Conflicting Values

Journal of Business and Technical Communication Jan 1997

CAROL DAVID ; MARGARET BAKER GRAHAM

Abstract

This article analyzes a CEO's use of extended epic metaphor in building corporate culture. Whereas much of the research on management's use of narrative has examined shorter stories and anecdotes, here the authors analyze the text of a speech written by a newly hired CEO for his upper management team. The speech, which was never delivered but was instead sent out in a leadership manual to managers in the conglomerate, begins with a narrative history of the CEO's first five months in office. In his description of events, the metaphoric language suggesting heroes and competition contradicts the principles of team management that the CEO intends to implement throughout the company. These heroic metaphors valorize individual achievement, agency, and action—values more likely to be familiar to the business culture than the cooperative values of teams. Drawn from war and sports metaphors common in the language of the popular American lexicon, the images generate more excitement and appeal than those of cooperative planning inherent in team management systems.

Journal: Journal of Business and Technical Communication
Published: 1997-01-01
DOI: 10.1177/1050651997011001002
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (1)

Dombrowski (2000)

Ethics and Technical Communication: The Past Quarter Century

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Cites in this index (1)

Porter (1986)

Intertextuality and the discourse community

Rhetoric Review

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