Strategy as staged performance: A critical discursive perspective on keynote speeches as a genre of strategic communication

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Research Summary: In this article, we explore how keynote speeches come into being as a staged genre of strategic communication. In our critical discursive analysis of video data on Apple Inc.'s keynote speeches, we demonstrate how keynote speeches are multimodally accomplished through the embodied enactment of four discursive practices: referencing, relating, demarcating, and mystifying. We show how different bodily movements, which we describe as leveling and leaping gestures, systematically contribute to constructing different conceptions of strategy through the enactment of these discursive practices as a staged genre of strategic communication. Our findings contribute to strategy-as-practice research by extending the nascent but growing literature on genres of strategic communication, the strategist's body in the strategy process, and the use of video-based research methods. Managerial Summary: Firms increasingly rely on keynote speeches to communicate their strategies. As a result, managers invest more and more time and effort into preparing and rehearsing their keynote speeches. But how do managers communicate strategy in these staged performances? Based on an analysis of Apple Inc.'s keynote speeches, we explore the discursive and bodily patterns that characterize this genre. In doing so, we demonstrate that the coordinated use of bodily movements in keynote speeches is consequential for highlighting different aspects of the communicated strategy. This shows that keynote speeches and other types of public speeches cannot simply be scripted, but require managers to engage in bodily rehearsal and training in order to communicate strategies effectively.

Original languageEnglish
JournalStrategic Management Journal
Volume39
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)639-663
Number of pages25
ISSN0143-2095
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.03.2018
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Management studies - critical discursive analysis, genre of strategic communication, multimodality, strategy as practice, video methods

DOI

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Fritjof Karnani

Publications

  1. Repräsentation und Partizipation in Organisationen
  2. Transforming Well-Being in Wuppertal - Conditions and Constraints
  3. Die Zukunftsbäckerei
  4. Rationalität, Naturbeherrschung und Mythos
  5. Desecularising Culture in Method
  6. Pricing decisions in peer-to-peer and prosumer-centred electricity markets
  7. Managing Interorganizational Relations
  8. Resistance in the Environment
  9. Motivational and Emotional Orientation, Engagement, and Achievement in Mathematics
  10. "Instrumentalität"
  11. Wie die Zahlen im Kopf wirksam werden
  12. Review: Refugial areas and postglacial colonisations in the Western Palaearctic
  13. Ecopreneurship and Competitive Strategies
  14. Sustainability through institutional failure and decline?
  15. Der Verlust der Dinge
  16. Symbiotisch oder sozial: Zur Aktualität einer in Vergessenheit geratenen Unterscheidung
  17. Law relating to Remote Sensing - Earth Observation
  18. Composition and origin of plagioclase, pyroxene, and olivine clasts in Fra Mauro breccias
  19. Study programme sustainability - a way to impart competencies for handling sustainability?
  20. Partizipatives Regieren in der EU
  21. Mathematisches Forschen und Theoriebilden
  22. Anne Peters, Elemente einer Theorie der Verfassung Europas, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 889 S. (ISBN: 978-3-428-10602-8)
  23. The influence of observed body movements on consumer behavior
  24. Mixtures of Quaternary Ammonium Compounds and Anionic Organic Compounds in the Aquatic Environment
  25. The policy turn in German political science
  26. Effects of elevated carbon dioxide concentration on growth and nitrogen fixation in Alnus glutinosa in a long-term field experiment
  27. Policy Change in Times of Politicization: The Case of Corporate Taxation in the European Union
  28. Empirical Implications for Promoting Students "Entrepreneurial Intentions"
  29. Moral licensing and corporate social responsibility
  30. Summer of love in London
  31. Hitzeassoziierte Gesundheitsprobleme – relevant für die Gesundheitsversorgung?
  32. Einfluss von CSRD und CSDDD auf Interne Revision, Aufsichtsrat und Abschlussprüfer.