Oana Brindusa Albu

Hypertextuality and Social Media: A Study of the Constitutive and Paradoxical Implications of Organizational Twitter Use

Texts and conversations are central to the constitution of organizations. Through the use of social media technologies, organizational members and nonorganizational members alike have the capacity to author organizational texts that co-constitute an organization as an entity with a specific identity in a situational space and time. The implications of this ability are underexplored. This study focused on how two organizations used the social media technology Twitter to interact with their constituents. The article adopts communication-centered and sociomateriality perspectives to illustrate how Twitter interactions (hashtags) become hypertexts that simultaneously coproduce an organizational actor and act as a pastiche of the organization (i.e., a vehicle of contestation for the specific identity they were designed to bring into existence). The findings provide a novel understanding of hypertextuality as the process through which an organization is temporarily co-constituted by both inter- and intraorganizational discursive-material interactions across spaces and times.

Organizational Transparency Conceptualizations, Conditions, and Consequences

Transparency is an increasingly prominent area of research that offers valuable insights for organizational studies. However, conceptualizations of transparency are rarely subject to critical scrutiny and thus their relevance remains unclear. In most accounts, transparency is associated with the sharing of information and the perceived quality of the information shared. This narrow focus on information and quality, however, overlooks the dynamics of organizational transparency. To provide a more structured conceptualization of organizational transparency, this article unpacks the assumptions that shape the extant literature, with a focus on three dimensions: conceptualizations, conditions, and consequences. The contribution of the study is twofold: (a) On a conceptual level, we provide a framework that articulates two paradigmatic positions underpinning discussions of transparency, verifiability approaches and performativity approaches; (b) on an analytical level, we suggest a novel future research agenda for studying organizational transparency that pays attention to its dynamics, paradoxes, and performative characteristics.

The politics of transnational accountability policies and the (re)construction of corruption: The case of Tunisia, Transparency International and the World Bank

Abstract This study explores the intersection between accountability policies and anti-corruption measures. Transnational actors define acceptable governance and implement accountability policies on the assumption that corruption is a problem endemic to developing countries. Such accountability policies influence and help constitute transnational geographic and social spaces. However, the impacts of such assumptions and the resultant policies on developing countries and their citizens have not been widely investigated. This study uses a critical discourse analysis of the case of Tunisia before and after its 2011 revolution, to explore the politics and vested interests specific to anti-corruption policies promoted by transnational actors. The study’s contribution is twofold: Firstly, we identify the highly fungible character of the emanant cycles of Western-driven corruption discourses, and indicate their consequences in Tunisia. Secondly, we propose a future research agenda towards non-exploitative anti-corruption and accountability policies.