Discourse in the study of organizations. A revision of literature

Abstract

The paper presents a revision of literature related to discourse in the study of organizations, based on its theoretical fundamentals and its main contributions. The unit of analysis was 88 texts selected from a systematic revision of 5509 papers, published between 2000 and 2012 in ten of the principal international journals related to the subject defined. In order to highlight and categorize pertinent data, the qualitative research software Atlas.ti version 6.2 was used. The understanding of the information was complemented with contents and frequency analysis methods. Four dimensions of discourse were inferred from the main results: instrumental, symbolic, strategic and communicational. Additionally, a classification of the papers was made based on their approaches on discourse and the organizational themes studied. The contributions found in such revision support the idea that discourse is not only what is actually said, but also what has been silenced within the organization, which opens a field for research that has not been explored thoroughly in the analyzed texts. This paper incorporates a valuable contribution to the field of management and organizational studies, especially for all those professionals interested in organizational analysis from the perspective of discourse, both in the academy and in consultancy and organizational intervention.

Keywords

• Discourse analysis
• discourse
• discourse dimensions
• discourse approaches
• organizational studies