Argumentative dialogues in mergers & acquisitions: evidence from investors and analysts conference calls

This paper considers a specific communicative activity type of the financial context – analysts and investors conference calls – from an argumentative perspective. On the basis of a concrete example bound to an important and very recent merger story (the failed attempt to combine Barclays and ABN AMRO banks), it is shown that conference calls, apparently conceived for information-seeking/gathering only, actually manifests, implicitly and explicitly, argumentative dialogues, in which corporate managers have to defend the reasonableness of the decisions they made or the expediency of the transactions and investments they are proposing

Il sospetto: anticamera della verità o catastrofe della fiducia

Il presente Working Paper raccoglie i contenuti delle relazioni e delle discussioni che hanno animato il primo evento pubblico organizzato dal LACoPS il 24 gennaio 2013 nell’Auditorium dell’Università della Svizzera Italiana a Lugano. Tema: “Il sospetto – anticamera della verità o catastrofe della fiducia?”. I relatori – Eddo Rigotti e Rudi Palmieri, Graziano Martignoni, Stiliano Ordolli, François Degeorge e Antonio Perugini – sono intervenuti affrontando alcune domande rilevanti nella sfera pubblica: “Quando si abusa del sospetto?” Come evitare il prevalere di una cultura del sospetto in un’epoca in cui tutti parlano di crisi di fiducia?

« Acte de Dieu » ou « Erreur humaine » ? – Analyse argumentative du débat relative à la crise de l’automobile de Détroit (2008)

La crise financière qui s’est déclenchée en 2007 a fortement affecté l’industrie automobile, en aggravant une situation déjà difficile pour les entreprises, en particulier « les Trois Grands » (The Big Three) de Détroit (Ford, General Motors, Chrysler). Cette crise dans la crise, s’il faut en croire les arguments des entreprises, était étroitement liée au resserrement du crédit.À l’opposé, de nombreuses critiques ont été formulées contre les trois entreprises, accusées de n’avoir pas été capables de s’adapter aux développements du secteur. Par conséquence, la question des prêts de l’État sollicités par les Big Three a provoqué un débat acharné où différentes interprétations concernant la crise financière et l’industrie automobile ont été avancées : crise financière comme seule cause des ennuis du secteur automobile ou crise financière portant le coup de grâce à un secteur déjà en crise ?Cette analyse se focalise sur la fonction de ces interprétations dans les structures inférentielles des arguments qui ont cadré ce débat. Plus précisément, chaque interprétation représente une valeur ou principe partagé – Endoxon dans la théorie de l’argumentation – qui permet de fonder le parcours argumentatif désiré. Une attention particulière est apportée à la caractérisation de la crise, dont l’interprétation comme événement presque naturel (« acte de Dieu ») ou comme résultat d’une action (« erreur humaine ») se révèle fondamentale par rapport à la politique financière à suivre. L’analyse porte sur des articles d’opinion publiés par plusieurs médias (comme le Wall Street Journal, BBC News) entre la fin de 2008 et le début de 2009, et sur les documents principaux qui ont servi aux directeurs d’entreprise dans l’argumentation de leur position.The 2007 financial crisis significantly affected the automobile industry, particularly the Big Three of Detroit (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler). According to management, theirs was a "crisis within the crisis" linked to the credit crunch. On the other hand, critics charged the Big Three had failed to adapt to new industrial developments. Consequently, federal government support to these companies generated debate about whether the financial crisis was a specific problem experienced by the automobile sector or the coup de grace administered to an already troubled industry.This analysis focuses on the inferential configurations of the main arguments which characterized the Detroit debate. More precisely, the opposite ways in which the financial crisis is interpreted constitute different shared values or principles – called Endoxon in argumentation theory – which ground the desired argumentative path. Particular attention is paid to the strategies through which the crisis is framed as a substantially natural event ("Act of God") or as the outcome of human action ("Act of Man"), a decisive factor with regard to obtaining the financial aid claimed.The analysis is based on news stories and comments in different media (e.g. Wall Street Journal, BBC News) late 2008 and early 2009, and documents on the basis of which the management of Ford, Chrysler and GM argued their position

Engaging the public:English local government organisations’ social media communications during the COVID-19 pandemic

Communication has played a critical role during the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and communicators have had a particularly difficult task in persuading different types of audience to comply with ever-changing regulations. Local government organisations play a crucial role in recontextualising the national messaging for a local audience and encouraging the public to comply with regulations. This paper investigates local government organisations’ (henceforth LGOs) engagement strategies in COVID-related posts on social media. In collaboration with LGOs in England, we examined their communication strategies on Twitter and Facebook during the second UK national lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic in November-December 2020. Using methods from corpus-assisted discourse studies, the paper analyses the occurrence and functions of selected interactive engagement markers, in this case personal pronouns, questions and hashtags. We find that such linguistic features function to encourage engagement by (a) helping to foster relatedness through ambiguity; (b) creating autonomy-supporting communication; and (c) making messages ‘stand out’.Based on our corpus analysis, we discuss the initial response of the participating councils to our findings and outline future directions including the integration of multimodal approaches to studying the role of localised social media in national crisis management. We argue for more attention to be paid to the many local communicators who play an invaluable role in encouraging the public to comply with national measures in times of crisis