Janne Tienari

Management Consultant Talk: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Normalizing Discourse and Resistance

In this article, we explore the discursive possibilities available to men and women when they construct their professional self as ‘knowledge workers’ in multinational management consultancies. We argue that this professional identity construction is embedded in a normalizing, gendered discourse of what it means to be an ‘ideal’ consultant. However, representations of an alternative discourse, which constructs different spheres in an individual’s life, can also be traced in the consultants’ talk. Through a comparison of British and Finnish consultants’ talk, we show the relevance of placing micro-discourses in context. In the UK, discourse on ‘work/life balance’ may be understood as a form of resistance at the level of subjectivity. In Finland, discourse on the ‘balanced individual’ can be seen to be an articulation of a societally bound normalizing discourse. The cultural context can thus be said to have an effect on forms of resistance in knowledge work.

Organizational Reforms, `Ideal Workers' and Gender Orders: A Cross-Societal Comparison

In this article, we put forth a comparative study of gender distinctions and relations within the processes of organizational reform in a German and a Finnish bank. We demonstrate how these processes are interwoven with assumptions about the `ideal worker (cf. Acker 1990; 1992) that organizational members are measured against in management. We argue that the `ideal worker, even though, in general, a masculine notion, should not be perceived as a universal or as a static category. We suggest that notions of the `ideal worker not only vary within different models of work organization, but that they vary across societal contexts. These notions are based on different gender orders (cf. Connell 1987) which penetrate organizational life and become incorporated in different, though predominantly masculine, conceptions. `Ideal worker is also not a static category. If we consider gender distinctions and relations in organizations as produced, reproduced and redefined through continuously ongoing social interaction, there is a need to analyze how the notion of the `ideal worker evolves in time — when organizations become subject to change efforts through reforms.

How Issues Become (Re)constructed in the Media: Discursive Practices in the AstraZeneca Merger

In this article, we put forward a novel way of exploring difference and contradiction in merging organizations. We examine how the media (re)constructs meanings in a major cross-border merger. Based on an analysis of press coverage, we attempt to specify and illustrate how particular issues are (re)constructed in media texts through interpretations of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’. We also show how specific discourses are drawn on in this (re)construction. In the merger studied, discourse based on economic and financial rationale dominated the media coverage. Discourse promoting nationalistic sentiments, however, provided an alternative discursive frame to the dominant rationalistic discourse. We argue that the two basic discourses are enacted in three analytically distinct discursive practices in the media: factualizing, rationalizing and emotionalizing. We suggest that the ability of different actors such as top managers to make use of different discursive strategies and resources in promoting their ‘versions of reality’ in the media (or public discussion) is a crucial avenue for research in this area.

Global Capitalism Meets National Spirit: Discourses in Media Texts on a Cross-Border Acquisition

In this article, the authors explore media coverage of a recent acquisition across national borders. Their starting point is that the media represent a key arena of “discursive strategizing” for actors such as corporate managers. They illustrate and specify how global capitalism, as discourse relying on economic and financial rationale and exemplified here by the acquiring firm’s attempts to expand, meets national spirit, exemplified here by the complexity in selling the acquisition target to foreigners. The main contribution of this study lies in identifying how key actors draw on and mobilize rationalistic and nationalistic discourses in public discussion. The analysis illustrates that the same actors can draw on different—even contradictory—discourses at different points in time. Furthermore, different actors—even with opposing objectives—may draw on the same discourse in legitimizing their positions and pursuing specific ends.

Making Sense of a Transnational Merger: Media Texts and the (Re)construction of Power Relations

In this study of symbolic power relations in a transnational merger, we suggest that the popular media can provide a significant arena for (re)constructing national identities and power in this kind of dramatic industrial restructuring, and are an under-utilized source of empirical data in research studies. Focusing on the press coverage of a recent Swedish-Finnish merger, we specify and illustrate a particular feature of discursive (re)construction of asymmetric power relations; superior (Swedish) and inferior (Finnish) national identities, which, we argue, are embedded in the history of colonization and domination between the two nations. The findings of the present study lead us to suggest that a lens taken from post-colonial theory is particularly useful in understanding the wider symbolic power implications of international industrial restructuring.

Between West and East: A social history of business journalism in Cold War Finland

The Cold War era was characterized by ideological struggles that had a major impact on economic decision-making, and also on management practice. To date, however, these ideological struggles have received little attention from management and organizational scholars. To partially fill this research gap, we focus on the role of the media in these ideological struggles. Our starting point is that the media both reflect more general societal debates but also act as an agency promoting specific kinds of ideas and ideologies. In this sense, the media exercise significant power in society; this influence, however, is often subtle and easily dismissed in historical analyses focusing on political and corporate decision-making. In this article, we focus on the role of business journalism in the ideological struggles of the Cold War era. Our case in point is Finland, which is arguably a particularly interesting example due to its geo-political position between East and West. Our approach is socio-historical: we focus on the emergence and development of business journalism in the context of the specific struggles in the Finnish political and economic fields. Our analysis shows how the business journalists struggled between nationalist, pro-Soviet and pro-West political forces, but gradually developed into an increasingly influential force promoting neo-liberal ideology

Introduction : making inclusion work in academia

This book is for inclusion and multiplicity in academia. To this end, it is against standardization. As academics in Western countries, we are being organized to conform to rigid standards of teaching and research. This book shows how we can meaningfully challenge such standardization through inclusive practices in our everyday work. We – the authors in this edited volume – present inclusive ideas and ways of interacting that have worked in different university contexts around the world. We share our personal experiences on working for inclusion, account for the relative success of our efforts and provide insights that may prove helpful for others, too. We care passionately about inclusion in academic work. For us, inclusion means bringing in new voices, themes and methods in teaching and research. Most often, inclusion refers in this book to incorporating considerations of gender and ethnicity in the ways in which curricula, courses and research projects are developed and run. By questioning established power relations, privileged knowledge and locally held truths regarding good and proper academic standards and practice, we have each in our own way sought to challenge the status quo. We have sought to make alternative understandings and practices visible. We are aware of current criticism of ‘positive scholarship’ (Fineman, 2006). We distance ourselves from this notion. As feminist organization and management scholars we have learned not to be naive. We are aware of unequal power relations and structures of domination that our work is embedded in. These relations and structures are woven into the fabric of our academic lives, even if we sometimes refer to particular experiences as positive. Also, our stories relate to relative success in changing everyday academic practices, not to great breakthroughs or unselfish service to community. In this way, we also distance ourselves from the notion of ‘engaged scholarship’, which has in recent years become a popular concept to describe meaningful academic work. Engaged scholarship can refer to admirable efforts to incorporate key stakeholders’ perspectives in the study of complex social problems