•  
  •  
 

Organization Management Journal

Abstract

Increasingly, organizational research is taking the linguistic turn in social sciences seriously. Consequently, the central role of communication in the constitution of the organization is also finding greater acceptance. Using conversation analysis as a research methodology and transcripts of naturally occurring talk as data, the purpose of this article is to add to this growing body of research and to explicate how orientation to epistemic rights talks the hierarchy of the organization into being. Findings indicate how the negotiation of rights to have and to display status-based knowledge of head office index the discursive identities of knowing participants, which enacts the situated identities of hierarchic superiors. Therefore, through the sequential properties of talk, status-based epistemic rights and obligations are enacted so that a management team is made relevant, which incarnates the lived hierarchy of the organization and “does” authority.

Share

COinS