo Gaggiotti and Chris Brewster
This paper aims to discuss multiple uses of the concept of “bubble” as a metaphor to refer to different experiences of foreign working communities and suggests a more flexible and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss multiple uses of the concept of “bubble” as a metaphor to refer to different experiences of foreign working communities and suggests a more flexible and comprehensive approach.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at different locations, the authors propose changing the use of the bubble metaphor from an analogy of living in isolation to a way of conceptualising the changing contexts and characteristics that impact the porosity and permeability of communities.
Findings
The paper suggests that when using the metaphor as a concept, the following considerations need to be taken into account: (1) the conventional thinking that “expat-bubbles” are isolated places, (2) any simplistic notion that different internationally mobile workers will be less or more immersed in the local community and (3) the use of the bubble metaphor without a careful delineation and reference to its permeability and porosity.
Originality/value
The paper helps to visualise a different dimension of the traditional taken-for-granted representation of the bubble. The bubble emerges as a rich analogical concept not to explain binomial representations of integration-separation. Rather than a simple “open” or “closed”, bubbles became more or less porous and permeable depending on the experiences of foreign working communities.
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Margaret L. Page and Hugo Gaggiotti
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the practices and findings of a visual inquiry developed by the co‐authors with students in a Business School in the south west of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce the practices and findings of a visual inquiry developed by the co‐authors with students in a Business School in the south west of England. The authors are interested in how students engaged with the visual as a practice of inquiry and how this contributed to their development of a critical approach to the concept of ethics in business organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
Students visited an exhibition shown as part of the 100 days countdown to the COP15 UN climate change conference, and constructed visual representation of questions and dilemmas related to ethical business practice. The analysis focuses on student presentations, and the discussions that these provoked on the relationship between “business” and “ethical practice”.
Findings
Doing co‐inquiry with visual images enabled many students to engage more proactively with ethical dilemmas; to attend to deeply felt values that they were not accustomed to bring into the rule bound environment of the classroom; to develop critical readings of the visual as a discourse about business organisations and their claims to ethical practice; and to create their own visual representations of ethical dilemmas within business practice.
Originality/value
The research methodology brings together inquiry‐based learning and visual inquiry in the context of undergraduate learning in a business school. The paper considers the significance of the methodology and findings as a contribution to visual inquiry methodology and practice, and as a medium for enabling students in a business school to develop their ethical sensibility.
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The purpose of this paper is to expand understanding about the rhetoric of synergy and how it is manifested in a global corporation, Tubworld (name changed), during a period of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to expand understanding about the rhetoric of synergy and how it is manifested in a global corporation, Tubworld (name changed), during a period of mergers and acquisitions.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology is based on an analysis of visual and oral material collected during a four‐year, intermittent fieldwork project in four companies of the same corporation across four countries.
Findings
There were three main findings. First, the rhetoric of synergy is evidenced in the oral and the written, as well as the visual, and is part of the organizational experience of those involved in mergers – particularly expatriate managers. Second, the rhetoric of synergy operates not only in a prospective dimension (in order to justify the mergers or the takeovers and the future of the organization), but also in a retrospective dimension (in order to create a uniform mythical past). Third, the rhetoric of synergy is visualised and experienced not only in the private domain of the factories, but also in the public and semi‐public spaces that are part of the managers' visuals (gates, perimeter walls, signals, roads, water tanks), creating a synergetic world that is not limited to the organizational experience.
Research limitations/implications
The most notable limitations of the study are the temporal framework and the limited number of locations; the study was restricted to a moment in the organizational life of Tubworld and its expatriates – to the Tubworld factories that were part of the nuclear constitution of the corporation. On the positive side, this study contributes to a better understanding of the role of the rhetoric of synergy in organizational discourses that support change in general, and mergers and takeovers in particular, thereby providing a broader perception of synergy. The three findings contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the rhetoric of synergy in the organizational representation and practices of expatriate managers – particularly those involved in mergers, acquisitions and takeovers.
Originality/value
The method and approach – visual and oral narrative – make an original contribution to the literature, illuminating the problematic of mergers and acquisition at a material and symbolic level.
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The purpose of this paper is to analyse contradictions, similarities, and differences between official corporate chronicles and individual stories of international managers of a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse contradictions, similarities, and differences between official corporate chronicles and individual stories of international managers of a multinational company.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis was made following methodological and technical approaches of critical analysis of narratives and organizational discourse of an ethnography conducted in a multinational corporation.
Findings
It is suggested that contradictions, similarities, and differences are ways that managers have to resist patronage and imposition of meanings. Implications for organizations are suggested.
Originality/value
The discursive manipulation of the meaning of time as a way of organizational patronage is considered.
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Marja Flory and Oriol Iglesias
The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a critical review of the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and practice.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a critical review of the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
Conceptual implications are drawn from the analysis and discussion of the papers of this special issue, as well as from previous literature.
Findings
Managers and researchers will be unable to explore the potential of narratives and stories fully if, at the same time, they do not deeply comprehend the underpinnings of rhetoric.
Originality/value
The paper further discusses the role of rhetoric and narratives in management research and practice and also explores the relationships between rhetoric and narratives.