Management Studies in Development and Evolution

Linguistic patterns of managers to gain legitimacy in large organizations

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Shahram Khalil Nezhad

Assistant Professor, Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management and Accounting, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22054/jmsd.2024.79294.4465
Abstract
The strategy-as-practice view is one of the new, emerging and developing perspectives in the field of strategy research. This view places great emphasis on the study of language, and discourse in small and local areas. The study, relying on this approach and using thematic analysis, seeks to investigate how senior managers in large Iranian organizations use language to gain more legitimacy. The research after analyzing 43 interviews related to 31 people (population: 59 people) of senior managers of large organizations in Iran have reached saturation. The samples were obtained from a combination of convenience, purposive and theoretical sampling. Kappa coefficient was used to validate the research. Its number was 0.74. In the first step of coding, 61 open codes were identified. Finally, as a result of the second step or the axial coding, it was found that the managers of large Iranian organizations in order to legitimize themselves, their decisions and actions continuously use the six language patterns of "science, ethics, dependence, differentiation, order and future" in their statements, interviews, speeches, and the like and have institutionalized them. These language patterns sometimes have a constructive and functional role and many times they have a destructive and non-functional role.

Keywords

Strategy as practice
legitimization
language
discourse
Subjects
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Management Studies in Development and Evolution
Volume 33, Issue 114
Winter 2025
Pages 147-176

  • Receive Date 18 April 2024
  • Revise Date 06 May 2024
  • Accept Date 20 May 2024

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