Title
Introducing change: A rhetorical analysis of the early communications in mergers and acquisitions
Degree Type
Dissertation
Date of Award
2000
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
English
First Advisor
Helen Rothschild Ewald
Abstract
Change and uncertainty are integral elements of any organization, yet they are not easy to face and they elicit a wide range of responses among organizational members. This study uses a rhetorical approach to examine the communications directed to employees in one type of organizational change---mergers and acquisitions;Based on a review of the mergers and acquisitions, management, organizational behavior, and rhetoric and professional communication literature, I identify four major rhetorical challenges that need to be addressed in the early communications in mergers and acquisitions: setting the stage for cultural change, addressing emotions, dealing with uncertainty, and building an identity and encouraging identification;I use early communications collected from two research sites (a seed company merged with a competitor and an accounting firm acquired by a public company) in examining how the rhetorical challenges were addressed in these situations. I use interview data to examine employee perceptions of the communications;I use fantasy theme analysis, a method of rhetorical criticism developed by communications scholar Ernest Bormann, to determine how the communications worked in achieving a common understanding of the merger or acquisition within the organizations. I identify a number of themes used in the communications to address the rhetorical challenges;I argue that fantasy theme analysis is a valuable method to use in analyzing professional communications; it provides a way of focusing on commonalities and differences in communications used in similar types of situations in different organizations. I argue that my analysis sheds new light on genre theory. Genres are generally thought of as recurring rhetorical responses to recurring rhetorical situations. I argue that fantasy theme analysis provides a way of identifying recurring responses (fantasy themes) to situations that recur in the organizational lifeworld as a whole, even though they may not recur frequently in any one organization. I introduce the notion of "thematic genres" to refer to these genres that can be identified through common fantasy themes. I also offer a heuristic based on my fantasy theme analysis that could be used by those preparing employee communications in mergers and acquisitions and other situations of major organizational change.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.31274/rtd-180813-13937
Publisher
Digital Repository @ Iowa State University, http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/
Copyright Owner
Janel M. Bloch
Copyright Date
2000
Language
en
Proquest ID
AAI9977312
File Format
application/pdf
File Size
252 pages
Recommended Citation
Bloch, Janel M., "Introducing change: A rhetorical analysis of the early communications in mergers and acquisitions " (2000). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 12673.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/12673
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons