HOW TO MANAGE ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY WITH WORDS” : APPLYING PSYCHOLINGUISTICS TO ORGANIZATIONAL STUDIES

In recent years, the body of theory on organizational discourse has significantly grown, forming a specific field and contributing to the elaboration of a broader organization and management theory. Studying organizational discourse with an applied-psycholinguistic perspective provides important insights into organizational processes of management, thus reconciling hard (system, structure and staff) with soft factors (skills, strategy and style). These factors concretely construct organizational identity, and when aligned, allow an excellent performance. In this vein, the aim of this study is to investigate how organizational discourse can contribute to shape and reinforce organizational identity, especially in times of change and economical crisis. The context of the study was a medium-sized enterprise, a Publishing House located in the South of Italy, whose workforce was up to 130 employees. In order to capture a “privileged” point of view, only workers from the top and middle management were involved, namely the entrepreneur, 5 staff area managers and 6 supervisors. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted to explore participants’ perception of : a) organizational plant and management style ; b) Human Resource Management practices ; c) salaries policies ; d) career development chances ; e) organizational climate ; f) communication, vision and mission. The discursive data collected were elaborated through Diatextual Analysis, a method within Discourse Analysis which specifically addresses the nexus between interlocutors, texts and contexts of talk. Finally, Greimas, & Courtes’ (1979) semiotic square was adopted to frame the identity profiles that came out of the discursive analysis. Results showed that participants differently shaped their organizational belonging in discourse. Four main discursive positionings (the idealist, the critical, the formal and the hopeless) accounted for the complexity of the sense making processes that actually govern person/organization relationships.