This ethnographic study describes how authority figures may unwittingly invite and co-create a team’s collective resistance in response to their actions. The study documents two pivotal organizational communication episodes experienced by two separate teams within a Collegiate Division I Athletic Department. A positioning analysis of the episodes revealed how a specific speech act (what we label “managerial inquisition”) partially facilitated athletes’ collective resistance to coaching staff. Our analysis suggested that coaches’ directives implicated team members’ identity needs and moral obligations to one another, which either encouraged or discouraged collective resistance to emerge within the unfolding discourse. This essay contributes to the team and organizational resistance literature by documenting how resistance can be co-created by management during control attempts.
AlvessonM.KärremanD. (2000). Varieties of discourse: On the study of organizations through discourse analysis. Human Relations, 53, 1125-1149. doi:10.1177/0018726700539002
2.
AshcraftK. L. (2005). Resistance through consent? Occupational identity, organizational form, and the maintenance of masculinity among commercial airline pilots. Management Communication Quarterly, 19, 67-90. doi:10.1177/0893318905276560
3.
AustinJ. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
4.
BargeJ. K. (2012). Systemic constructionist leadership and working from within the present moment. In Uhl-BienM.OspinaS. M. (Eds.), Advancing relational leadership research: A dialogue among perspectives (pp. 107-142). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
5.
BargeJ. K.FairhurstG. T. (2008). Living leadership: A systemic constructionist approach. Leadership, 4, 227-251. doi:10.1177/1742715008092360
6.
BiddleB. J. (1979). Role theory: Expectations, identities, and behaviors. New York, NY: Academic Press.
7.
BiselR. S.BargeJ. K. (2011). Discursive positioning and planned change in organizations. Human Relations, 64, 257-283. doi:10.1177/0018726710375996
8.
BiselR. S.BargeJ. K.DoughertyD. S.LucasK.TracyS. J. (2014). A round-table discussion of “big” data in qualitative organizational communication research. Management Communication Quarterly, 28, 625-649. doi:10.1177/0893318914549952
9.
BiselR. S.FordD. J.KeytonJ. (2007). Unobtrusive control in a leadership organization: Integrating control and resistance. Western Journal of Communication, 71, 136-158. doi:10.1080/10570310701368039
10.
BurawoyM. (1979). Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
11.
CharmazK. (2006). Constructing grounded theory: A practical guide through qualitative analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
12.
ChristiansC. G.CareyJ. W. (1989). The logic and aims of qualitative research. In StempelG. H. I.WestleyB. H. (Eds.), Research methods in mass communication (pp. 354-374). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
13.
ConradC. (2011). Organizational rhetoric: Strategies of resistance and domination. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
14.
ConradC.HayesJ. (2001). Development of key constructs: Views from varying perspectives. In JablinF.PutnamL. L. (Eds.), The new handbook of organizational communication (pp. 47-77). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
15.
EdwardsR. C. (1979). Contested terrain: The transformation of the workplace in the twentieth century. New York, NY: Basic Books.
16.
EzzamelM.WillmottH. (1998). Accounting for teamwork: A critical study of group-based systems of organizational control. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 358-396. doi:10.2307/2393856
17.
FlemingP.SpicerA. (2003). Working at a cynical distance: Implications for power, subjectivity and resistance. Organization, 10, 157-179. doi:10.1177/1350508403010001376
18.
FlemingP.SpicerA. (2007). Contesting the corporation: Struggle, power and resistance in organizations. London, England: Cambridge University Press.
19.
FlemingP.SpicerA. (2008). Beyond power and resistance new approaches to organizational politics. Management Communication Quarterly, 21, 301-309. doi:10.1177/0893318907309928
20.
FordJ. D.FordL. W.D’AmelioA. (2008). Resistance to change: The rest of the story. Academy of Management Review, 33, 362-377. doi:10.5465/AMR.2008.31193235
21.
GabrielY. (1999). Beyond happy families: A critical reevaluation of the control-resistance-identity triangle. Human Relations, 52, 179-203. doi:10.1177/001872679905200201
22.
GiddensA. (1979). Central problems in social theory: Action, structure, and contradiction in social analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press.
23.
GoffmanE. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
24.
GrahamL. (1995). On the line at Subaru-Isuzu: The Japanese and the American worker. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
25.
HarréR. (2012). Positioning theory: Moral dimensions of social-cultural. In ValsinerJ. (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of culture and psychology (pp. 191-207). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
26.
HarréR.MoghaddamF.Pilkerton CairnieT.RothbartD.SabatS. (2009). Recent advances in positioning theory. Theory & Psychology, 19, 5-31. doi:10.1177/0959354308101417
27.
HarréR.SecordP. F. (1973). The explanation of social behavior. Towanda, NJ: Littlefield Adams.
28.
HarréR.SlocumN. (2003). Disputes as complex social events: On the uses of positioning theory. In HarréR.MoghaddamF. (Eds.), The self and others: Positioning individuals and groups in personal, political, and cultural contexts (pp. 123-136). Westport, CT: Praeger.
29.
HarréR.van LangenhoveL. (1999). Positioning theory: Moral contexts of intentional action. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
30.
HirvonenP. (2013). Positioning in an inter-professional team meeting: Examining positioning theory as a methodological tool for micro-cultural group studies. Qualitative Sociology Review, 9(4), 100-114.
31.
HollwayW. (1984). Gender difference and the production of subjectivity. In HenriquesJ.HollwayW.UrwinC.VennL.WalkerdineV. (Eds.), Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity (pp. 227-263). London, England: Methuen.
32.
JorgensonJ. (2002). Engineering selves: Negotiating gender and identity in technical work. Management Communication Quarterly, 15, 350-380. doi:10.1177/0893318902153002
33.
KassingJ. W. (2011). Dissent in organizations. Malden, MA: Polity Press.
34.
KatilaS.ErikssonP. (2013). He is a firm, strong-mind and empowering leader, but is she? Gendered positioning of female and male CEOs. Gender, Work, & Organization, 20, 71-84. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2011.00570.x
35.
KelleyK. M.BiselR. S. (2014). Leaders’ narrative sensemaking during LMX role negotiations: Explaining how leaders make sense of who to trust and when. The Leadership Quarterly, 25, 433-448. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2013.10.011
36.
LarsonG.TompkinsP. (2005). Ambivalence and resistance: A study of management in a concertive control system. Communication Monographs, 72, 1-21. doi:10.1080/0363775052000342508
37.
LindlofT. R.TaylorB. C. (2011). Qualitative communication research methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
38.
LucasK.D’EnbeauS. (2013). Moving beyond themes: Reimagining the qualitative analysis curriculum. Qualitative Communication Research, 2, 213-227. doi:10.1525/qcr.2013.2.2.213
39.
MumbyD. K. (2005). Theorizing resistance in organizational studies: A dialectical approach. Management Communication Quarterly, 19, 19-44. doi:10.1177/0893318905276558
40.
MurphyA. G. (1998). Hidden transcripts of flight attendant resistance. Management Communication Quarterly, 11, 499-535. doi:10.1177/0893318998114001
PrasadP.PrasadA. (2000). Stretching the iron cage: The constitution and implications of routine workplace resistance. Organization Science, 11, 387-403.
43.
PutnamL. L. (1982). Paradigms for organizational communication research: An overview and synthesis. Western Journal of Communication, 46, 192-206. doi:10.1080/10570318209374077
44.
PutnamL. L.GrantD.MichelsonG.CutcherL. (2005). Discourse and resistance: Targets, practices, and consequences. Management Communication Quarterly, 19, 5-18. doi:10.1177/0893318905276557
45.
RahimM. A. (2009). Bases of leader power and effectiveness. In TjosvoldD.WisseB. (Eds.), Power and interdependence in organizations (pp. 224-243). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
46.
ScottJ. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
47.
SearleJ. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
48.
SewellG. (1998). The discipline of teams: The control of team-based industrial work through electronic and peer surveillance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43, 397-428. doi:10.2307/2393857
49.
SherifM. (1936). The psychology of social norms. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
50.
TompkinsP. K.CheneyG. (1983). Account analysis of organizations: Decision making and identification. In PutnamL.PacanowskyM. E. (Eds.), Communication and organizations: An interpretive approach (pp. 99-122). Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
51.
TourishD.BargeJ. K. (2010). An exchange of letters: What can a specifically social constructionist perspective bring to bear on what must be one of the most studied subjects in human history?Management Communication Quarterly, 24, 322-247.
52.
TracyS. J. (2000). Becoming a character for commerce. Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 90-128. doi:10.1177/0893318900141004
53.
TracyS. J. (2013). Qualitative research methods: Collective evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley.
54.
TuckerJ. (1993). Everyday forms of employee resistance. Sociological Forum, 8, 25-45.
55.
WatsonG. (1971). Resistance to change. American Behavioral Scientist, 14, 745-766. doi:10.1177/000276427101400507
56.
WeickK. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
57.
ZollerH. M. (2013). Power and resistance in organizational communication. In PutnamL. L.MumbyD. K. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational communication (pp. 595-617). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
58.
ZollerH. M.FairhurstG. T. (2007). Resistance leadership: The overlooked potential in critical organization and leadership studies. Human Relations, 60, 1331-1360. doi:10.1177/0018726707082850
