A poststructural approach to organisational identity construction in the UK magazine publishing industry, 2004-13

Abstract

This thesis adopts a poststructural approach to the study of organisational identity (OI) arguing that, by destabilising the status of both object and subject, poststructuralism places identity at the centre of organisational life, where a poststructural identity is fragmented, dynamic, decentred, relational and contested. However, the essential indeterminacy of poststructural meaning puts pressure on organisational actors to present identity as coherent, stable and agreed-upon in an attempt to fix meanings, avoid uncertainty, and secure legitimacy. The thesis proposes that poststructuralism helps to provide a convincing account of the tension between the centripetal efforts of organisational actors and the centrifugal empirical evidence found in organisational texts and discourses. The thesis further proposes a categorisation of the organisational identity literature into ‘centripetal’ and ‘centrifugal’ approaches to OI, where centripetal approaches present OI in terms of agreed-upon and largely stable attributes of an organisation, and centrifugal approaches consider OI to be fragmented, dynamic and contested. It assesses the theoretical validity of a poststructural approach to the study of OI, explores the feasibility of a robust and valid poststructural methodology, and considers whether a poststructural approach can provide additional explanatory power over existing approaches. The thesis incorporates intertextual analysis, discourse analysis, multimodality, and argumentation as methodological approaches to the study of identity. The thesis is based on an empirical study of three firms operating in the UK magazine publishing industry in the period 2004-13. As its principal data source, the study uses a set of corporate annual reports for the three firms, supplemented by contemporary industry blogs, industry reports, press articles, and interviews with industry figures