Technologizing Discourse to Standardize Projects in Multi-Project Organizations: Hegemony by Consensus?

A project-management model is a powerful, but little researched, discursive tool in the ‘new’ bureaucratization process of multi-project organizations. It is a means of creating hegemony by consensus and can be seen as an example of the process of technologization of discourse. Through this process, discourse technologists redesign organizational discourses and work processes, turning them into representations of consensual praxis. This article traces this redesign process in a major telecom organization and shows how the ‘new’ practices are disseminated within the organization.

[1]  Michael Ivor Reed,et al.  Organization, Trust and Control: A Realist Analysis , 2001 .

[2]  J. Gee,et al.  The New Work Order , 1996 .

[3]  M. Callon Society in the making: The study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis , 1987 .

[4]  M. Callon Techno-economic Networks and Irreversibility , 1990 .

[5]  Norman Fairclough,et al.  The discourse of New Labour : critical discourse analysis. , 2001 .

[6]  C. Mills,et al.  The Theory of Social and Economic Organization , 1948 .

[7]  R. Cooper,et al.  New product processes at leading industrial firms , 1991 .

[8]  G. Myers Out of the Laboratory and Down to the Bay , 1996 .

[9]  Anders Söderholm,et al.  A theory of the temporary organization , 1995 .

[10]  M. Foucault,et al.  The archaeology of knowledge ; and, The discourse on language , 1972 .

[11]  M. Callon,et al.  Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology , 1986 .

[12]  K. Weick FROM SENSEMAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS , 2021, The New Economic Sociology.

[13]  Geoffrey C. Bowker,et al.  Situations vs. standards in long-term, wide-scale decision-making: the case of the International Classification of Diseases , 1991, Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[14]  Christine Räisänen,et al.  The conference forum as a system of genres : a sociocultural study of academic conference practices in automotive crash-safety engineering , 1999 .

[15]  John Law,et al.  On the Methods of Long-Distance Control: Vessels, Navigation and the Portuguese Route to India , 1984 .

[16]  Christopher Grey,et al.  Trust, Control and Post-Bureaucracy , 2001 .

[17]  M. Callon,et al.  Mapping the dynamics of science and technology : sociology of science in the real world , 1988 .

[18]  Rolf A. Lundin,et al.  Neo-Industrial Organising: Renewal by Action and Knowledge Formation in a Project-intensive Economy , 1999 .

[19]  Kristian Kreiner In search of relevance: Project management in drifting environments , 1995 .

[20]  N. Fairclough Discourse and social change , 1992 .

[21]  J. Sheyholislami,,et al.  Critical Discourse Analysis , 2019, Research Methods for Classroom Discourse.

[22]  Michael A. Cusumano,et al.  Thinking Beyond Lean: How Multi Project Management is Transforming Product Development at Toyota and Other Companies , 1998 .

[23]  J. Barker Tightening the Iron Cage: Concertive Control in Self-Managing Teams , 1993 .

[24]  Pernille Eskerod,et al.  Bureaucratizing Projects?: On the Standardization Trend , 1999 .

[25]  M Reed Organisational analysis as discourse analysis: a critique , 1998 .

[26]  M. Callon Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay , 1984 .

[27]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  The myopia of learning , 1993 .

[28]  Stewart Clegg,et al.  Hybrid Controls in Project Organisations , 2001 .

[29]  Henrik Linderoth,et al.  An Actor Network Theory Perspective on IT-projects: A Battle of Wills , 2003 .

[30]  Hugh Willmott,et al.  The odd couple?: re‐engineering business processes; managing human relations , 1995 .

[31]  Stewart Clegg,et al.  Frameworks of power , 1989 .

[32]  T. V. Dijk Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis , 1993 .

[33]  Brian P. Bloomfield,et al.  Paper traces: inscribing organisation and information technology , 1997 .

[34]  Rolf A. Lundin,et al.  Conceptualizing a Projectified Society Discussion of an Eco-Institutional Approach to a Theory on Temporary Organisations , 1998 .

[35]  David Boddy,et al.  The expertise of the change agent: Public performance and backstage activity , 1992 .

[36]  B. Schutt Sorting things out. , 1970, The American journal of nursing.

[37]  Anneli Linde,et al.  Is standardization applicable to project managers of multi-project companies? , 2000 .