The portrayal of the future as legitimacy construction
Discursive strategies in highly ranked business schools’ external communication
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21324845 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zsuzsanna Géring (0000-0002-8242-950X, Budapest University of Economics and Business, corresponding author), Réka Tamássy (0000-0003-1470-8192, Budapest University of Economics and Business), Gábor Király (0000-0002-4329-725X, Budapest University of Economics and Business), Márton Rakovics (0000-0002-5830-4870, Eötvös Loránd University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 775-793 |
| Publication date | 2023-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Higher Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-1560 • E-ISSN: 1573-174X |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10734-022-00865-1 |
| OpenAlex | W4280522609 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 41 |
In this paper, we investigate how highly ranked business schools construct their legitimacy claims by analysing their online organisational communication. We argue that in the case of higher education institutions in general, and business schools in particular, the discursive formation of these legitimacy claims is strongly connected to the future. Consequently, we utilise corpus-based discourse analysis of highly ranked business schools’ website communication by focusing on sentences containing the expression ‘future’. At first, we analysed the future-related language use to reveal the general future picture in the corpus. Furthermore, by combining qualitative and quantitative textual data, we identified six typical agency frames (i.e. preparing, shaping, adjusting, exploring, personal future, responsibility) about the future. By examining the co-occurrence of these frames, we were able to identify different discursive strategies. As we connected our findings to general societal phenomena we could interpret why and how business schools utilise these discursive strategies to (re)create and maintain their legitimacy
Agency (philosophy) · Construct (python library) · Critical discourse analysis · Discourse analysis · Higher education · Legitimacy · Linguistics · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Corporate Identity and Reputation · Management and Organizational Studies · Public Relations and Crisis Communication
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Analysing Discourse
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A content analysis of top-ranked universities’ mission statements from five global regions
Mission Statements
Researching Society and Culture
A useful methodological synergy? Combining critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to examine discourses of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |