This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Aggestam, M. Articles by Keenan, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

"Contraversations" Constructing Conflicts

Lessons From a Town-Gown Controversy

Lund University, Lund, Sweden

James Keenan

Fairfield University, Fairfield, CT

Businesses and societies face increasingly complex problems. Collaborative relationships are needed to leverage the differences among participants and to balance stakeholder concerns. The article takes a discursive, constructionist approach in exploring the relations of five factions involved in resolving a town-gown conflict. The case data are narratives collected during a pivotal community-wide meeting in which the town-gown factions participated. The findings underscore the characteristics and roles of language in constructing and organizing meanings. In particular, the focal data reveal the influence of "contraversation"—that is, dialectical and dialogical conversation particularly and publicly directed against one faction, in constructing antagonisms and thwarting collaboration. The focal findings added insight into the demographic and historical characteristics of the factions, the socially embedded understandings, and the role of conversations in developing discursive resources that create collective identities and translate them into integrating rather than disintegrating intergroup performance in facing problematic concerns.

Key Words: contraversation • conflict • language • embeddedness • social construction

References

• Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
• Bartunek, J. (1984). Changing interpretative schemas and organizational restructuring: An example of a religious order. Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 355-372.[CrossRef]
• Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). Leaders: The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper and Row.
• Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. New York: Anchor Books.
• Bettenhausen, E., & Murnighan, J.K. (1985). The emergence of norms in competitive fcdecision-making. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 300-316.[CrossRef]
• Boje, D.M. (1995). Stories of the storytelling organization: A post-modern analysis of Disney as Tamara Land. Academy of Management Journal, 38(4), 997-1035.[CrossRef]
• Bruner, J. (1991) The narrative construction of reality. Critical Inquiry, 18,1-21.[Medline] [Order article via Infotrieve]
• Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organizational analysis. London and Exeter, NH: Heinemann.
• Cohen, S. (1972). Folk devils and moral panics: The creation of the mods and rockers. London: MacGibbon & Kee.
• Cooley, C.H. (1918). Social process. New York: Scribner.
• Cooren, F. (2000). The organizing property of language. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.
• Czarniawska, B. (1997). Narrating the organization: Dramas of institutional identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Fiol, C.M. (1995). Thought worlds colliding: The role of contradiction in corporate innovation processes. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 19, 71-90.
• Ford, J.D., & Ford, L.W. (1995). The role of conversations in producing intentional change in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 20, 541-570.[CrossRef]
• Gephart, R. (1984). Making sense of organizationally based environmental disasters. Journal of Management, 10, 205-225.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
• Gioia, D.A. (1996). Identity, image, and issue interpretation: Sense making during strategic change in academia. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(3), 370-404.[CrossRef]
• Gioia, D.A., Schultz, M., & Corley, K.G. (2000). Organizational identity, image, and adaptive instability. Academy of Management Review, 25(1), 63-82.[CrossRef]
• Gioia, D.A., & Sims, H.P. (1986). Introduction: Social cognition in organizations. In H. P. Sims & D. A. Gioia (Eds.), The thinking organization: Dynamics of organizational social cognition (pp. 1-19). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Gioia, D.A., & Thomas, J.B. (1996). Institutional identity, image, and issue interpretation: Sensemaking during strategic change in academia. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(3), 370-403.[CrossRef]
• Goode, E., & Ben-Yehuda, N. (1994). Moral panics: Culture, politics, and social construction. Annual Review of Sociology, 20, 149-171.[CrossRef]
• Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: The problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 481-510.[CrossRef]
• Grant, D., Keenoy, T., & Oswick, C. (1998). Discourse and organization. London: Sage.
• Greimas, A.J. (1987). On meaning: Selected writings in semiotic theory (P. J. Perron & F. H. Collins, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Hardy, C., Lawrence, T.B., & Grant, D. (2005). Discourse and collaboration: The role of conversations and collective identity. Academy of Management Review, 30(1), 58-77.
• Hatch, M., & Schultz, M. (1997). Relations between organizational culture, identity and image. European Journal of Marketing, 37, 356-365.
• Herman, D. (2002). Story logic: Problems and possibilities of narratives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
• Hewitt, J. (1988). Self and society: A symbolic interactionist social psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
• Li, J., & Hambrick, D.C. (2005). Fractional groups: A new vantage on demographic faultlines, conflict, and disintegration in work teams. Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 794-813.
• Monge, P.R., & Contractor, N.S. (2001). Emergence of communication networks. In F. Jablin & L. Putnam (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Pfeffer, J. (1981). Management as symbolic action: The creation and maintenance of organizational paradigms. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
• Pfeffer, J. (1982). Organizations and organization theory. New York: Pitman.
• Phillips, N., & Hardy, C. (2002). Discourse analysis: Investigating processes of social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Pondy, L.R., & Boje, D.M. (1975, August). Bringing mind back in: Paradigm development in organization theory. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA.
• Pondy, L.R. (1967). Organizational conflict: Concepts and models. Administrative Science Quarterly, 2, 296-320.
• Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social behavior. London: Sage.
• Prahalad, C.K., & Bettis, R.A. (1986). The dominant logic: A new linkage between diversity and performance. Strategic Management Journal, 7, 485-501.
• Psathas, G. (1995). Conversation analysis: The study of talk in interaction. London: Sage.
• Quinn, R., & Kimberly, J. (1984). Paradox, planning and perseverance: Guidelines for managerial practice. In J. Kimberly & R. Quinn (Eds.), New future: the challenges of managing organizational transitions (pp. 295-314). Homewood, IL: Dow Jones-Irwin.
• Robichaud, D., Giroux, H., & Taylor, J.R. (2001). The meta-conversation: The recursive property of language as the key to organizing. Working paper.
• Segal, S. (1998). The anxiety of strangers and the fear of enemies. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 17, 271-282.
• Silverman, D. (1970). The theory of organizations. New York: Basic Books.
• Smircich, L., & Stubbart, C. (1985). Strategic management in an enacted world. Academy of Management Review, 10, 724-736.[CrossRef]
• Tajfel, H., & Turner, J.C. (1979). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & W.C. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7-24). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
• Taylor, D.M., & Moghaddam, F.M. (1987). Theories of intergroup relations: International social psychological perspectives. New York: Praeger.
• Taylor, J.R., & Van Every, E.J. (2000). The emergent organization: Communication as its site and surface. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Taylor, S.J., & Bogdan, R. (1984). Introduction to qualitative research methods: The search for meaning. New York: John Wiley.
• Thomas, K. (1992). Conflict and negotiation processes in organizations. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 651-717). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
• Turkle, S. (1984). The second self: Computers and humans spirit. New York: Simon and Schuster.
• van Dijk, T.A. (1997). Discourse as interaction in society. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse as structure and process (pp. 1-37). London: Sage.
• van Riel, C.B.M., & Balmer, J.M.T. (1997). Corporate identity: The concept, its measurement and management. European Journal of Marketing, 31(5), 340-355.[CrossRef]
• Weick, K. (1979). The social psychology of organizing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Zucker, L.G. (1997). The role of institutionalization in cultural persistence. American Sociological Review, 42, 726-743.[CrossRef]
• Zukin, S., & DiMaggio, P. (1990). Structures of capital: The social organization of the economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Business & Society, Vol. 46, No. 4, 429-456 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0007650306296376


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Aggestam, M. Articles by Keenan, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?