Peter Lenney

Category predication work, discursive leadership and strategic sensemaking

Categorization is known to play an important role in organizations because categories ‘frame’ situations in particular ways, informing managerial sensemaking and enabling managerial intervention. In this article, we advance existing work by examining the role of categorization practices in discursive leadership during periods of strategic change. Drawing on data from an ethnographic action research study of a strategic change initiative in a multi-national corporation, we use membership categorization analysis to develop a framework for studying ‘category predicates’ − defined as the stock of organizational knowledge and associated reasoning procedures concerning the kinds of activities, attributes, rights, responsibilities, expectations, and so on, that are ‘tied’ or ‘bound’ to organizational categories. Our analysis shows that discursive leadership enabled a radical shift in sensemaking about organizational structure categories through a process of ‘frame-breaking’ and ‘re-framing’. In so doing, the leader co-constructed a ‘definition of the situation’ that built a compelling vision and concrete plan for strategic change. We go on to trace the organizational consequences and material outcomes of this shift in sensemaking for the company in question. We conclude by arguing that ‘category predication work’ comprises a key leadership competence and plays an important role in organizational and strategic change processes.

Politics and strategy practice: An ethnomethodologically-informed discourse analysis perspective

In this article we aim to contribute to the ‘strategy-as-practice’ (SAP) field by studying organizational politics from an ethnomethodological perspective. We argue that it is important to study not only the ‘politics of sensemaking’, but also the ‘sensemaking of politics’. Existing research has examined how power and politics plays a role in the sensemaking processes involved in strategic action, yet we have little understanding to date about how power and politics are made sense of in accounts and used by members to conduct their practical affairs. Drawing on an in-depth qualitative study of a multinational branded apparel company, we show how politics constitutes a key interpretive method through which organizational reality is constructed and strategic decisions are made. We address two key research questions: How can we study politics as an interpretive procedure rather than a pre-existing entity? What practical actions are achieved through such interpretive procedures? The study reveals how a cross-functional team of senior managers used discourse to collectively co-author a version of the political landscape of the firm during team meeting interactions, with practical implications for how the group sought to undertake strategic change. As such, the paper furthers our understanding of the social construction of politics and strategy and puts forward a new and potentially more insightful form of analysis we call Ethnomethodologically-informed Discourse Analysis (EDA).

Sensemaking, Sense-Censoring and Strategic Inaction: The Discursive Enactment of Power and Politics in a Multinational Corporation

In this paper we contribute to knowledge of power and politics in international business by developing the understanding of the role of discourse and sensemaking in the subsidiary–headquarters relationship. Based on an ethnographic action research study in a British subsidiary of an American multinational corporation, we conduct an ethnomethodologically informed discourse analysis of the accounts, stories and metaphors through which power and politics in the subsidiary–headquarters relationship were created as social facts. We then broaden the analytic frame to trace longitudinally how these facts led the subsidiary managers to hide, dilute or restrict their ‘local sense’ from the headquarters, including their knowledge of the local market and their preferred strategic direction for the firm: a process we term sense-censoring. We reveal how the subsidiary used power and politics as reasoning procedures to decide against pursuing a preferred course of action, despite a strongly held belief to the contrary, due to anticipated reactions or counter-actions, thereby transforming potential strategic action into inaction. Sense-censoring is significant for international business management, we propose, because it impacts upon knowledge flows, innovation diffusion and organizational learning. We conclude by outlining the implications of systems of sense-censoring and strategic inaction for the management of global–local relations in multinational corporations.

Interest-Talk as Access-Talk: How Interests are Displayed, Made and Down-Played in Management Research

This paper addresses the methodological issue of how researchers gain access and build trust in order to conduct research in organizations. It focuses, in particular, on the role of interests (what actors want or what they stand to gain or lose) in the research relationship. The analysis shows how notions of interests, stake and motive were managed during an action research study in a UK subsidiary of a multinational corporation. The study uses an approach to discourse analysis inspired by the field of discursive psychology to identify four discursive devices: stake inoculation; stake confession; stake attribution; and stake construction. The paper contributes to the understanding of research methodology by identifying the importance of interest‐talk in the process of doing management research.

The reflexive turn in key account management: : Beyond formal and post-bureaucratic prescriptions

Purpose – This study aims to address how and why do formal key account management (KAM) programmes hinder effective KAM management, and how can the problems of formalization in KAM be overcome. Recent empirical studies have reported an unexpected negative relationship between KAM formalization and performance. Design/methodology/approach – An 18-month (340 days) ethnographic investigation was undertaken in the UK-based subsidiary of a major US sports goods manufacturer. This ethnographic evidence was triangulated with 113 in-depth interviews. Findings – This study identifies how and why managerial reflexivity allows a more effectively combining of formal and post-bureaucratic KAM practices. While formal KAM programmes provide a means to initiate, implement and control KAM, they have an unintended consequence of increasing organizational bureaucracy, which may in the long-run hinder the KAM effectiveness. Heightened reflexivity, including “wayfinding”, is identified as a means to overcome many of these cha...

Hg(63P1) photosensitization of cyclohexanone. Role of triplet biradical intermediates

Hg(63P1) photosensitization of cyclohexanone results in the formation of pent-1-ene, cyclopentane and hex-5-enal, just as observed in the direct photolysis. As the pressure of added SF6 or Ar bath gas is increased, both the total product quantum yield and that of the hydrocarbon products decrease, while that of hex-5-enal increases. A comprehensive mechanism, differing in detail from those previously proposed, is now formulated to account quantitatively for the experimental observations. Two sequentially formed, energy randomized, vibrationally excited triplet biradicals are believed to be the important intermediates that lead to product formation. Thus α-C—C bond cleavage of triplet cyclohexanone yields an acyl-alkyl biradical, 3B*, that can give rise to both hex-5-enal and also, by loss of CO, to the penta-1,5-diyl biradical, 3PD*, the precursor of the hydrocarbon products. Rate constants for intersystem crossing of the two biradicals are deduced along with that for the fragmentation of 3B*. An RRKM treatment of this decomposition suggests that the observed rate constant is best fitted using a biradical excitation energy calculated by assuming a heat of formation for 3B greater than the value computed by conventional methods, which neglect electronic interaction. In addition, relative rate constants are obtained for the intramolecular disproportionation and cyclisation of 1B and 1PD when both vibrationally excited and thermalized. It is concluded that the critical energy for ring closure of 1PD is greater than that for isomerization to pent-1-ene.