Relative importance of stakeholders: analysing speech acts in a layoff
通过对一家滑雪胜地的参与观察，研究管理者与员工在裁员事件中的言语行为如何揭示股东、顾客和员工等利益相关者的相对重要性，并影响组织合法性的构建。
Abstract Grounded in a participant observation study of a ski resort, this paper explores the (re)production of legitimate discourses through speech acts pertaining to an organizational event, a layoff. Manager's justifications and employees' reactions and critiques put sanctioned discourses into play. And while the stated organizational values include shareholder, customer, and employee concerns, the relative importance of these stakeholders is only made clear through the conversation of the speech acts and their reception. The shape of the conversation, in locution, illocution and perlocution, shifts the relations between managers and the employees and creates longer term consequences for the organization. This focus on language use serves as a micro‐foundation for the study of legitimation processes and its consequences within organizations. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.