Managing Accountability: Exploring Reasoning in a Management Team

Abstract

This article deals with a sociocultural perspective on dialogue and communication in analyzing the actors’ ways of meaning making in talk as action in a management team meeting. It investigates the potential of the dialogical approach for studying talk and communication. The aim of the paper is to investigate the understanding of institutional categorising practices and rhetorical strategies used in a decision making process. Categorising practice is delimited to a “sale and lease back case,” an example of institutional reasoning, argumentation and decision-making. Data are generated from a video recorded management meeting and participant observations. Findings frequently indicate the team members’ mobilization of rhetorical strategies and of institutional categories as flexible tools in re-contextualisation and negotiation of the issue in question. In contrast with prior studies of integration processes, after mergers and acquisitions, the results illustrate the complexity of actors’ ways of meaning making of actions in a management team meeting.