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Michel Foucault's work to grasp the underlying meaning of this argument and to ... By reframing the concept of technology as a discursive and nondiscursive ...
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Organizations as Discursive Constructions: A Foucauldian Approach

Organization Studies 32(9) 1247­–1271 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0170840611411395 www.egosnet.org/os

Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte IESEG School of Management, France LEM, UMR CNRS 8179

Abstract A growing body of literature suggests that communication constitutes organizations, but this argument requires refinement to address its remaining flaws. This essay suggests the tremendous potential of using Michel Foucault’s work to grasp the underlying meaning of this argument and to respond to its shortcomings. The proposed Foucauldian-based process model highlights links across Foucault’s main lines of thought, applied to the relationships among technology, discourse, discipline, control, subject, and identity in an organization. By reframing the concept of technology as a discursive and nondiscursive practice that constrains and enables everyday life, this approach offers better understanding of the argument that communication constitutes organizations. The conceptual model also serves as a backdrop for exploring a problematic field situation with a case study. Technology appears part of processes by which technology, organizations, and subjects get redefined. The organization is dynamically constituted as an evolving, political, negotiated order through power–knowledge relationships.

Keywords case study, discourse, Foucault, organization, technology

The ‘linguistic turn’ introduced to social sciences in the 1980s (Alvesson & Karreman, 2000) made discourse analysis an increasingly important element for organization studies. Growing literature, inscribed in organizational communication and communication science, describes the role of communication and discourse in organizations, with the idea that social reality involves ‘discursively constructed ensembles of texts’ (Alvesson & Karreman, 2000, p. 137; Putnam & Cooren, 2004). The linguistic turn suggests discourses produce and mediate organizational and social phenomena; across diverse settings, scholars focus on its role in constituting organizations (Deetz, 1992; Cooren, 2004; Jian, Schmisseur, & Fairhurst, 2008; Putnam, Nicotera, & McPhee, 2008). Organizational communication scholars posit that communication, often conceptualized as discourse, constitutes organizations; communication scholars also contribute significantly (Putnam et al., 2008). The main Corresponding author: Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, 3 Rue de la Digue, 59000 Lille, France. Email: [email protected]

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views of organizational communication and discourse studies converge: ‘The construction of social and organizational reality involves the production of oral, written, and even gestural texts, which participate in the constitution of organizations’ (Putnam & Cooren, 2004, p. 324). Different frameworks attempt to clarify the idea that communication is constitutive of organizing, which we refer to as the ‘CCO argument’ (Smith, 1993; McPhee & Zaug, 2000; Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004). These models – ‘based on the premise that communication generates, not merely expresses, key organizational realities’ (Ashcraft, Kuhn, & Cooren, 2009, p. 2) – articulate different approaches to organization and communication. The development of constitutive models of communication thus is a significant contribution of organizational communication studies. Yet some critics question such thinking and pose key challenges. The first refers to the conception of power, which generally has been poorly theorized. Recent studies recognize that discourses produced by organizational actors have implications in terms of power relationships and control (Cooren, 2004). In organizational sense-making processes, discourse offers a tool to achieve specific organizational purposes (Watson, 1995), such as legitimating specific positions and reaffirming status relations (Oswick, Putnam, & Keenoy, 2004; Cornelissen, Oswick, Christensen, & Phillipps, 2008). A complex relationship exists between discourse and power (Hardy & Phillips, 2004; Kuhn, 2008) that contributes to identity construction (Mumby & Stohl, 1991). Kuhn (2008) makes intra-organizational power a key concern and highlights the role of texts in the construction of an authoritative system of action. Each act of communication supposes the construction of authority relations (Taylor, 2009). Political issues such as authority (Taylor, 2009), power (Kuhn, 2008), and control thus appear as central concepts to organizations, because they are constitutive of all social and institutional interactions (Deetz & Mumby, 1990). However, these issues are generally placed in the background in CCO theorizing (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). This perspective may minimize the importance and influence of wider constraints and relational power, which has implications for assessments of power relationships and control processes (Reed, 2010). Moreover, communication-based explanations of organizational power (Deetz & Mumby, 1990) fail to provide general accounts of organizational constitution (McPhee & Zaug, 2000). With few exceptions, most CCO studies ignore the processes for manifesting power that shape organizational reality. A second challenge relates to subject–object dualism, which echoes a micro–macro dilemma (Deetz, 2003; Putnam & Cooren, 2004). The interplay between micro, little-d discourse (specific social texts) and grand, big-D Discourses (large-scale orders) produces various aspects of organizational reality in complex ways (Jian et al., 2008; Alvesson & Karreman, 2000). This debate pertains to whether organizations are conceived as determined and controlled by or as primarily producers of organizational discourses. Whereas ‘little ‘d’ discourse is criticized for overestimating the power of social actors in local discourse and overlooking the constituting power of larger Discourses … big ‘D’ Discourse draws criticism for being Discourse-deterministic and thus minimizing agency’ (Jian et al., 2008, p. 306). Critics thus worry about the ‘ontological conflation’ presented by most CCO perspectives (Reed, 2010). Despite denouncements of oversimplification (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010), the agency–structure dualism still appears as a central issue for theorizing. The poor conceptualization of power is accompanied by a tendency to privilege symbolic and ideational aspects over material ones in CCO theorizing. Symbolic explanations of power (Deetz & Mumby, 1990) are often more advanced than material ones in CCO thinking (Ashcraft et al., 2009), such that power appears as a result of discursive struggles, not economic forces. The ultimate risk is to reduce the constitution of an organization to a communication process that is entirely symbolic. Organizations exist not only when they are invoked in communication but also in their tangible architecture, artifacts, and technologies (Aschraft et al., 2009). This conception runs the risk of naïve constructivism and also creates a gap with management studies. The CCO argument is a significant

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contribution of organizational communication studies, but it has had limited impact on management, because communicative explanations emphasize symbolic over material aspects. Understanding the symbolic–material relation is thus a growing imperative, especially to contend with the modern realities of computerization and environmental embeddedness (Ashcraft et al., 2009). Furthermore, a CCO shortcoming stems from the failure of related studies to account for the nature and diversity of processes at the intersection of symbolic and material worlds (Ashcraft et al., 2009). There is a lack of specificity regarding the processes that constitute organizations. The recognition in the late 1970s that organizations were not mere objects or static entities but instead entailed dynamic organization processes significantly altered the study of organizational communication. McPhee and Zaug (2000) highlight the need to analyze the processes that operate in constituting organizations, yet few constitutive models acknowledge the processes needed for organizing to occur (Putnam et al., 2008). Many studies address different elements, forms, and CCO relationships, but as Putnam et al. (2008) recognize, few of them unravel the types of dynamic processes that intertwine communication and organization in a CCO relationship. To extend CCO, scholars need to concentrate on the various processes that appear in the continuous stream of organizing. This review points to the ambiguities, gaps, and challenges in our understanding of the CCO argument. The conditions in which organizations are created through communication are not clear. What does it mean that an organization is constituted through human communication? In which conditions does communication create organization and through which focal processes does power get manifested and shape organizational reality? How can we understand the interplay between agency and structure? How do these processes relate to the symbolic and material elements that form an organization? Despite abundant and multidisciplinary research, the claim that communication constitutes organizations has not been satisfactorily explained (Putnam et al., 2008; Ashcraft et al., 2009). To address such challenges and clarify the nature of these important relationships, this article proposes an alternative CCO framework that relies on the thinking of Michel Foucault. Foucault’s work often appears in organizational discourse analyses and communication studies, especially to examine the effects of dominant discourses. A richer framework that links Foucauldian concepts might establish an alternative perspective that provides insights into the CCO argument. A Foucauldian lens brings the relationships among communication technology, discourse, power, knowledge, discipline, and subjects into sharp focus and thus articulates dynamic political processes that combine symbolic and material elements into organizational constitution. In the rest of this article, we outline Foucauldian thinking and its use by communication and organizational scholars to understand different aspects of the CCO argument. We then demonstrate how to appropriate and correlate Foucauldian concepts into a process model of CCO, which addresses the main critiques of CCO thinking. This conceptual model provides a basis for exploring the real-life situation of a French company involved in a technological deployment project. After we present the main findings, we return to our foundational questions to show that the Foucauldian approach provides an insightful approach to CCO theorizing.

A Foucauldian Perspective on the CCO Argument Fundamental concepts Foucault’s work has long been identified with discourse analysis, ‘often taken as meaning that the internal organization of discourses directly forms and shapes realities and subjectivities’ (Rose, O’Malley, & Valverde, 2006, p. 89). In his early writings, Foucault (1970, 1973, 1988) focused on discourse to examine the social effects of knowledge produced by discourses and disciplines. He

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relied on a key idea: the affirmation of discursive formations (i.e., groups of statements), independent of their social setting and given as objective. Foucault (1973, 1988) showed how madness, the body, life, death, and human beings progressively have become objects of observation and scientific discourses. These discourses aim to reveal a truth but instead create and control the objects they claim to know. The social world is organized and normalized in specific ways through discursive practices (Foucault, 1972). This conception of discourse appears in critical language studies that focus on organizational domination (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004) and examine ‘discourse as shaped by something else,’ such as ideologies or political struggles (Putnam & Cooren, 2004, p. 325; Deetz, 1992, 1996). Prasad’s (1995) critical language analysis, for example, focuses on organizational domination: An information system is an object that produces discursive practices that render people dependent on technology. Foucault’s political and social concerns also led him to recognize power relations inscribed in discourse. He backed away from his strong claim that discourse was a rule-governed, autonomous, self-referring system (Willcocks, 2004) and introduced genealogy as a complementary approach to explain the control, selection, classification, and distribution of the production of discourse through power relationships (Foucault, 1977). Discourses were not simply mirrors of social reality but constituted the ‘crucial way’ to exercise power. Thus, specific relationships among truth, power, and knowledge form among individuals, groups, and institutions to produce a disciplinary modern society; modern subjects are constituted and conditioned by the technologies of power that regulate society (Rose & Miller, 2008). Various technologies (i.e., hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and dressage) appear to govern, discipline, and correct abnormal behaviors. The wellknown metaphor of the panopticon represents the development of this disciplinary power, characterized by invisible surveillance, depersonalization of power, and subtle coercive mechanisms. Division and classification practices, as well as the organization of space and time, enable distinctions between modern subjects and render bodies and minds obedient, docile, and useful. Such discipline can govern behaviors and also constitutes certain forms of subjectivity (Deetz, 1992). The disciplinary power adopted by social institutions makes the panopticon a generalizable model that symbolizes power relationships as they appear in everyday life (Willcocks, 2004). As a political technology, it describes the functioning of society marked by diffuse disciplinary mechanisms, in which power passes through individuals. Diverse forces and groups try to shape and administer the lives of individuals (Rose et al., 2006), which generalizes discipline, creates calculated life management, and regulates the population. Discourses, new knowledge, disciplinary technologies, and bodily control give birth to modern governmentality, an ensemble of institutions, procedures, and forces that allow the exercise of a specific, complex, and relational form of power. Many organizational discourse studies focus on Foucault’s genealogical approach to the shaping of discourses, practices, authorities, and subjectivities (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004; Jian et al., 2008). Some research considers discursive practices that constitute organizations as regimes of truth and discipline and act as powerful constraints on organizational members (Barker, 1993). They seek to understand how discourse constitutes workers’ subjectivities, establishes and naturalizes managerial control, and disciplines the productive body (Jian et al., 2008). Individual identities and subjectivities are constructed and reconstructed through discourses in the workplace (Knights, 1990), such as human resource management practices, which create an analyzable subject (Townley, 1993). Jackson & Carter (1998) use dressage to show that work fosters obedience, docility, and control of organizational members. Most studies note the power embedded in organizations through networks of conversations that draw on prevailing discursive practices. They generally recognize that a Foucauldian perspective can show how certain behavioral and linguistic

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practices get privileged to legitimate authority and induce subtle forms of social control (Barker, 1993; Brown & Coupland, 2005). For example, Davies and Mitchell (1994) examine technology formation and preference for one system over another, which supports the continuance of superior technical knowledge and power for the IT function. Harvey (1998) investigates the history of power relations within an IT decision situation and its influence on discourses about the acceptability of solutions. The emphasis on ways to silence people shows that discourses are first created, then constrain further discourse. Thus, language is a medium of social control and power. Discourses that reproduce relations of power get naturalized, and such relations may be opaque to participants. However, as Brown and Coupland (2005) point out, little attention centers on deviations from discourses. Alvesson and Karreman (2000, p. 1145) regret a ‘tendency to ascribe too much power to discourse over fragile subjects, for example, and a discourse-driven social reality’ and wish ‘to highlight problems with the tendency to work with a too grandiose and too muscular view on discourse,’ which they associate with Foucault’s ideas. From this perspective, individuals are subjects of the panoptic dystopia of total control. According to Newton (1998), such analyses repress the subject and minimize agency relative to disciplinary power. Despite this dominant reading of Foucault as focused on disciplinary practice negatives, more scholars recognize the contribution of his perspective for understanding the role of human agency (Rose & Miller, 2008; Jermier, Knights, & Nord, 1994; Fleming & Spicer, 2003; DuGay, 1996). In later writings, Foucault (1978) examines modes of subjectification through which agency occurs. Moreover, Foucault (1985a, 1985b) recognizes individuals as moral agents, responsible for their own individual behavior and able to find satisfaction in constraining situations through ethics, technologies, and care of the self. He ‘focuses on a more active, individual subjectivity, less imprisoned in and less constructed through scientific discourse and power relations, more geared to selfknowledge supporting work of self on the self’ (Willcocks, 2004, p. 248). Different ‘technologies of the self’ allow people to regulate their bodies, think in the pursuit of pleasure and ethics, and fulfill themselves. According to Rose et al. (2006, p. 100), Foucault proposes a renewed conception of freedom as not ‘defined as the absence of constraint, but as rather an array of invented technologies of the self,’ alongside the technologies of domination. In line with a Foucauldian conception of governmentality, freedom can even be viewed as ‘choice, autonomy, self-responsibility and the obligation to maximize one’s life as a kind of enterprise’ (Rose et al., 2006, p. 91). In personal space, human agency emerges through active, passive, regulated, and resistance possibilities (Willcocks, 2004; Jermier et al., 1994; Fleming & Spicer, 2003). Finally, Foucault shows that people are freer than they feel. By allowing for the creation of new modes of being, Foucault’s later work reconceptualizes pleasure and desire in organizations and offers a renewed relationship between individuals and collective action (Hatchuel & Starkey, 2002). Some scholars use this theoretical lens to understand the interplay between agency and structure and grasp the interactions between large discourses and local discursiveness, though they do not specifically aim to analyze the dynamic CCO argument. Holmer-Nadesan (1996) shows how workers manage to resist dominant administrative discourses and challenge their socially ascribed identities, which generates alternatives for action and self-understanding, inherent to their existential situation. People act in relation to larger discourses, whether with acceptance, resistance, or compromise (Doolin, 2002). Some respond to culture management with disidentification and resentment or resist by creating alternative identities and discursive systems of representation (Fleming & Spicer, 2003, 2007). Complex and varied outcomes result. For example, individuals constituted as subjects in a company might not only accommodate but also resist what they perceive as attempts to silence them (Brown & Coupland, 2005).

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Toward a process model of CCO with a Foucauldian perspective In discourse analysis, Foucauldian thought helps reveal the role of objective discursive formations, the impacts of dominant discourses, and the interactions between large discourses and local discursiveness. However, this application has generated criticism, often based on the dominant view of discourses, inadequate treatment of the agency–structure relationship, problematic vision of how power makes people speak and see (Willcocks, 2004), and the ‘subjugation of the material to the discursive world’ (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004, p. 15). According to Rose et al. (2006), many CCO studies reduce Foucauldian thinking to a discourse-based framework; other aspects appear only in reference to dominant discourses, with CCO processes placed in the background. However, the Foucauldian framework goes beyond dominant discourses. We argue that Foucauldian thinking has tremendous potential to reformulate the CCO argument. Despite the eclecticism of Foucault’s oeuvre, it contains three domains that correspond to three intellectual periods (i.e., archaeological, genealogical, and ethical; Burrell, 1998): (1) discourse, knowledge, and truth; (2) discipline, control, and power; and (3) ethics and subject. In a single conceptual framework, Foucault’s work can be used to explore discourses pertaining to a phenomenon; relations to structures, discipline, and control; and individual practices, reactions, and resistance. Foucault offers several concepts and elements related to the organization; their relationships enable us to grasp the dynamic processes that integrate discourse and organization in a CCO relationship. Discourses are simultaneously sites of domination and resistance and involved in the deconstruction and reconstruction of organizations. The Foucauldian perspective thus suggests relationships can be advanced beyond fundamental concepts (Willcocks, 2004) and harnessed. Instead of featuring only one of Foucault’s domains, we develop an overarching conceptual framework that takes possible links into consideration. As mentioned by Foucault (1997, p. 318–319), ‘we have three axes whose specificity and whose interconnections have to be analysed: the axis of knowledge, the axis of power, the axis of ethics.’ Each phase embraces specific, inextricably linked concepts. Moreover, these three axes have the potential to respond to critiques of CCO thinking. Foucault proposes a renewed conception of power that is particularly insightful for CCO analysis: This conception lies in the governmentality concept and goes beyond traditional power theorizations that focus on the central state and sovereignty, which Foucault considers ‘too large, too abstract and too rigid’ (Rose et al., 2006, p. 87). He rejects a ‘unified view of the state for one of a network of institutions, practices, procedures and techniques in which power as strategic relations circulates’ (Willcocks, 2004, p. 257). Foucault encourages the concept of power–knowledge, which means that power produces knowledge, and discourse and knowledge have power and truth effects. Power generates consent, draws on knowledge that transforms individuals into disciplined subjects, and generates change, resistance, and discontinuity, because power relations are multiple, heterogeneous and conflicting (Knights & Murray, 1994). This conception implies that power is dynamic and permeates the social body, so ‘Power must be analyzed as something that circulates … that functions only when it is part of a chain. It is never localized here or there, it is never in the hands of the some…. Power is exercised through networks’ (Foucault, 1976, p. 98). Foucault finds no relations of power without resistance (Jermier et al., 1994). He also introduces politics to suggest that ‘power over self might be exercised in what he calls the “aesthetic of existence”’ (Hatchuel & Starkey, 2002, p. 643). The political dimension is central. Applied to the realm of organizational theory, this relational conception accounts for the processes by which power is manifested and shapes organizational reality. Political activity (through power–knowledge relationships) is ‘the focal process through which organizations are constituted, stabilized and transformed’ (Knights & Murray, 1994, p. 38).

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This perspective renews the debate between agency and structure, enabling us to understand the CCO argument without privileging either. Foucault’s conception of governmentality and recognition of human agency, through subjectification, resistance, and technologies of the self, offer a way of thinking about the social field that avoids the agency–structure theoretical conundrum (Rose et al., 2006). Foucault relies on a specific relationship that moves beyond the traditional opposition between realist and relativist ontological perspectives or collective and individualist ones (Deetz, 1996). Foucault’s thinking is enriching from an ontological perspective, because it insists on structuring and structured characteristics, as well as objective and subjective characteristics of social reality. Foucault’s conception of power reveals his view of social reality and aim to develop an ‘analytics of power’ rather than a theory of power in which power is an intangible attribute of certain groups. Unlike critical analysts, Foucault rejects the idea of predetermined social structures and dominant groups. According to Deetz (1996), his approach is embedded in a dialogical perspective that reclaims the political as an intrinsic part of organizational experience, structure, and practice. Dialogical studies focus on the constructed nature of people and reality and emphasize the potential disunity of any discourse; similar to critical studies, they take asymmetry and domination into consideration, but they consider domination and identity situational and mobile. The Foucauldian approach avoids conceiving of social reality as a binary opposition. Beyond the objectivism of social structures and subjectivism of social agents, Foucault develops a relational and contextualized conception of social reality, in accordance with Deetz’s (2003) invitation to go beyond the agency–structure dialectic to investigate dialogic qualities of existence. Such a perspective can explore the social and political processes of the construction and distribution of meanings, as well as their disguise as natural (Deetz, 1992, 2003). Furthermore, Foucault renders power visible in everyday life and institutions and introduces issues of materiality. He examines how the material shapes communication and knowledge practices in political ways, as shown by the example of architecture and sites, such as prison cells (Rose et al., 2006). Discursive practices, combined in a specific organization of space and time, yield docile bodies (Foucault, 1977). Rose et al. (2006) highlight the active role played by material things, in combination with knowledge and language, in Foucault’s definitions of governmentality and power, which allow for a conception of reality as materially heterogeneous and relational. His perspective is insightful for conceptualizing organizational objects that have both material and ideational qualities, such as organizational communication technology (Ashcraft et al., 2009). Most organization studies adopt either a technocentric or human-centered perspective and thus reproduce the materialist–idealist dualism (Ashcraft et al., 2009), but a Foucauldian approach instead recognizes the symbolic–material dimensions of technology and accounts for the political conditions and consequences of its development and use (Knights and Murray, 1994). Foucault’s conception insists on power–knowledge that is exerted at the intersection of discourses, physical artifacts, and uses. As mentioned by Davies and Mitchell (1994), Foucault’s ‘method, and focus on the history and concept of power–knowledge are of high relevance to studying organizational forms currently emerging, particularly in relation to the control of information effects induced by the increased reliance on information technologies within organizations’. Information technology can be positioned as part of a process in which both technology and organization are redefined through the involvement of discursive practices and power–knowledge relationships. Power– knowledge thus may be ‘the key concept in Foucault’s philosophy of modern technology’ (Willcocks, 2004, p. 258). Social relations are instantiated and mediated through technology, and organizations become cohesive and stable because of the way they are intimately bound with the technical (Willcocks, 2004).

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Discourse Deconstruction of organizational discourse, legitimization of organizational change

Set of conditions of possibilities

Power-Knowledge

Subjectivity and individual practices Individual reactions, interiorizing, self-control techniques, resistance

Set of constraints

Structures and control systems

Institutionalization of disciplinary and control mechanisms through technological deployment and organizational change

Figure 1.  Conceptual model based on Foucault’s thinking

From a Foucaldian perspective then, the CCO argument involves a set of organizing processes that manage dynamic political relationships at the intersection of the symbolic and material (Ashcraft et al., 2009). As the case of technology shows, through dynamic and relational processes, material and ideational comingle and transform to constitute and change organization realities (Aschraft et al., 2009). Organizing involves combining a network of heterogeneous elements that all work to stabilize actions in time–space and make them evolve. To address how complex communication processes constitute organizing and how processes and outcomes reflexively shape communication (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010), we clarify different processes and elements that explain how discourse and organization intertwine in a CCO relationship. We use a Foucauldian lens to respond to critiques of CCO thinking. Specifically, we analyze the evolving power–knowledge relationships among organizational communication technology, discourse, discipline, and subjects. Thus we propose a process model of CCO (Figure 1) to address the aforementioned shortcomings through an emphasis on the relational nature of power, the renewed conception of the structure– agency dualism, and the alliance of the material and symbolic worlds. At center of this model, we locate politics, or Foucauldian power–knowledge relationships (Deetz, 2003), as the motor of organizational life (Knights & Murray, 1994). The first process suggests that power–knowledge relationships result from a set of possibilities and constraints, constituted in discursive constructions and embedded in material circumstances and resources, which allow certain actions and prevent others. A Foucauldian approach shows an organization’s embeddedness in social and political contexts; power–knowledge relationships are ‘enacted in specific conditions of possibility, the construction of which is also part of an organization’s political processes’ (Willcocks, 2004, p. 281). Constraints and conditions of possibility effectively frame the interactions between individual and collective players, through the resultant

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power relationships. Organizational actors discursively construct and mobilize these conditions, making certain courses of action feasible while constraining others. Technology must be examined in the context of these political conditions and the resultant power–knowledge relationships. The second process suggests political activity (i.e., power–knowledge relations constituted and incarnated in discursive practices) is the central means by which organizations get constituted, especially in terms of the effects on the management of discourse and knowledge; the development of discipline, structures, and control systems; and individual subjectification and resistance. Through power–knowledge relations, organizational discourses about IT deployment can be created and disseminated within an organization, such that they affect the discipline, structures, and control systems associated with IT’s prescribed uses. These relations also influence subjectivity, individual reactions, and practices during the interpretation, support, and resistance phases, which punctuate the technology process. A third process suggests that heterogeneous interactions exist among power relationships and affect the evolution of the production of discourse, discipline, structures, and organizational control systems, as well as practices and individual reactions. Power relationships evolve, because they are situational, contextualized, mobile, and sometimes conflicting. Perpetual interactions characterize the relationships of discourses, discipline, and structures, as well as subjectification, identities, and individual reactions in the ongoing organizing stream. These interrelationships enable organizations to be produced and reproduced and transformed continually. For example, this dynamic approach can reconceptualize the concept of technology, positioned as part of the processes in which technology, organization, and subjects become redefined. In the next section, we develop a qualitative study to analyse the empirical contributions of a Foucauldian approach to CCO theorizing. We aim to show that by reframing the concept of technology as a discursive and nondiscursive practice that constrains and enables everyday life, this theoretical lens offers a better understanding of the CCO argument and responds effectively to its shortcomings.

Methodology Research setting We adopted a qualitative case study research design to apprehend the CCO relationship through a Foucauldian lens. We put our conceptual model to the test in the field, not just to check it but to conceptualize an empirical situation. The conceptual model provides a theoretical foundation for organizing our data collection and analysis; it also offers a basis for interpreting our observations and understanding the findings. As e-management becomes increasingly widespread and mobility represents a central feature of society, exploring the discourse around mobile technology and its impact on organizations and management has become a key issue for organization studies. Mobile technologies address the challenges of a competitive, changing, global environment marked by hypercompetitiveness. They introduce flexibility in terms of space and time and offer promising business opportunities. A global discourse, conveyed by media, IT constructors, and companies, links mobile technologies to new types of flexible, responsive, dynamic, and nonbureaucratic organization systems. The advent of mobile technologies also is accompanied by managerial and organizational discourse linked to employees’ empowerment and autonomy. Studying mobile technology deployment in organizations thus seems particularly well suited to analyzing the processes that integrate organizational elements and discursive practices in a CCO relationship.

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Table 1.  Summary presentation of collected data January 2006– September 2006 Headquarter

Local agency

Total

CEO CIO HR manager Project Head Manager of local agency Site managers Site foremen Head of Accounts department Accountants

1 1 1 1 2 3 9

September 2006– July 2007  1  1  1  1  1  4  6  1  2 18

December 2007 1 1 1 1 1 5

Total  1  3  2  3  3  7 10  1  2 32

We conducted our research, as part of a larger research project (Leclercq, 2008), between January 2006 and July 2007 with ABConstruction,1 a large building company (38,500 employees), mainly located in France, engaged in a mobile technology deployment project, called Sesame, which it introduced to improve its data management and optimize its processes. ABConstruction is a subsidiary of a worldwide industry leader, from which it inherited a strong culture of management innovation. Unlike the building trade sector, which is largely private, the public works sector is funded by taxpayers and managed by local authorities; it was severely affected by an economic crisis in France that peaked in 1995, following what sector specialists call the ‘crazy years’ of public works. Contracts between local government and roadwork companies were characterized by bribes and kickbacks paid with taxpayers’ money. When the illegal dealings came to light, the whole sector suffered bankruptcies and imprisonments. Today the public works sector is experiencing growing demand, increased urbanization, and new orders for roads. The companies need to hire more people, but experienced foremen are retiring en masse. Hiring of site foremen and supervisors was frozen between 1995 and 2000. Thus, French public works companies will need to recruit 100,000 site foremen in the next decade. In this context, ABConstruction management decided to deploy the Sesame project in 2005 to equip existing site foremen with tablet computers, directly connected to the company’s information system (IS), so they could enter building site data directly into the system.

Data collection The primary data consisted of semi-directive interviews and direct field observations. We conducted 32 semi-structured onsite interviews with employees of the company (Table 1). Each oneto two-hour interview occurred at the interviewees’ workplace and was tape-recorded and fully transcribed. The first round of interviews took place between January and September 2006, before the implementation of the Sesame project. Follow-up interviews (with both the same and new respondents) were held between September 2006 and July 2007, after the tablet PCs had been introduced and used for several months. Finally, we conducted additional interviews in December 2007 to gain an overview of the evolution of discursive practices and the organizational impact of mobile IT deployment in the company. Our interviews with managers and top managers (e.g., CEO, CIO, human resource manager, project head) revealed corporate and managerial visions of the mobile IT deployment and the goals they were pursuing with these technologies. We then analyzed a local agency to gain insights into

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the discursive practices and relationships with organizational elements closer to the field. We interviewed operational and middle-level managers (e.g., director of the local agency, site managers) to obtain alternative reasons for the mobile IT deployment and determine the impacts on structures, processes, modes of governance, control systems, jobs, and the site foremen’s practices. We also attempted to grasp any similarities and divergences between top management discourses and more local discourses. To understand the site foremen’s answers, reactions, counterreactions, and possible resistance to managerial initiatives, as well as the real impact on their jobs, we interviewed site foremen and focused on their actual practices and use of mobile IT. Finally, we collected insights from members of the accounting department, who were directly involved in the project. Each interview began with a promise of confidentiality, followed by general questions about the respondent (function, role, responsibilities). It then covered wide-ranging, open topics linked to societal, historic, and economic conditions likely to influence organizational discourse and individual reactions. We also focused on explanations used to justify the deployment of the Sesame project. Other, more organizational and IT-oriented questions related to procedures, the organizational structure, management modes, reasons for the mobile implementation, origins of the decision to adopt mobile IT, the perceived role of technology, and its consequences on professional and private lives. Questions also pertained to adoption and use, the potential gap between intended and actual use, appropriation of and individual reactions to the mobile IT. For our observation studies, we visited the respondents’ workplace over 10 days. We accompanied four teams to sites and observed their day-to-day work. We attempted to understand the foremen’s reactions to and use of the mobile IT. These observations helped us understand the corporate setting and provided both background information for the interviews and a means to validate the interview comments. We also attended a meeting at the local agency with its director, work supervisors, and foremen, in which they discussed the project goals and implementation. Our observations enabled us to identify patterns of interactions. We collected useful information during unofficial meetings of the foremen, either at the agency or on site. Finally, for our secondary data, we collected internal documents and press reviews, which we used to deconstruct official discourses. For example, we had access to official presentations (paper and video) prepared by top management to introduce the Sesame project to foremen in local agencies. The user guide foremen received, summarizing the project goals and use of tablet PCs, helped us analyze how the tool was presented, as well as compare official and unofficial discourses. We used public works studies to put the discursive practices and observed behaviors into wider economic, political, and historical contexts.

Data analysis As advocated by Foucault, we aimed to deconstruct discourses to understand the related power– knowledge relationships. We subjected the interviews to qualitative thematic analyses to identify underlying forces, aspects, principles, and effects of organizational discourse. Specifically, we wanted to understand how economic, historical, cultural, and social conditions influenced the emergence of discourses about the deployment of mobile IT, and how these discourses potentially affected the company’s structures, relationships of authority, and modes of governance (i.e., through power relationships, discipline, and control systems). We investigated the foremen’s reactions and practices to understand how they might affect the evolution of discourse, practices, and modes of management. Our field notes also were subject to qualitative content analysis using a thematic coding procedure with Nvivo software. We also employed double-coding to check the reliability of our analysis. Following both deductive and inductive perspectives, we created tree

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nodes (codes based on the literature review) and free nodes (i.e., emergent codes from the textual corpus). The qualitative coding included these steps (Richards, 2005; Poole, Van de Ven, Dooley, & Holmes, 2000): (1) Descriptive coding, or storing information that describes the case; including people and groups involved in every event and incident, the roles and activities they perform, contextual elements that organizational members believe influence organizational change, and ideas and arguments developed by people to describe their actions and practices. We also looked at the use of language, pronouns, and humor. (2) Topic coding, which allocates passages to topics that correspond with conceptual entities. The main constructs related to organizational discourses, structures, and control systems (discipline, control versus empowerment, flexibility, autonomy) and individual practices and reactions (acceptance of change, resistance, appropriation moves). (3) Analytical coding, which defines and interprets the meaning of extracts in their context. We arrayed our multidimensional data on different tracks to grasp the CCO processes (Poole et al., 2000) – how micro and macro conditions affect power–knowledge relationships; how discourses, authorities, and subjectivities emerge and are transformed; and how they interact and coevolve. We also examined the sequence of events over time and tried to identify the impacts of an incident on group relationships, formal and informal relationships, power games, and different processes.

Results Legitimating technological deployment and organizational change through discursive practices At ABConstruction, the foremen, who are supervised by site managers, are responsible for organizing and coordinating resources on roadwork sites. They fill in weekly reports about the engines hired or building materials purchased. This report links to specific management policies of ABConstruction, notably the percentage-of-completion method. Therefore, site managers must have reliable, updated data about the costs of each site. Public roadwork sites are completed in an average of three weeks, so expenses need to be checked quickly to allow rapid readjustments. According to the CIO, ‘you can’t check your costs after your site is finished! It would mean that you couldn’t straighten the helm!’ Several members of the executive committee pointed out that ABConstruction acts in an ‘increasingly rapid and changing economic world,’ in line with the wider discourse about ‘an information society characterized by urgency and time pressure,’ in the HR manager’s words. The race for time, combined with the search for efficiency, officially justified rapid data tracking. ‘We have to work at the same speed as our competitors,’ the CIO explained, adding that ‘technology now enables us to be increasingly reactive.’ A general ambient discourse based on urgency, reactivity, and the search for efficiency thus explains the need for better and faster data tracking. Before the Sesame project, site managers found it difficult to get a good overview of the costs on each site. Cost recognition was ‘uncertain and lacked reliability,’ one site manager admitted. Foremen filled in paper reports manually and gave them to the site manager, who checked the information and transmitted it to the accounts department, which then checked and entered the data into the company’s IS. Because they knew there were multiple checks, the foremen did not pay much attention to these reports; many would offload their reports onto operators. The company’s

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top management team gradually began to consider these multiple controls and checks inefficient and time-consuming. Because the foremen’s positions were closer to the building site, they held crucial operational information, so management decided ‘to give them the means to enter their data and report directly into the IS on a daily basis,’ according to the CIO, who added: ‘this project promotes more reliable and rapid data tracking and should avoid double entries.’ Beyond these efficiency and performance objectives, the project head acknowledged that ‘it was necessary to develop another discourse and to provide other goals to site foremen otherwise they’d have rejected the project.’ The local agency director indicated that management relied on inferred effects of the project, such as ‘enhancing the role of site foremen’ and ‘repositioning them at the heart of company’ to promote it to fieldworkers. During an official presentation, the HR director explained that ‘this project is undertaken to enhance the value of your job and to place you at the heart of the company.’ During an interview, he also mentioned that ‘this population [of foremen] has never used a computer to work. We gave them this nice tool. Suddenly they felt in advance compared to the rest of the world.’ Prevailing discourses about empowerment and role enhancement thus justified the project and promoted the foremen’s acceptance, as reiterated by the CEO, who wanted to ‘show foremen [his] determination to take them into consideration.’ As the manager of the local agency told us, the target population comprises people who are generally ‘unfamiliar with new IT’ and ‘don’t have a high level of education.’ Managers thus implicitly induced the foremen to welcome the Sesame project by presenting it as ‘an exceptional opportunity to progress and upgrade their job.’ The managerial discourse attempted to shape the foremen’s subjectivity and condition their reactions. For example, a widely circulated satisfaction survey of the foremen demonstrated that 70% of respondents ‘appreciate their tablet PC’ and ‘consider it as invaluable progress in their work.’ The survey was used by managers to disseminate a feeling of satisfaction and self-accomplishment throughout the company. According to the HR director, the survey even ‘generated a sense of shame among site foremen who were more reluctant and on the verge of rejecting the project.’ However, only 200 of the 2,630 foremen in the French agencies answered it. Management did not take into account the silent voices of the foremen who had not taken the time or were unwilling to complete the survey. The survey thus was mainly a discursive practice aimed at influencing acceptance, such that it revealed discourse manipulation tactics. It indeed was used by management as a mind control tool, which contributed to the formation of a biased mental model for site foremen. Managers also claimed the project initiative resulted from the foremen themselves. Before the Sesame project, some foremen effectively used computers on their own to structure their site reports. As one foreman explained, ‘we developed a little computer-based system with Excel sheets…. We had three or four computers and then we started processing our reports. It was more convenient for us.’ Top management exploited this initiative to review the company processes about building site expenses. The CIO explained, ‘what is fundamental in this project is that it is foremen who really took this decision. As a computer scientist, I wouldn’t have felt able to put myself in the foremen’s place.’ The HR manager also insisted that ‘it’s important to respect the wishes of the foremen.’ The local initiative of some foremen thus became an argument to promote the Sesame project. However, the two initiatives are completely different and, as one manager said, ‘the Sesame project is more than a simple extension of the local initiative of the foremen, it’s really more structuring for the whole organization.’ In the early stages of the project, top management found it difficult to convince local hierarchies of its value. Local managers thus were subject to discursive formation and manipulation tactics exerted by top management, which tried to persuade them of the project’s legitimacy. Through the

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mobilization of the satisfaction survey and the emphasis on foremen’s positive feelings, top management tried to form a biased social representation of foremen among the local managers. However, most of them refused to yield to this mind control process. The local manager believed ‘most site foremen wouldn’t be able to get used to the tablet PC or accept the new obligations that accompany it.’ Some members of the accounting department also questioned foremen’s ability to work with new IT, because ‘their job is a manual one, which should remain as such.’ Another accountant confessed his ‘fear of seeing the best foremen leaving the company in these conditions.’ Local hierarchies and accountants, including the local agency manager, viewed the project as ‘doomed to failure given the profile of most foremen.’ The latter added: ‘I am scared of this project: you shouldn’t lie to yourself … our foremen do this work because they can’t do anything else. For them, a mouse is a small rodent, not an electronic device!’ The genesis of the project revealed specific discourses, created and conveyed by management within the organization to build and disseminate a representation of the organization and its environment, as embodied in the material features and prescribed uses of the implemented communication technologies. However, some gaps remained between top management’s official discourse and the skepticism expressed by local hierarchies and administrative staff, which could have implications for the project’s evolution.

Evolution of management, control systems, and power relationships Beyond technological deployment, management aimed to achieve deeper organizational and individual changes. The project was accompanied by major changes in terms of processes, structures, discipline, control systems, and power relationships. For example, foremen previously did not include the cost of expenses in their weekly paper reports, but they now have to cost their daily computer-based reports. As the CIO explained, ‘the implicit goal is to make them aware of the amount of expenses they generate on their sites.’ Thus the foremen’s responsibilities evolved significantly; ‘they now have to manage the building site expenses’ (CIO). Hierarchical relationships, especially between foremen and site managers, also evolved. Closely linked to the idea of foremen’s empowerment, managerial discourse promoted autonomy and self-discipline. The project coordinator noted, ‘we want foremen to have more autonomy: as we told them, our goal is to reinforce their managerial role with their team. They are freer to do their job as they want, they have access to all necessary information and they don’t have to come to the agency as often as before.’ The control systems thus changed from close, direct supervision to self-control procedures. The technological deployment meant a transition from controlling execution to controlling targets and results (project profitability). Finally, managerial discursive practices, embodied in new IT and procedures, aimed to create the figure of an empowered foreman with enhanced managerial roles and responsibilities. Foremen were expected to obey rules and accept changes that they contributed to and co-constructed through their first initiative. Yet despite managers’ assertions of empowerment and autonomy, observations in the field indicated that the new IT tended to become disciplinary by introducing rigor to practices and providing a form of invisible observation and surveillance. Managers could effectively control the foremen’s activity through the daily site reports. The managerial discourses therefore interacted with the technology’s ability to modify norms surrounding foremen’s actions. ‘Now, the site manager doesn’t have to come to the site every day to monitor the foremen,’ a local manager explained. The official discourse of empowerment and greater autonomy, coupled with the use of new IT that could track and record foremen’s activity, engendered new obligations and constraints, which were simultaneously more subtle and more coercive. Alternative objectives underlay the official

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discourse of empowerment, as one manager confessed: ‘foremen empowerment argument is used to soft-soap them, to sweeten the pill.’ The local agency manager also admitted, ‘we adapt our discourse … these tools have to be introduced progressively because it can be a shock in the tracking of activities. We have to find a harmonious balance when introducing these tools for them to be accepted, and to have efficiency without any social rejection.’ Deeper discrepancies between the official managerial discourse and field observations suggested other underlying features of the project. By obliging foremen to capture data through IT use, it removed data capture and validation by accountants. Thus, ‘The Sesame project solves problems: if the report is correct, the accountants and administrative staff don’t have to intervene anymore. Data are moved directly into the accounting systems’ (accounting department manager). According to top management, this project also implied an evolution in the accountants’ job. The ‘uninteresting, off-putting, subaltern, tiresome part of the accountants’ work is removed, enabling them to devote their time to more interesting and gratifying tasks,’ so according to the project coordinator, ‘this evolution tends to increase the accountants’ sense of self-worth.’ This point was clearly emphasized in official presentations of the project. However, observations at the local agency and unofficial discourses revealed a different reality. The local agency manager explained that ‘deeper transformations are expected with this project … eventually, the goal is to dismiss one or two accountants per agency, it’s clear, even if we can’t reveal our ambitions for the overall project immediately.’ A site manager confirmed that ‘this logic is both coherent and likely. Theoretically, they needn’t check data any more in the accounts department…. These positions will be cut, definitely.’ By optimizing data input and use, management aimed to develop faster tracking of expenses and indirectly to lay off administrative staff. Top managers at headquarters denied these assertions, creating a clear conflict between their discourse, which insisted on the ‘promotion of accountants,’ and the unofficial discourse maintained by local managers, which suggested evolution involving ‘staff cuts.’ This distinction probably enhanced accountants’ skepticism about the evolution of the site foremen’s job, considering the impact on their jobs.

Individual subjectification and resistance through strategic uses of technology Confronted with changes that could represent a challenging evolution, foremen adopted different attitudes, conditioned by or positioned against the managerial discourse, though not necessarily in the ways intended. Our findings also show mutual effects among the foremen’s reactions, practices, IT appropriation, and management discourse. A minority of foremen, especially less experienced and younger ones, developed practices in line with managerial expectations. They acted as if they had internalized the managerial discourse, such that they felt ‘valued and recognized by the hierarchy.’ They were proud, not only of the technology but also of the trust shown by their company: ‘It’s proof that they trust us completely … it’s a huge responsibility for us.’ Moreover, mobile technologies’ characteristics, such as portability, accessibility, and multi-contextuality, imply they can be used for different purposes, such as sociability, coordination, and communication, both inside and outside professional contexts. Some foremen perceived technology as a status symbol that granted them a sense of self-worth, in not only the professional but also a private context: ‘I’m very proud of it vis-à-vis my family, my children,’ one foreman said. These foremen appropriated wider organizational discourses embodied in the new IT to their advantage. The same foremen, interviewed before the project launch, did not really suffer especially from a poor image of their job, nor were they particularly interested in their tasks and responsibilities evolving, especially through the use of new technology they considered ‘a waste of time.’ Their reactions appeared to change following the launch, probably in response to

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managerial discursive practices, which conditioned the image of their job by presenting it as a ‘hard,’ ‘thankless,’ ‘reactionary,’ and ‘unattractive’ (HR manager). Technology thus represented a symbolic tool reified in a material artifact that could reverse the representation of their job and give them a raison d’être in the company. The appropriation of managerial discourse and technology incited some foremen to show that they could ‘cope with the use of a new technology and to surpass themselves’ (site manager). Some suffered from the image of their job and the managerial discursive practices, which spread the idea that these technologies were too complex for professionals not used to computers. They seem affected by this contradiction between official discourse about empowerment and local discursive practices. A discussion is particularly striking: Foreman A: ‘I’m sure that [the local agency manager] thinks we’re not clever enough to use the tablet.’ Foreman B: ‘But we’ll show him that we can manage and use a computer … I’m determined.’

These foremen reacted by taking the project seriously and using the new IT as intended by their hierarchy. Moreover, management did not acknowledge counterreactions or resistance, insisting that the foremen were ‘completely associated with the project as it comes from their own initiative’ (CIO). Managers used this argument to prevent resistance. During a presentation to the foremen, the local project coordinator even said, ‘don’t tell me that you’re not happy to get this tool, it’s you, who developed it initially!’ If they had been party to initiating the project, the foremen lost the position to resist or express deviant opinions. Some foremen thus became progressively shaped as disciplined subjects who saw the project as embodying status development. However, most foremen still resisted the organizational change. Initial strong reticence related to concerns about surveillance. The project appeared as a management initiative that countered their own identity and vision of their job. Many complained they had ‘chosen this job to work on a building site, not to do computing.’ Another foreman confessed that he ‘left school at the age of 14 to work on road sites, not to use computers…. It’s not my job anymore. What I do now is the job of my site manager!’ Some foremen, especially the most experienced, protested against the new responsibilities embodied in the new IT and refused to become managers of the site’s expenses. They also resisted the compulsory use of technologies, even questioning management’s intentions: ‘to be honest, I don’t believe in their nicely packaged speech…. I don’t think their goal is to give us more power.’ Finally, some complained about the complexity of use of these technologies, as in, ‘It’s very hard, I really need help to use it, it’s a complete waste of time.’ The reasons for these responses are both symbolic and material, and these dimensions comingled to constitute the foremen’s subjectivities and influence their actions. The tension between official discourses and local discursive practices often appeared as an argument to reject the project and express hostility toward organizational goals. Some resisted through deviant uses of technology: They decided not to send their reports or made deliberate mistakes that were no longer double checked. Some confessed that they would ‘modify the amount of expenses to bug the management’ and show that the tool was not well-adapted to these skilled bluecollar workers. They used the skepticism of local hierarchies to support their argument that ‘site foremen won’t get used to such a deep change in their work habits’ (local manager). They sought to show that they were not able or willing to enter reliable data or exercise self-discipline, even if they possessed these abilities. The foremen used managerial discourse, embodied in specific intended uses of the technology, to reverse the situation. Despite their subordinate positions, they

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knew they could exercise power, linked to the operational information they held about the building site and their employment position in a market characterized by high demand for and shortages of experienced foremen. Their position in the company and the resultant power relations provided a source of blockage, which made them less willing to obey and more likely to develop strategic appropriations of the technology that would overturn managerial intents. The initial management project to eliminate data capture and verification stages thus was jeopardized by the foremen’s counterreactions and practices. Management asked one accountant ‘to go back to checking the report forms filled in by the foremen before entering the data in the system.’ The resistance also had a deep impact on hierarchical relationships and control systems, because site managers were asked to supervise the foremen and visit sites to confirm procedures were followed, which involved the ‘threat of reintroducing more bureaucratic control and strict supervision.’ Managers temporarily had to change their discourse to focus on discipline and surveillance. The turnaround was not easy and revealed a chaotic situation; it also opened a discursive space for foremen, who obtained a raise from management, after union negotiation, to compensate for what they considered ‘additional workload and responsibilities.’ Moreover, management anticipated the replacement of retiring experienced foremen with new, younger employees who would be obliged to use the tools from the start in the expected ways. Organizational change and resistance thus emerge out of a complex interplay between the manipulation of symbols expressed in discursive practices and the material implications of the strategic uses of technology. Such an evolution of organizational realities is possible because of the gaps between heterogeneous and conflicting power relations.

What does CCO mean? We analyze these main findings in greater depth and show our contribution by returning to the research questions in the introduction. Our case study shows that the Foucauldian perspective provides an insightful approach to CCO theorizing that responds to its shortcomings, which link to poor conceptualizations of power, agency–structure dualism, and the materiality challenge.

Recognition of the relational nature of power and incarnations in discursive practices We first need a closer look at the conditions in which ABConstruction evolved. This analysis clarifies the conditions in which communication constitutes organization and also reveals the processes by which power gets manifested in CCO. Our case shows that the CCO argument must be understood in the context of dynamically situated conditions, constituted in discursive practices. According to top managers, ABConstruction evolved in a specific socio-economic context marked by pressure, competition, and uncertainty. The executive board largely focuses on the historic and economic background of the company (e.g., sectoral crisis, drop in market share). Management justified the introduction of mobile IT by the climate of urgency and demand for greater responsiveness. Therefore, the modern management methods and information traceability were presented as crucial changes for the firm’s survival. The emphasis on socio-economic conditions and organizational conditions explained managerial decisions about the technology’s legitimacy, design, and implementation. For example, the material constraints of the industry (e.g., short-term work, isolation, lack of infrastructure) were advanced to make it seem crucial to equip foremen with technologies they could use at worksites. The Sesame project also fit the broader social transformation of the foreman’s job, whose education and skills needed to evolve according to top management.

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The introduction of the new IT at ABConstruction was embedded in different conditions of possibility – environmental, organizational, technological, and individual – expressed as discursive constructions embodied in material resources (Ashcraft et al., 2009). These conditions are constituted, interpreted, and exploited by actors to create specific political results, legitimize certain actions, obstruct other types of action, and generate further conditions of possibility (Knights & Murray, 1994). The social construction of the conditions has power–knowledge effects (Foucault, 1977), as organizational actors build them to legitimate or constrain actions. Through these power–knowledge effects, discursively constructed conditions frame interactions between the individual and collective, giving rise to certain actions and impinging on others. In our case, the constructed conditions resulted in power–knowledge relations that influenced the nature and underlying goals of technology deployment through the actions they facilitated or prevented. Technologies were assigned certain values and meanings, embodied in specific rules, procedures, and prescribed uses. They appeared as objects of disciplinary power, whose adoption and use was legitimized by specific discourses located at different levels (institutional discourses based on urgency, efficiency, and reactivity; micro-organizational discourses linked to empowerment). Managerial discourses thus constituted an exercise of power–knowledge rooted in the political organizational process. Power–knowledge relations are also crystallized and stabilized by discourse; organizational actors used discourse manipulation tactics to orient the behaviors of others. Every category of organizational actors at ABConstruction interpreted and constructed a reality within the organization by constructing particular conditions to justify particular outcomes. Management used the underlying effects of the project (e.g., foremen’s empowerment) and exploited the results of the satisfaction survey to shape foremen as disciplined subjects and legitimate deeper organizational change. Comparisons of stated and perceived goals and official and unofficial discursive practices highlight the underlying objectives of official discourses, constructed around extra-organizational and organizational imperatives. Organizational actors thus rely on discourses to generate power effects and influence power balances, thus contributing to the political process of constructing specific outcomes. Power has long been peripheral to CCO theorizing (Putnam & Nicotera, 2010), but Foucault’s original concept of power–knowledge is relevant for studying the communicative constitution of organizations. This Foucauldian perspective places the political issues of power and control in the foreground, and as our case study shows, power gets manifested through power–knowledge relations incarnated in discursive practices that shape organizational reality. These relations appear as communication processes among different roles and groups (managers, site foremen, accountants), involving both power and knowledge effects. Whereas CCO theorizing is often blamed for minimizing the importance and influence of constraints and relational power, the Foucauldian approach emphasizes the deeply relational nature of power and its incarnation in discursive practices, which convey representations of the organization and technology. This perspective offers a discursive explanation of organizational power that accounts for the way organizations are constituted, in the sense that the discourse participates directly in the production and reproduction of organizational life through power–knowledge relationships. At ABConstruction, the conditions were subject to multiple discursive constructions that fostered certain forms of control and management allowed by specific technological features. Organizational reality was upheld and developed through political activity in several ways: the construction and dissemination of discourses around technological deployment and organizational change, the development of structures and control systems, and the emergence of specific individual reactions, appropriation moves, and practices over the various phases of the IT deployment.

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Dialogic, relational, contextualized conception of social reality This conception of power opens an avenue for a specific relationship between social structure and agency, privileging neither in the understanding of the CCO argument. Identifying the ways to balance agency and structure has long been a problem (Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004). The Foucauldian approach renews the old debate between agency and structure by going beyond it, as shown in our case study. Management at ABConstruction developed discourses to constitute foremen as disciplined subjects, but gaps existed among intentions and official and unofficial discourses and as a result of conflicting powers. Power–knowledge relations evolved in line with social relations, forming an open and complex body of multiple, contingent, heterogeneous, unbalanced relationships, which give insights into diverse individual reactions and practices. On the one hand, power generates consent, as it relies on knowledge and discursive practices which constitute individuals as docile subjects; on the other hand, it engenders resistance and discontinuity. For example, site foremen as organizational actors became objects of power–knowledge (DuGay, 1996) through the emergence of subtle forms of discipline, induced by discursive practices and embodied in new technologies. However, as they became objects of power–knowledge through discipline of their behavior, they also can become subjects who construct and guarantee their ongoing identity through power–knowledge relations. These relations enabled them to continue or even reverse the conditions of their subjection, through ethics and care for the self (Jermier et al., 1994; Fleming & Spicer, 2003). Some foremen enjoyed satisfaction and developed highly proactive discursive practices and positive attitudes toward the technology and thus managed to retain their identity as established and valued field workers. Self-discipline, the search for a certain degree of satisfaction, equilibrium in professional and private spheres, and the emergence of personal reflexivity all reflect the trend toward the internalization of managerial discourse and adoption of technology. As Foucault shows, technologies of the self give people an opportunity to learn about the potential effects of disciplinary proceedings and consequently resist both them and their associated discourse. Our study focuses on a population that is a priori not well placed to resist organizational discourse. However, many foremen showed individual resistance, motivated by the notion of identity and visions of job function and autonomy. Foremen exploited perceived gaps in managerial discourse to overturn managerial intents by creating their own set of conditions of possibilities and constraints. By consciously opposing managerial discourses and affirming their own actions, they constituted their own subjectivities as autonomous individuals in charge of their own lives (Prasad & Prasad, 2000). They engaged in a responsive dialogue and expressed resistance or defiance, because the disciplinary technologies opened new discursive spaces (Doolin, 2002). Thus, various possibilities for emancipation and resistance arise and interact with the material circumstances conditioned by the environmental, societal, and organizational setting. Some actors are better able to produce or modify discourses; when many job seekers appear in a sector, pressure increases on the active population and incites obedience. The extent of economic and social pressure is a political technique and governance tool. Foremen at ABConstruction thus relied on the economic context and recruitment needs to react to managerial discourses. Not only were they able to develop, change, and re-establish themselves, but power–knowledge relations gave them the capacity to change tacks and resist discourse (Fleming & Spicer, 2003). Unlike the debates about micro–macro processes and agency–structure, the Foucauldian approach refuses the false dualism between action and structure and rejects the idea of resistance derived from such an analytical framework. As shown in our case, freedom cannot be the absence of structure or constraint but should be defined as a diverse array of invented technologies of the

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self (proactive discursive practices, positive attitudes, identity construction, responsive dialogue, expressed resistance) that allow individuals to become ‘entrepreneurs of themselves’ (Rose et al., 2006, p. 100). If autonomy and resistance cannot be considered in opposition to structure or constraint, the dualism between agency and structure becomes meaningless. The Foucauldian approach extends CCO theorizing by rethinking the dualism between agency and structure in the communicative constitution of organizations: Instead of conceiving reality as a binary opposition between social structure and social agent, it develops a dialogic, relational, contextualized conception of social reality.

Dynamic relationships at the symbolic–material intersection The Foucauldian approach also addresses another challenge: the dualism between the material and ideational. As recognized by Ashcraft et al. (2009), CCO perspectives tend to remain in symbolic activity realms, so that understanding the symbolic–material relation is a growing imperative. By going beyond the traditional cleavages separating the material from the social, the Foucauldian approach highlights instead an alliance (Ashcraft et al., 2009). The ABConstruction case shows that power–knowledge relationships are enacted in both symbolic and material conditions that drive organizational life (Knights & Murray, 1994). These conditions are socially constructed through discursive practices, but they also involve and are embedded in material circumstances, resources, and consequences of action. For instance, the specific discourses of flexibility and rapidity developed by management interact with the technology’s promise to foster organizational change. The Sesame project coincided with the maturity of mobile technologies and enabled a materialization that had been in the pipeline, legitimized through discursive practices based on the foremen’s initiative. Organizational discourses combined in a specific physical organization of space and time to yield ‘docile bodies’ and foster certain forms of control. The symbolic and material flow continually in particular networks, through which decisions are made and legitimized (e.g., technological deployment), resources get allocated (e.g., equipment), and individuals interact (e.g., interaction with technology, achievement of career objectives). Furthermore, by going beyond this duality, the Foucauldian approach offers a valuable conceptualization of technology as simultaneously material and ideational. Contrary to recent work that reproduces the materialist–idealist dualism (Aschraft et al., 2009, p. 28), a Foucauldian view provides insights into the behavioral and social technologies encoded and embedded in material technologies (Willcocks, 2004). Such a perspective is particularly enriching to highlight the material and ideational qualities that organizational objects such as mobile technologies have. These technologies appear as tangible incarnations that carry collective norms, values, and symbols and have material qualities to support the accomplishment of action, mediation of relations, and coordination of work (Ashcraft et al., 2009). At ABConstruction, technology, as legitimized by managerial discourses, structured behaviors and affected the bases of collective action, such as hierarchical relationships, control systems, and spatio-temporal norms. Moreover, by showing the intertwining of symbolic and material aspects, the Foucauldian approach goes beyond official discourses about mobile technology. Technology does not imply ‘de-bureaucratized’ systems of governance, because more subtle forms of control are involved, as Courpasson (2000) shows with the concept of ‘soft bureaucracies.’ It provides a counterpoint to the idea of individual empowerment advanced in official managerial discourses at ABConstruction; the delegation of responsibility generated by these technologies gave rise to new constraining obligations for foremen. Mobile technologies appear as a network of interconnected technological, social, and organizational elements, in which the material, social, tangible, and symbolic comingle and change accordingly

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(Ashcraft et al., 2009). As Foucault argues, it is not so much the technological instruments but the discursive practices and power relations that surround them, together with the knowledge and behaviors they produce, that matter. At ABConstruction, mobile IT is imbued with power–knowledge effects and appears as reified social constructs, with powerful classification, organization, and construction of roles. The material and symbolic comingle to transform organizational structures, authorities, control systems, and identities, so that the organization is constituted and evolves at their intersection (Ashcraft et al., 2009). However, because reality is materially heterogeneous and relational, the situation is always likely to evolve, and technology does not control social relations (Willcocks, 2004). While technology mirrors a vision of the organization and the intentions of decision makers through their discourse, its effects can never be predicted in advance, as shown by the diverse reactions, appropriation profiles, and uses by foremen. Technology thus appears part of the processes for redefining technology, organizations, and subjects (Doolin, 2002). It contributes to the production and coordination of social action, while actors constitute a sense of technology through their behavior and interactions. Mobile technology engenders situational effects through the manipulation of symbols, and it also involves materiality, in that it is always connected to the material circumstances of its development, use, and implications. In this Foucauldian view, the concept of technology can be reframed and considered not only an ‘electronic panopticon’ but also as embedded in the micro-physics of life, discourse, power relations, and materiality (Willcocks, 2004). This approach to CCO provides real insights into organizational communication technology as both a discursive and a nondiscursive practice that simultaneously constrains and enables everyday actions. This perspective has great relevance for considering CCO as a set of organizing processes that manage the dynamic relationships at the intersection of symbolic and material worlds (Ashcraft et al., 2009).

Concluding remarks: Organization as an evolving, political, negotiated order Our investigation shows how Foucault’s conceptual framework may add to understanding of a ‘communication constitutes organization’ perspective from both theoretical and empirical viewpoints. Despite calls to address how complex communication processes constitute organization, few studies highlight the types of dynamic processes that entwine communication and organization in a CCO relationship (Putnam et al., 2008). Moreover, CCO literature suffers from shortcomings and fails to offer a satisfying explanation of the communicative constitution of organizations. To address these challenges, we develop a Foucauldian framework that can respond to the shortcomings of CCO literature: Instead of a poor theorization of power, it recognizes the relational nature of power and its incarnation in discursive practices; beyond the agency–structure dualism in CCO, it provides a dialogic, relational, contextualized conception of social reality; beyond the symbolic– material dualism, it conceives of CCO as a set of organizing processes that manage the dynamic relationships at the intersection of symbolic and material worlds. Our results suggest the organization is not simply communication or discourse but rather the relationships among different types of processes (McPhee & Zaug, 2000). The constitution of organization must be apprehended in the context of dynamically situated conditions of possibility and constraints, constituted in discursive practices and embodied in material resources. The organization is embedded in different conditions of possibility expressed as social constructions, which are part of the political organizational processes. The construction of these conditions generates power–knowledge effects, as organizational actors build conditions to legitimate or constrain actions. These conditions frame the interactions between role holders and groups, so that organizational reality gets upheld and developed through this political activity in several ways. Furthermore, because power–knowledge relations are mobile, heterogeneous, and sometimes conflicting,

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dynamic interactions among them contribute to the perpetual evolution of organizations. There is reciprocity among organization, discourse, technology, and subjects and continual movement across them. Various interactions thus result from the production of discourse, development of structures, modes of management, and control systems, as well as individual reactions and practices, which lead to a continuous transformation of authorities, subjectivities, identities, and power–knowledge relations. Different forms of discourse convey representations of technology, individuals, and the organization that are liable to modify control mechanisms. Gradual changes in control systems in turn affect the discourse pertaining to technology and the organization. Individual reactions also affect the control systems and the discourse, in line with power–knowledge effects that arise from the situation, the company’s ability to replace workers, the technical and social requirements of their work, risks attached to their situation, and their motivation. In summary, organizations get constituted and maintained and evolve in different political processes that combine the symbolic and the material (Ashcraft et al., 2009). They are constituted as evolving political systems, in which different values, meanings, interpretations, and interests are articulated in discourses and embodied in material artifacts, rules, structures, and practices that vary across time and space (Deetz, 1992; Putnam & Nicotera, 2010). Organizational reality is constructed through highly dynamic power–knowledge relationships, which involve discursive practices, control systems, and individual subjectivity. Our study recognizes the fragile character of organizations as conflicted and political negotiated order, ‘symbolically made and materially real’ (Ashcraft et al., 2009, p. 37). Foucault invites us to identify the contingency of the mechanisms used to produce truth, such as rules and procedures that define knowledge. Some organizational scholars and sociological writers construct realities as much as managers (Watson, 1995; Cornelissen, 2006). As Foucault advocated, we need to emphasize the relativity of the validity of knowledge, including that produced herein. We recognize though, as Foucault suggests, that our goal is not to push new truths but rather to develop original reflections and thus offer a potential basis for further research. Foucault aimed to develop new angles by inversing perspectives, introducing cornerstones to key questions, offering novel perspectives, and re-exploring issues that continue to be ripe for further research. Note 1. We use this pseudonym to protect the identities of the company and participants.

Funding This research received a grant from the French Research Ministry.

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Author Biography Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte is an assistant professor at IESEG School of Management in Lille, France. She holds a PhD in Management from Paris-Dauphine University and has received three PhD national awards. Her current research interests include organizational discourses, change management, and resistance to change, as well as the organizational and human implications of the implementation and use of information systems.