Discursive positioning and planned change in organizations Academic Article

abstract

• This study uses discursive positioning theory to explore how planned change messages influence organizational members identity and the way they experienced organizational change. Based on an in-depth case study of a home healthcare and hospice organization that engaged in a multiyear planned change process, our analysis suggests that workers experienced salient change messages as constituting unfavorable identities, which were associated with the experiences of violation, recitation, habituation, or reservation. Our study also explores the way discursive and material contexts enabled and constrained the governing boards change messages as they responded to external and internal audiences. We highlight the importance of viewing messaging as a process of information transfer as well as discursive construction, which has important implications for the way change agents approach issues of sense making, emotionality, resistance, and materiality during planned change processes.

authors

• Barge, James

published proceedings

• HUMAN RELATIONS

altmetric score

• 1

author list (cited authors)

• Bisel, R. S., & Barge, J. K.

citation count

• 70

complete list of authors

• Bisel, Ryan S||Barge, J Kevin

publication date

• February 2011

publisher

• SAGE Publications  Publisher

published in

• Human Relations  Journal

keywords

• Emotion
• Materiality
• Organizational Communication
• Organizational Discourse
• Planned Change Comunication
• Positioning Theory

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1177/0018726710375996

start page

• 257

end page

• 283

volume

• 64

issue

• 2

URL

• http%3A%2F%2Fdx.doi.org%2F10.1177%2F0018726710375996