How organizational strategy is realized in situated interaction. A conversation analytical study of a management meeting.

Abstract

This study investigates the essential role of ‘text’ – defined as the ‘substance’ upon and through which situated conversations are formed – in the communicative (re)construction of organizational strategy in managerial meeting interaction. In line with the ethnomethodological view of practice, the analysis of managers’ meeting interaction demonstrates how the participants orient to written and spoken texts as constitutive elements in the practice of strategy. What is more, the analysis shows how ‘texts’ are attributed agency and how they are used in a persuasive way for legitimation purposes. Theoretically, the study develops an argument that the communicative construction of strategy in situated interaction is premised on the dynamic interplay of texts as dislocal activity types and conversation as here-and-now activity. Overall, the study furthers our knowledge of the role of meetings as an important strategic practice.