AMBIGUITY AS A RHETORICAL RESOURCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF STRATEGIC
ACTION IN A GARBAGE CAN CONTEXT
Fourth Organization Studies Summer Workshop: ‘Embracing Complexity: Advancing Ecological
Understanding in Organization Studies’ 5-7 June 2008 Pissouri Cyprus.
Authors:
John Sillince*, Paula Jarzabkowski** and Duncan Shaw**
* Strathclyde Business School
Strathclyde University
Glasgow G4 0QU
UK
John.sillince@gsb.strath.ac.uk
**Aston Business School
Aston University
Birmingham B4 7ET
UK
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AMBIGUITY AS A RHETORICAL RESOURCE: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF STRATEGIC
ACTION IN A GARBAGE CAN CONTEXT
Abstract. This empirical case study of a business school internationalisation process
investigates the relationship between rhetoric, ambiguity and strategic action in a garbage
can context. Our data showed that rhetoric structured the garbage can and reduced the
randomness of the strategy-making process in two ways. First, rhetoric enabled actors to
distinguish between two uses of ambiguity – maximising ambiguity to avoid action, and
minimising ambiguity to enact action. Rhetorics that maximised ambiguity were most
frequent at the start of the strategy process; rhetorics that minimised ambiguity were most
common later in the strategy process. Second, rhetoric provided structure by linking
solutions, problems and participants to choice opportunities to enable action and by
negating links between solutions, problems and participants and choice opportunities in
order to enable inaction.
Keywords: rhetoric, ambiguity, garbage can, strategic action.
This paper addresses the problem of strategic action in organized anarchies, which typically
operate under garbage can models of action. Organized anarchies comprise a knowledge-based
workforce, with diverse professional interests, responsibilities and affiliations that are not easily
organized by formalization of hierarchy and power structure (Mintzberg, 1979; Podsakoff, Williams
and Todor, 1986). In the absence of formalized power, authority and structure, organized anarchies
encounter ambiguity over goals, authority structures and the technologies for attaining their diverse
professional interests (Cohen and March, 1974). Action within organized anarchies is thus typically
conceptualized through the garbage can model (Cohen, March and Olsen, 1972; Miller and Wilson,
2006). A garbage can model assumes that action arises from the random confluence between
problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities (Cohen et al. 1972). From this perspective,
choices about strategic action may be made based on the solutions available and the allocation of
attention by participants at a moment in time, so that solutions are not necessarily applied to problems
that they can solve, further compounding ambiguity. Generating momentum for action around a
specific strategic goal is thus problematic, as different interest groups pursue their own goals with little
consideration for the strategies of the organization as a whole (Cohen et al. 1972; Cohen and March
1974; Denis, Lamothe, and Langley, 2001; Jarzabkowski, 2005; Weick, 1976).
While garbage cans present challenges to management principles of consensus, unity of
command, and structural alignment around a singular vision, the problem of strategic action within
such contexts has not been widely explored in management and organization theory. This gap is
problematic, as some literature suggests that garbage can models of action confound rational
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management processes, resulting in inertia, inability to pursue coordinated action and political
behavior (e.g. Denis, et al., 1996; Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992). However, other studies suggest that
it is possible for actors to influence the structure and processes of the garbage can, enabling
convergence upon specific courses of action (e.g. Levitt and Nass, 1989; Padgett, 1980). This paper
explores the problems of strategic action within garbage cans, examining how ambiguity plays out, but
also how actors respond to and draw upon the ambiguity they encounter in order to shape garbage can
processes around specific courses of action. The paper is based upon a three-year, longitudinal study
of strategic action around an internationalization goal in a business school, which is a typical garbage
can context (Cohen and March, 1974). We propose that rhetoric is one means of managing the
ambiguities encountered in pursuing this goal and structuring the garbage can towards specific actions.
The paper is in four sections. First it addresses the literature on garbage cans and ambiguity,
proposing a rhetorical theory framework for analysing strategic action in such contexts. Second, the
research design and methodology are explained. Third, we present our findings on rhetorical forms,
the way that these rhetorical forms enable actors to cope with the ambiguity they encounter, and the
way that rhetoric shapes the garbage can towards specific strategic actions. These findings will show
that different forms of rhetoric evolve over time, which helps to move the garbage can from maximum
ambiguity, in which there are non-problems, non-solutions, non-participants, towards minimum
ambiguity that co-opts participants and focuses their attention on specific problems, solutions and
choice opportunities. Finally we discuss the contributions of these findings to knowledge about
strategic action within the context of garbage cans.
Theoretical Background
This section introduces the garbage can model, explains the issues of ambiguity which arise in
garbage can contexts and proposes a rhetorical theory framework for analysing how actors cope with
the ambiguity that they encounter within garbage can contexts.
Garbage cans. The garbage can model is based in an action view of decision, in which
decision is recognized not by a discrete and rational choice amongst alternatives but, rather, by the
actions that an organization and its actors pursue (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992; Miller and Wilson,
2006; Mintzberg and Waters, 1985; 1990; Pettigrew, 1990). The garbage can premise is that problems,
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solutions, participants and choice opportunities are independent streams of activity that randomly
converge (Cohen et al, 1972; Lutz, 1982; March, 1981). Actions are possible when problems,
solutions, participants and choice opportunities come together within the ‘garbage can’. When there is
insufficient slack, so that load on the system becomes important, the issue that is nearest resolution
generates most energy and attention and gets chosen (Cohen and March, 1974). Otherwise, issues that
happen to be in the garbage can are selected at random. Choices about organizational action may be
based on the solutions available and the allocation of attention by participants at a moment in time, so
that solutions are not necessarily applied to problems that they can solve. Thus, in garbage can
contexts, organizational action is viewed as highly ambiguous, combining unpredictable windows of
opportunity and coincidences that result in random outcomes. Actors within these contexts,
particularly those who are tasked with leading such organizations, must develop means for coping
with the ambiguity that they encounter, in the absence of formalized processes for aligning problems,
solutions, participants and choice opportunities (Denis et al, 1996; Middleton-Stone and Brush, 1996).
Studies building upon the original garbage can paper by Cohen et al. (1972) have probed the
random confluence of streams of activity in the garbage can model, indicating that some interventions
and institutional features may be deployed to bring structure to the garbage can. One approach has
been to suggest ‘streams’ of common activities (Kalu, 2005; Mirabella, 2002) or ‘flows of control’
(Masuch and Lapotin, 1989: 49). Levitt and Nass (1989) also questioned the extent to which problems
and solutions are truly independent, as some solutions link well to problems, at least in the field of
textbook publishing. Others note that even in organized anarchies, there are some structural features
which shape the garbage can context (Langley et al., 1995; Padgett, 1980: 583). In an effort to explain
how these structural phenomena might shape garbage can processes, some authors adopt a temporal
lens, examining how the order of events may provide a greater uniformity of outcome than the random
process predicts. For example, Mezias and Scarselletta (1994) and Olsen (2001) argue that the garbage
can and institutional forces intersect in a way that brings about institutional change. Levitt and Nass
(1989) showed that the institutional environment ordered the decision and access structures of garbage
can systems and so accounted for the observed uniformity of outcomes, despite the existence of a
random process. These authors suggest that there is a kind of order to the garbage can, based on
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timing, load on the system and coincidence. Such studies preserve the random nature of the garbage
can model, but also explain how garbage can contexts can display some kind of order. However, these
studies leave participants exposed to the ambiguities of the garbage can, by not addressing questions
of influence or coping strategies when faced with the problems of acting within garbage cans.
Other authors note that the agency of various participants might be a key feature in sociallyconstructing convergence between streams within the garbage can (Bendor, Moe and Shotts, 2001).
For example, Denis et al (1996) illustrate that participation is not totally random. Rather, top managers
are often charged with leadership responsibilities which make them active participants who use
political tactics and political capital to shape convergence between particular problems, solutions and
choice opportunities, whilst neutralising potentially dissenting participants (Cohen and March, 1974;
Jarzabkowski and Seidl, 2008). Other authors point out that choice opportunities are created
(O’Connor, 1997), which implies the attribution of meaning to specific events; ‘Choice opportunities
themselves are not value free’ (Pinfield, 1986: 386). Indeed, in the original paper, garbage can
solutions are identified as “somebody’s products” (Cohen et al, 1972: 3), suggesting that participants
will be keen to advance their own solutions, albeit that they may be frustrated by the other solutions,
problems and choices being promoted by other participants. Padgett (1980) thus proposes that
managing the meaning context within garbage can processes may be a way of providing order. Lee
and Yue (2001) further elaborate these social constructions of the garbage can, illustrating that rhetoric
was an important underlying aspect of the garbage can policy-making processes in Hong Kong. Thus,
we should look at how actors socially construct the ambiguities of the garbage can, perceiving and
influencing connections between problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities.
Ambiguity in garbage cans. Ambiguity, which is a key feature of the garbage can literature,
“is the state of having many ways of thinking about the same circumstances or phenomena” (Feldman,
1989:5). Ambiguity has three dimensions; goal ambiguity, authority ambiguity and technology
ambiguity (Cohen and March, 1974). Goal ambiguity arises from the plurality of interests and
meanings that multiple constituents attribute to any given goal. Those meanings are ambiguous partly
because of indirect links between solutions and problems, which obscure what constitutes a goal
(Cohen et al, 1972). Ambiguous goals have multiple, indistinct, incoherent or fragmented meanings, in
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which no single meaning is the ‘best’ or most coherent interpretation for the various participants
(Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003), compounding the problems of the garbage can in terms of
selecting between options. Authority ambiguity refers to the diffuse sources of power held by different
constituents, which enables them to pursue at least partial solutions to their own interests without
regard to hierarchical power. Authority ambiguity is compounded by the garbage can mode of acting,
which involves unpredictable participation in organizational decision making (Cohen et al, 1972) and
reduces the ability of higher hierarchical levels to exert power over those below them (Cohen and
March, 1974). Hence, suppression of ambiguity through management fiat is not an option (Alvesson
and Sveningsson, 2003; Denis et al, 1996; 2001). Technology ambiguity suggests that the relationship
between goals and the means to achieve them is not clear, because of the garbage can processes of
selecting organizational actions (Cohen and March, 1974; Cohen et al, 1972). Technology ambiguity
is exacerbated by indirect control over resources (Middleton-Stone and Brush, 1996) and unclear
relationships between goals and their outcomes or performance indicators (Cohen et al, 1972).
Taken together, these three dimensions of ambiguity exacerbate the garbage can processes,
frustrating coherent organizational action (Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003). However, another vein
of literature proposes that strategic ambiguity, defined as ambiguity in the communication of goals,
may be a discursive resource in such contexts (Davenport and Leitch, 2005; Eisenberg, 1984; Ring
and Perry, 1985). This viewpoint examines the discursively constructed nature of goals, in which
ambiguity enables different constituents to attribute different meanings to the same goal, or for
powerful actors to persuasively construct different meanings for any given goal according to the
interests of their audience (Eisenberg, 1984; Eisenberg and Goodall, 1997). For example, powerful
actors may use the ambiguity of goals strategically in order to generate collective action, by
encouraging constituents to sign up to a higher-order or more abstracted meaning that does not
counteract their particular interests (Eisenberg and Goodall, 1997; Ring and Perry, 1985). Participants
may have different interpretations of a situation but still agree on what action to take (Donnellon, Gray
and Bougon, 1986), particularly where the initial goals are expressed with sufficient ambiguity that all
actors can subscribe to them (Davenport and Leitch, 2005).
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Strategic ambiguity thus appears as a resource which might help with generating action in
garbage can conditions. While garbage can processes generate ambiguity, that ambiguity also provides
partial and multiple meanings, which might enable diverse actors to participate in specific solutions,
actions and choice opportunities, not necessarily by developing shared meanings, but by constructing a
sense of communion around the association of values and goals with themselves and their organization
with which others can identify. At the same time, the multiplicity of solutions and problems and the
value-laden nature of choice opportunities, means that participants encounter considerable ambiguity,
which they seek to manage through intense efforts to assert or preserve shared meanings. As
persuasion is important in such contexts, we propose that rhetoric, which is a branch of discourse and
language theory associated with persuasion, is an appropriate theoretical and methodological lens for
understanding how actors cope with the ambiguity that they encounter and how they attempt to
structure the garbage can in order to achieve some order within organizational action.
Rhetoric in organizations. While various authors have proposed that language is a means of
coping with ambiguity and structuring action (e.g. Davenport and Leitch, 2005; Middleton-Stone and
Brush, 1996; Vaara, Kleymann and Seristo, 2004) and have noted its value in garbage cans (Lee and
Yue, 2001; O’Connor, 1997), they have not addressed the specific structuring role of language within
the garbage can process and how it might enable or constrain action. This paper addresses this gap by
integrating the garbage can model with rhetorical theory. We first explain the growing attention to
rhetoric as a way of explaining how modern organizations cope with ambiguity. We then locate
various organizational approaches within rhetorical theory and define our stance on rhetoric in this
paper.
The organization studies literature increasingly demonstrates the importance of rhetoric in the
micro processes of management and the macro processes of institutionalization (e.g., Cheney, et al,
2004; Fine, 1996; Golant and Sillince, 2007; Green 2005; Jarzabkowski and Sillince, 2007; Sillince,
2002, 2005; Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005; Zbaracki, 1998). However, while the classical rhetorical
tradition (e.g., Aristotle, 1984: 2295) and Western business codes (Scollon and Scollon, 2001)
recommend that rhetoric should be clear, modern organizations are often characterised by ambiguity in
terms of speaker, audience and message (Cohen and March, 1974; Eisenberg and Goodall, 1997). For
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example, rhetorical theory shows how actors draw flexibly on archetypal rhetorical strategies that are
based in different institutional logics, in the process exploiting the ambiguities between logics
(Eastman and Bailey, 1998; Heracleous and Barrett, 2001; Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005). For
example, proponents and opponents of the multidisciplinary organizational form drew on the
competing logics of expertise and trusteeship respectively (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005).
Institutional logics may become more ambiguous when they are appropriated rhetorically in this way
(Boiral, 2003). Zbaracki (1998) noted a difference between the ‘technical’ practice of total quality
management (TQM) that was adopted in his research sites and the appropriation of a ‘rhetorical
TQM…a broadly used, ambiguous term with unclear organizational implications’ (p.603). The
ambiguity surrounding the rhetorical appropriation of TQM enabled actors to proclaim its success in
one successful project by overlooking five failed projects. This ambiguity was later amplified by
attributing meanings to the technical TQM that excluded its challenging, statistical content. Such uses
of rhetoric exploit the ambiguity of modern organizations, in order to justify particular meanings
(Fine, 1996; Heracleous and Barrett, 2001) and to socially construct particular courses of action as
desirable (Jarzabkowski and Sillince, 2007; Zbaracki, 1998), without necessarily excluding other
meanings and actions that may be drawn upon for other purposes (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005).
Classical rhetorical theory is thus challenged by the ambiguity of modern organizations, which do not
have a single clear message, or a singular, identifiable speaker nor, often, any co-present audience
(Cheney, 1992).
In order to understand these sources of ambiguity it is possible to use critical methods of
uncovering an ‘implied author’ (Booth, 1961: 176) and a hypothetical or ‘implied audience’ (Bitzer,
1999). Whereas a single speaker, intentional speech acts and a co-present audience provide an
appropriate context for persuasion, organizations and their environments are more complex and
indefinite. If organizations are considered as ambiguous, then the role of rhetoric, as a process of
persuasion, is to set up a sense of commonality and thus to induce identification with the organization
and its goals, values and actions (Burke, 1989a). A rhetoric of identification overcomes people’s
feeling of separateness and isolation from one another, by exploiting their understanding of the
ambiguity involved in co-existing human separateness and community; that is: ‘joined and separate’
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(Burke, 1989a: 21) requires a rhetoric that identifies with the audience’s recognition of this endemic
duality. Identification is a powerful explanation of how organizations legitimate their actions.
Organizational actors use identification rhetoric ambiguously so that it can be interpreted by others in
different ways that are beneficial for the source organization (Cheney, 1991). Western business codes
emphasise essentialist notions of identity that assume ‘one true meaning’ for an organization
(Eisenberg, 2007: 241). Yet the need for organizations to secure variable external legitimacy
encourages the development of multiple and contingent organizational identities that contradict such
essentialist notions, contradictions that are often managed by the use of ambiguous language (Cheney,
1991).
The rhetoric of identification is also powerful as a means of understanding how organization
members behave. For example, Fine (1996: 94) has suggested that for top restaurant chefs, ‘the
question of what other occupations were similar to cooking – the analogizing of work -
was
essential’; chefs identify with other, similar occupations. Because rhetoric constructs identification
with the speaker, part of the process involves constructing the speaker’s ethos. This is done selfconsciously by means of identifying the self with a constructed audience: ‘In practice, the cook’s
audience is often the self, demanding food to be ‘as good as it can be’’ (Fine, 1996: 103). For
example, accountants are encouraged to rhetorically construct themselves as able to exploit their
private lives in order to develop business contacts (Covaleski et al., 1998; Grey, 1994). This rhetorical
identification of the self with an assumed audience is an important part of how actors then act towards
that audience. For example, Jarzabkowski and Sillince (2007) showed how university top managers’
ability to position trade-offs between goals to their academic audience was shaped by the way that
they constructed themselves in relation to that audience. This process of self-construction involves
reciprocal affirmation in which construction of self-identity is validated by others through a process of
experimentation, feedback, imitation (Ibarra, 1999) and collaboration in the interactive process
(Alvesson, 2001; Antaki and Widdicombe, 1998: 173; Holstein and Gubrium, 2000: 142).
It is important to distinguish between organization studies that define rhetoric’s role as
persuasion of others (e.g. Green, 2004; Sillince, 2005; Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005) and those that
define rhetoric’s role in terms of construction of self and identification (e.g. Alvesson, 2001; Fine,
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1995; Jarzabkowski and Sillince, 2007). According to this second role of self construction, rhetoric is
concerned with values. This is a central aspect of the ‘new rhetoric’ (Burke, 1989a; Perelman and
Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969), which sets itself apart from Aristotle’s preoccupation with forensic and
deliberative rhetorics (concerned with justification of decisions about past and future actions
respectively). Rather, the ‘new rhetoric’ is conceptualised as establishing ‘a sense of communion
centered around particular values’ (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca, 1969: 50-1). Rhetoric that is
concerned with identification is used to evoke the values of a discourse community (Berkenkotter and
Huckin, 1995) as accepted ‘endoxa’ or socially accepted values (Burke, 1989b). This concern with
values has widened the relevance of rhetoric as an explanatory approach, for example in understanding
how the audience is drawn into the world of a speaker by identification with its characters, ideas and
values (Burke, 1989a). For organization studies scholars, new rhetoric is useful in understanding how
people position themselves by constructing systems of values with which others can identify and
constructing themselves and organizations as reflections of those values. In order to resolve ambiguity
people persuade themselves about how they identify with an issue and what values they espouse. This
paper uses this second view of rhetoric’s role as identification with an action and of self relative to that
action. Our interest is in rhetoric as it constructs individual, group or organizational identification with
particular actions, values and goals.
This paper draws the above strands of literature together, exploring how rhetoric is used as
actors encounter the ambiguity of constructing strategic action within garbage cans. From a rhetorical
theory perspective strategic ambiguity can be enabling because actors can draw on the vague terms of
the message to construct the self in relation to different aspects of a strategic action. This then shapes
the way that they take part in the garbage can processes, as a participant or non-participant, what
solutions they advance, how they define the problem and what events they recognize as choice
opportunities. Our theoretical framework thus proposes that rhetoric enables actors to cope with the
ambiguity they encounter over strategic action within garbage cans. This rhetorical coping enables
them to act within the garbage can and so helps to shape the strategic actions undertaken within the
garbage can. Based on this framework, we have derived the following two research questions:
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1.
How do organizational members draw upon rhetoric to respond to the ambiguity they
encounter over strategic action within garbage can contexts?
2.
What role does rhetorical coping with ambiguity play in shaping garbage can
processes around specific strategic actions?
METHOD
The research site
As we were interested in the association between ambiguity and garbage can processes, we
used theoretical sampling to select a case that reflected the phenomena under investigation (Yin,
1994). Our study is conducted in a UK business school, ‘BizEd’, where we were able to negotiate high
quality access to follow the construction of a strategically ambiguous goal over time from the
perspective of different constituents. Business schools are typically identified as ambiguous, garbage
can contexts because of the professional workforce, diffuse power bases of different actors, multiple
goals, and tension between managerial and professional values (Cohen and March, 1974; Lutz, 1982;
March and Olsen, 1976; Mintzberg and Rose, 2003). Our study examines how a specific strategic
goal, internationalization, was articulated and rhetorically constructed by different groups within
BizEd over a three year period1. As the following brief case history illustrates, the internationalization
goal was a case of strategic ambiguity because it had unclear meanings that enabled it to be interpreted
differently by different groups according to their own interests.
For some time, in School meetings and awaydays, an internationalization strategy had been
raised as part of BizEd’s ambitions to be a leading business school. In 2001 BizEd developed a
Strategic Internationalization Group (SIG), which was charged with developing an internationalization
strategy for the School. The initial remit of the SIG was to develop the internationalization strategy
and determine the ways to implement it. However, in early 2002 BizEd also underwent accreditation
by an international Business School Accrediting agency (BSA). BSA accreditation focused largely on
the teaching programs of its member schools. BSA felt that full accreditation of BizEd needed to be
withheld partly because of a lack of evidence of internationalization in its teaching programs. BSA
1
Actual names of the School, accrediting agency and specific dates are changed, to preserve the anonymity of
the case. However, the events are accurately represented.
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stated that they would revisit in 2005 and award or withdraw full accreditation of BizEd, based on a
range of indicators, some of which would involve internationalization.
The ‘internationalization’
goal quickly became central to the campaign for BSA
accreditation; ‘I think when BSA came […] they didn’t think we were international enough. It made us
sit back and think’. The BSA panel wanted the business school ‘to have stronger international links
with other universities overseas so that perhaps the development of exchange of academic staff,
exchange of students, that students spend some time in other countries and vice versa’. Senior
managers began to influence the SIG to incorporate BSA accreditation in the internationalization
strategy. For example, in late 2003 the Dean attended an awayday to determine the SIG’s mandate;
‘The Dean was there and I think it did constrain us in a sense that he was…it was given that it was a
very important thing for his strategic objectives that the school had BSA, and so in a sense had that as
an influencing factor that was getting in the way of anything which marked the long term strategy’.
While senior managers appeared to endorse the Dean’s perspective, there was considerable
ambiguity about BSA as the internationalization goal. For example, some academics at the awayday
contradicted this view, querying ‘Why are we going for BSA? Is BSA important? It is a distraction.’
Despite this ambiguity, BSA was incorporated into the internationalization goal. For example, a
decision was made at the awayday to select foreign business schools as partners on the basis that they
were BSA-accredited. However, consistent with the garbage can nature of strategic action, this
decision did not resolve the ambiguity and make BSA the appropriate solution to the
internationalization problem. Rather, ambiguity over the internationalization goal persisted after the
awayday. For example, some protested the BSA goal; ‘It may be better that we would actually develop
a clear internationalization strategy for its own purposes, and that we develop a vision of what an
international business school needs and not just try to suit the understanding of BSA’. Still others felt
that the BSA definition was potentially dangerous, as it focused primarily on teaching elements of
internationalization, which might distract people from international research, which would be essential
for other important quality indicators. There was concern within the SIG that defining
internationalization in terms of BSA would switch attention to BSA definitions of international
quality, such as international teaching exchanges, rather than international research; ‘If you talk about
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research at international level it tends to mean a high quality of research’. Even this definition was
ambiguous;
‘When we talk about international research it felt very often that it just means
international quality, but what I am talking about is collaborating with somebody in another country’.
Data collection.
As the above story illustrates, the development process of the internationalization goal at
BizEd has the appropriate garbage can characteristics for examining our research questions. We began
to collect data at the formation of the SIG in 2002, completing our data collection after the 2005 BSA
visit (when BizEd successfully gained accreditation), collecting interviews, emails, documents, and 10
meeting observations. In total 34 open-ended interviews were collected over three rounds, with all
senior managers (SM), administrators (AD) and academics (AC) in the SIG; one round at the start of
the process in 2003 (11 interviews), one round during 2004 (11 interviews) and an exit interview
round in 2005 before the BSA visit (4 interviews) and after the BSA visit (8 interviews). All
interviews were transcribed verbatim, forming the primary data source, supported by being on-site on
the days when we had interviews or when we attended meetings. We attended an audio-taped and
transcribed awayday, 6 SIG meetings and three BSA preparation meetings, as well as being on-site in
the organization at the three days of the BSA panel visit, at all of which detailed notes were taken
about the way the internationalization goal was discussed by different constituents. All field notes
were written up within 24 hours of an event to which they related. Additionally, relevant documents
and some emails pertaining specifically to internationalization and the BSA were collected, resulting
in a data set in excess of 1,000 type-written A4 pages.
Data analysis
Data were collected primarily by two of the authors, who cross-checked their impressions and
tentative findings after the initial interviews and meeting observations, in order to inform the second
round of interviews. A coding meeting was then held between the three authors, to discuss emergent
findings from the existing data set of interviews and meetings, with one author acting as an ‘outsider’
in questioning the findings and themes of those who had collected the data (Evered and Louis, 1981).
Following this, a coding schema was proposed, based around different constituents and their rhetorical
practices, which we describe below. The third round of interviews was then conducted and all
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interviews, meeting notes and documents were coded. Each author individually coded the interview
and field note data, which were then examined by the other two authors, with any discrepancies
providing the basis for discussion and further refinement of the coding schema (Miles and
Hubermann, 1994). By triangulating data through multiple participants and different sources, using
multiple investigators and querying and refining the coding throughout the analysis, we minimized the
bias attendant upon a single data source or a single researcher’s interpretations (Yin, 1994).
Consistent with the method used by Suddaby and Greenwood (2005), all three authors read
through the interview transcripts, field notes and documentary data searching for text extracts that
could be classified as persuasive discourse or rhetoric. Initially we classified these text extracts in
terms of nine rhetorics. We created nine separate files and copied text extracts into one of these files.
For each rhetoric we created a table containing a typical example text extract, the claim being made,
who (academic, administrator or senior manager) used the rhetoric, how the rhetoric was used, the
assumptions the rhetoric was based on, how the rhetoric positioned the individual actor or his/her
organization with regard to the actions and goal of internationalization, how the rhetoric constructed
ambiguity and how that ambiguity was used by members. We then compared and contrasted these nine
rhetorics extensively, deciding that some were subcategories of others, which we merged into six final
categories of rhetoric that we considered were clearly distinct.
In order to answer our first research question - how do organizational members draw upon
rhetoric to respond to the ambiguity they encounter over strategic action within garbage can contexts we analyzed how these six rhetorics interpreted and used ambiguity. We agreed that all the six
rhetorics were used as a discursive resource for constructing the individual or organizational self with
regard to the action and goal of internationalization. Furthermore, each rhetoric provided one of two
specific ways of coping with ambiguity about the internationalization goal, either maximizing or
minimizing it. This way of coping allowed the speaker to justify particular stances towards any action
being proposed, either agreeing to action or legitimating inaction. For example, ‘doubting rhetoric’
claimed that there was uncertainty about whether or not BSA was really necessary to BizEd. Doubting
rhetoric enabled members to maximize ambiguity (about whether BSA was necessary) and so allowed
individuals to reject BSA while constructing the self as seeking what was best for the organization,
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thus legitimizing inaction. Although the rhetorics that maximised ambiguity were used more often by
academics, and rhetorics that minimised ambiguity were used more often by senior managers and
administrators, there were many counter examples as well, suggesting that these rhetorical forms are
not simply resources for some parties to manipulate action but are also responses to the ambiguity
encountered within garbage cans. We explain the six rhetorics, their means of coping with ambiguity,
and their relationship to action or inaction in Section 1 of the results.
Second, we analyzed the case as a sequence of key events. Different rhetorics constructed the
ambiguous context in different ways within these events. In order to investigate our second research
question - what role does rhetorical coping with ambiguity play in shaping garbage can processes
around specific strategic actions – we noted that at different times during the case specific rhetorics
were particularly relevant in enabling some actors to minimize ambiguity and justify a specific action
regarding that event, while other rhetorics might enable different actors to maximize ambiguity and
justify inaction on the same event. We thus identified these key events as choice opportunities, each of
which was surrounded by some combination of goal, technology or authority ambiguity, so that the
making of a choice was ambiguous, rather than self-evident, for at least some participants. Thus, each
choice opportunity could attract particular problems, solutions and participants, depending on the
rhetorical forms used to cope with the ambiguity encountered. We then examined how rhetoric
constructed solutions, or identified problems associated with a particular choice opportunity, and how
particular actors, such as academics, administrators or even BizEd the organization were identified as
participants or non-participants in the opportunity. Finally, we examined the process through which
these six rhetorics linked together problems, solutions, participants and choice opportunities over time,
analyzing their role in shaping BizEd towards specific strategic actions in pursuit of
internationalization. These findings are presented in Section 2 of the results.
FINDINGS
Section One: Six rhetorics coping with ambiguity.
This section presents the findings on question one; How do organizational members draw
upon rhetoric to respond to the ambiguity they encounter over strategic action within garbage can
contexts? We explain the six rhetorical forms found and the way that actors used them to respond to
15
the ambiguity that they encountered around the internationalization goal and, particularly, BSA as one
means of achieving that goal. As we will present further evidence of the rhetorical forms as they were
drawn upon for specific ambiguous strategic actions in section two, this section is intended briefly to
introduce each rhetorical form. Table 1 summarizes these findings, with 1) a definition of how each
rhetoric identifies or dis-identifies the speaker with an action; 2) a representative example of each
rhetoric; 3) how each rhetoric responds to the ambiguity encountered; and 4) an explanation of how
that response constructs action or inaction about any particular strategic action. We found three
rhetorical forms that speakers drew upon to maximize ambiguity, thus legitimizing inaction, and three
that minimized ambiguity, which helped to legitimize strategic action. These findings indicate that the
key effect of rhetoric as a response to ambiguity lies in its maximizing or minimizing of ambiguity,
which respectively legitimates inaction or action.
INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE
Table 1 shows the six rhetorics. The first three rhetorics, doubting rhetoric, distancing rhetoric
and fogging rhetoric, all maximised ambiguity in different ways, and thus legitimised inaction.
Doubting rhetoric responded to the ambiguity encountered about any particular action, such as
whether to pursue BSA, by maximizing ambiguity about the validity of BSA as a goal or maximizing
ambiguity about ways to achieve that goal. This legitimized inaction, as actors did not identify with a
goal or action that had doubtful validity. Distancing rhetoric maximized goal ambiguity by distancing
the speaker from any particular action, such as teaching exchanges, by asserting that if that was part of
the BSA goal, it was not the goal for that speaker, who should really be doing something else, such as
research. This dis-identified the speaker and legitimized his/her inaction. This also maximized
authority and technology ambiguity by making it difficult to coerce that speaker to act and distancing
the speaker’s actions from goal attainment. Fogging rhetoric responded to goal ambiguity by further
maximizing it to state that the internationalization strategy was unclear and so could not be acted
upon. Fogging rhetoric primarily drew upon and exacerbated goal ambiguity but, in doing so, had a
maximizing effect on authority and technology ambiguity, as it was not possible to insist upon
particular actions such as BSA, or state how to achieve BSA, if the strategy for internationalization
16
generally and BSA specifically, was unclear. These doubting, distancing and fogging rhetorics all
legitimated inaction by drawing upon and further maximizing the ambiguity in any particular action.
The last three rhetorics in Table 1, inevitability rhetoric, responsibility rhetoric and impression
management rhetoric, all minimised ambiguity and thus legitimised action. Inevitability rhetoric
minimized goal ambiguity by suggesting that BSA was an inevitable part of a global market, which
legitimated acting upon BSA and so also minimized authority and technology ambiguity, as it was
appropriate for BizEd and its members to comply with particular courses of action in order to progress
towards the inevitable goal. Responsibility rhetoric drew upon goal ambiguity, particularly the lack of
a clear goal, to make an implicit assumption that BSA was the goal, so minimizing technology
ambiguity about what needed to be done to support the goal. This legitimized action and minimized
authority ambiguity by redirecting attention from what the goal was to how BizEd and its members
could responsibly carry out that goal. Impression management rhetoric drew upon the ambiguity of the
internationalisation goal generally or BSA more specifically, to suggest that the actions already being
undertaken by BizEd, such as its research, were international and so already fulfilled that goal. This
minimized goal ambiguity and also minimized technology ambiguity, as it was not necessary to take
new actions to achieve the goal but rather to spend effort impressing upon others how good BizEd
was. There was a knock on effect in minimizing authority ambiguity, as individuals did not have to be
convinced to undertake new actions but rather had simply to help demonstrate how good their existing
actions were. Thus, impression management rhetoric legitimized action around presenting a united and
positive image to outsiders. These three rhetorics minimized the various forms of ambiguity
encountered and so legitimized particular actions.
Section Two: Rhetoric as a structure for the garbage can.
This section addresses our second research question by demonstrating the structuring effect of
the above rhetorical forms upon the garbage can processes, as BizEd moved towards BSA
accreditation. We identified ten key events from the loss of full accreditation in March 2002 until the
regaining of full accreditation in March 2005. Table 2 illustrates our analysis of how rhetoric
structures the choice opportunities, problems, solutions, and participants within the garbage can by
maximizing or minimizing the ambiguity surrounding each key event. The ten key events were
17
opportunities for BizEd members to exercise choice (column 1). During these choice opportunities,
various forms of ambiguity were encountered (column 2). The six rhetorical forms (column 3)
maximize or minimize ambiguity by the way that they construct the ‘problems’ (column 4), ‘solutions’
(column 5) and ‘participants’ (column 6) for each choice opportunity. In doing so, rhetorical forms
shape action or non action around each choice opportunity (column 7). We now present the findings
that underpin Table 2, in order to show how rhetoric structures the elements of the garbage can by
minimizing or maximizing ambiguity and, in doing so, shapes the actions taken by BizEd.
INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE
Choice opportunity #1: Whether or not to pursue BSA accreditation (March 2002 – August
2003). In March 2002 BSA withheld full accreditation of BizEd on the grounds of insufficient
internationalization. BizEd now had the choice of whether to pursue BSA as a valid
internationalization goal. Goal ambiguity was encountered as members of the SIG debated whether
BSA was a valid goal for BizEd. Technology ambiguity also arose, as members discussed the lack of
clarity about what BSA expected to see in order to award accreditation. Three forms of rhetoric
maximized these ambiguities about whether BSA was a valid goal for BizEd. Doubting rhetoric
questioned whether BSA was really the internationalization problem that BizEd faced; ‘Some of them
[academics in BizEd] achieve world standard and could actually be recognized internationally for the
work that they do, and that is way beyond BSA. It is miles beyond BSA! It is another galaxy,
beyond…’ (SM/2003). By casting doubt on BSA as a problem, doubting rhetoric also invalidated any
possible solutions for achieving BSA and constructed BizEd as a non-participant in BSA.
At the same time distancing rhetoric maximized technology ambiguity by positioning the BSA
decision to withhold accreditation as remote from anything to do with BizEd’s activities. In doing so,
the problem was constructed as BSA accreditation processes, while denying that BizEd solutions
existed to counteract this problem. For example, BSA was depicted as ‘bureaucratic’: ‘this is the
trouble with many of these accreditation processes - they are not based on observation of what
happened in the past. They are based on what exists on a piece of paper and we are all bogged down
by bureaucracy’ (AC/2003). In using distancing rhetoric, BizEd was constructed as a non-participant
in BSA. Ambiguity was further maximized through fogging rhetoric, which suggested that the
18
problem was confusion in defining the internationalization goal, so that it was impossible to generate
any solutions; ‘What I am less sure about is what we need to do in order to be international’
(SM/2003). This fogging rhetoric absolved BizEd from participating in BSA, as it was not clear that
BSA was a valid internationalization goal. Taken together these three rhetorics maximized ambiguity
about the internationalization goal and the technologies to achieve it, in the process constructing nonaction as a response to the choice opportunity to pursue BSA accreditation (see Table 2).
Choice opportunity #2: BizEd prepares its response to BSA (May 2002 – August 2003).
Despite non-action at the initial choice opportunity, BizEd had still to respond to BSA. In May 2002,
the SIG had to prepare the BizEd response to BSA’s withholding of full accreditation, which
generated a second choice opportunity. Goal ambiguity was again encountered over the validity of
BSA as a goal. This ambiguity was partially minimized by inevitability rhetoric, which proposed that
BizEd had to try to achieve full BSA accreditation; ‘the simple goal has been to try and make sure that
we achieve the requirements for the BSA Internationalization…’ (SM/2003). In doing so, inevitability
rhetoric constructed BSA as a problem for internationalization, which needed to be solved through
change within BizEd ; ‘the feedback from BSA will allow these senior international groups to draw the
design guidelines to give guidance’ (AC/2003). BizEd was thus constructed as a participant in BSA.
However, at the same time, technology ambiguity arose over how to achieve BSA,
accompanied by authority ambiguity, as academics were perceived as a key but potentially reluctant
part of BSA achievement, both of which served to maintain goal ambiguity. These ambiguities were
maximized by doubting and distancing rhetoric. Doubting rhetoric denied that BSA was a problem and
hence questioned whether solutions oriented towards BSA were worth the effort; ‘‘It needs a
discussion about. ‘Is it worth the effort to do that?’’ (AC/2003). At the same time, distancing rhetoric
suggested that academic participation was the problem. BizEd was unable to undertake any concrete
solutions towards BSA, as its achievement was dependent upon academics who were reluctant
participants; ‘we also have to rely on faculty participation. So since the faculty are members of the
subject group, they are not members of the program, then it is up to the subject group to engage with
our partners and participate in exchanges for research.’ (SM/2003). Taken together, these rhetorical
19
forms constructed action, as BSA became a valid goal, at the same time as maximizing the ambiguity
that surrounded goal definition and attainment.
Choice opportunity #3: Senior managers propose financial incentives (February 2003).
Academics persisted in distancing rhetoric, constructing themselves as non-participants in the BSA
problem or BSA solutions, such as teaching exchanges. Senior managers, recognizing this problem,
also participated in the distancing rhetoric, so maximizing authority and technology ambiguity about
how to get academics to take part in BSA; ‘They [academics] regard doing something for the good of
the business school, involving another institution, as being extra duties’ (SM/2003). In response to the
distancing rhetoric, senior managers proposed financial incentives to academics as a choice
opportunity to become participants in BSA. They accompanied this with responsibility rhetoric, in an
attempt to minimize ambiguity about academic participation in BSA; ‘they wouldn’t be academics if
they were totally obsessed with money, because they could earn a lot more money elsewhere. …
However, we are all human and even the most hard nosed academic, who loves his subject, wouldn’t
mind a bit more money so I think it is absolutely quite a good motivator’ (SM/2003). This rhetoric
constructed the problem as lack of academic participation in the teaching exchanges that were
perceived as key to BSA. Financial incentives were proposed as a solution, which would co-opt
academics as participants who were responsible for specific actions to achieve BSA; ‘So unless you
sort of set up some sort of incentive for staff to do things then why should they in a way. I mean, they
have got enough on their plate’ (SM/2003).
Choice opportunity #4. Academics persistently reject financial incentives and teaching
exchanges (February 2003 – February 2005). Taking up the financial incentives for teaching
exchanges represented a choice opportunity for academics, which they could either recognize, and so
become BSA participants, or reject and remain non-participants. While the incentives stayed on offer
throughout the study, they were not accepted as a choice opportunity by academics. Rather, they
exacerbated the ambiguity encountered, as academics interpreted the incentives through distancing
rhetoric, which maximized ambiguity about the BSA goal and about authority over academic
participation in that goal; ‘BizEd tends to take the view that if we pay people some extra money to do
something that would be more motivating…You know, throwing money at them when we are supposed
20
to be doing research’ (AC/2004). Distancing rhetoric constructed the incentives as a distraction from
the academics’ problem, which was internationally-recognized research, so justifying their position as
non-participants in BSA and, therefore, not needing to act upon BSA teaching exchanges.
As distancing rhetoric persisted throughout the study, senior managers and administrators also
began to see the choice opportunity of incentives in a different light, using doubting rhetoric; ‘They
[academics] are told when they come here ‘You will get your promotion if you get four international
journal articles out, and if your teaching quality is brilliant’. They don’t say anything about going a
week to teach somewhere else and marking a hundred MBA scripts for French students or something’
(SM/2004). In doing so, senior managers questioned whether BSA teaching exchanges were a valid
academic problem and whether academic participation in teaching exchanges was a solution to the
BSA problem. This doubting rhetoric further maximized the goal and authority ambiguity, and also the
technology ambiguity, as the means of achieving BSA through academic teaching exchanges began to
be questioned; ‘Sometimes it can be hostile and you feel you’re banging your head against a brick
wall to get staff to go abroad. They have done these financial incentives now, a hundred pounds per
hour but that still hasn’t made a lot of difference’ (AD/2005). These two forms of rhetoric, which
maximized ambiguity and justified inaction, were a source of consternation in the 12 months after the
incentives were proposed, leading to the next choice opportunity.
Choice opportunity #5: Dean calls a SIG awayday (November 2003). Concerned about the
lack of progress on BSA, the Dean held a SIG awayday to discuss internationalization issues. The
awayday was a choice opportunity for generating commitment to the BSA goal. In order to emphasize
the choice opportunity, the Dean used responsibility rhetoric, minimizing goal ambiguity by
suggesting that ‘we’ have deliberately chosen BSA, which also enabled BizEd senior managers to
surmount authority ambiguity about responsibility for participation in BSA activities; ‘You have to
remember that we decided to go for BSA it wasn’t forced on us. WE wanted to learn about
internationalization. It was a choice so it becomes a minimum benchmark because our international
research is way ahead of BSA’ (Awayday video November 2003, Dean). Responsibility rhetoric made
BSA accreditation part of the problem of consolidating BizEd’s international reputation for research,
which was also important to academics. As the problem was one of further consolidating existing
21
reputation, a responsible solution that would not dilute the BSA reputation, was to partner with other
high reputation institutions. This also complied with BSA advice: ‘BizEd should be encouraged to
look out for highly qualified partnering institutions’ (Letter from BSA to BizEd 23rd May 2004). As a
result, SIG members acted at the awayday to identify a limited list of agreeable partners; ‘the one thing
that we did agree on the away day was concentrate on a limited number of partners. We also assigned
specific people to be the contact persons with those partners’ (SM/2003).
However, while this solution was agreed, there was still ambiguity over the BSA goal, with
even senior managers using doubting rhetoric to question its validity as a problem;
‘Internationalization could undermine things we are comfortable with’ (Awayday video November
2003 SM). Doubting rhetoric maximized ambiguity about whether BSA undermined BizEd’s
academic values, thus implying that BizEd should not participate in BSA. Additionally, academics
continued to encounter the goal as ambiguous, using fogging rhetoric to question whether BSA was a
problem, in the process maximizing authority ambiguity by absolving academics from participation in
or responsibility for this ambiguous goal; ‘The thing I’m still uncertain about is the relative
importance of an international school compared with BSA accreditation’ (Awayday video November
2003 AC). As it was not clear what the specific problem was, solutions could not be agreed and
academics could be justified in not participating in BSA.
Choice opportunity #6: Managers appointed to coordinate specific BizEd responses to BSA
(February and July 2004). 2004 marked a turning point in the garbage can process, as senior
managers and administrators began to assume a more active role in managing the BSA process and
made less overt efforts to co-opt academic participation. It seemed that they had been persuaded by the
ongoing distancing, doubting and fogging rhetoric, which, as shown above, were largely but not solely
academic rhetorical forms. Thus, top managers and administrators also persuaded themselves about
the goal and authority ambiguity of BSA, particularly regarding its goal validity to academics and their
authority to co-opt substantive academic participation in its attainment. This turning point began to
minimize the goal and authority ambiguity, as top managers and administrators assumed responsibility
for BSA as a valid goal, and also minimized some of the technology ambiguity, as they began
considering other means than academic participation as a way of achieving BSA.
22
In February 2004 BizEd senior managers and administrators engaged in impression
management rhetoric, sending a report to BSA that acknowledged BizEd’s previous problems and
explaining that BizEd had adopted those solutions that BSA had advocated; ‘We have focused on
quality of BizEd’s exchange partners, alliances and exchanges. This has been a major area of activity
in the past year’. This constructed the organization as a cooperative participant in responding to
BSA’s demands. Impression management rhetoric minimized ambiguity about specific aspects of the
BSA goal, such as the reasons for partner selection, and presented BizEd positively. Recognizing the
problems of generating staff teaching exchanges, student exchange programs were proposed in
addition and an administrative international manager was appointed to develop these exchanges. This
choice opportunity helped to minimize the technology ambiguity encountered about how to achieve
BSA. A specific appointment to manage student exchange programs was constructed as a responsible
solution to the problem of demonstrating commitment to the internationalization requirements of BSA;
‘I mean she is taking care of all the agreements, the exchanges, and then she is the main link person,
kind of the glue, between the people in the program areas’ (SM/2004). Goal ambiguity about the
possible validity of student exchanges, was minimized by adopting inevitability rhetoric. BizEd,
inevitably would have to demonstrate specific commitment to international programs, and this
problem could be solved by expanding the MBA Director’s international administrative remit for
specific programs: ‘BSA made us sit back and think and although BSA gave us the push the drive is
now coming from within, in that I think we recognize that we were perhaps not doing enough, or we
were doing things in a way that we needed to change’ (AD/2004). Such inevitability rhetoric
minimized ambiguity by according BSA top priority in the short term. Taken together, impression
management, responsibility and inevitability rhetoric constructed BizEd as a committed participant in
BSA, that was taking many specific actions to address its problems and be a more international school.
Choice opportunity #7: Two BSA-accredited MBA partners selected (March and June
2004). There was continuing use of doubting rhetoric to question the usefulness of the effort going
into BSA: ‘I asked how important is it?” and [the Dean] found it really difficult to answer, because he
knows that actually they [BSA] are playing some games and it goes against some of the strategic
direction we would like, that we are comfortable with, and that it is not very strategic’ (SM/2004).
23
However, such doubts were episodic compared with the irresistible, continuous and systematic activity
by senior managers and administrators to minimize the various sources of ambiguity and develop
choice opportunities that supported BSA. For example, in June 2004 the SIG selected a French school
and a German school as BizEd’s new International MBA partners: ‘because they are another one of
the BSA accredited schools’ (SM/2004). This used inevitability rhetoric to minimize ambiguity,
accepting BSA as an internationalization problem and proposing partnerships with other BSAaccredited schools as the solution, which constructed BizEd as an obedient participant in BSA
activities. In selecting these schools as BizEd partners, responsibility rhetoric was used to counter
ambiguity about the amount of effort being invested in achieving BSA; ‘Well, of course, [the
internationalisation manager] has the responsibility, which has now shifted to [French School]’
(SM/2004). Responsibility rhetoric counteracted the problem of effort, by constructing a reformed
BizEd that was prepared to go to great lengths to solve any problems in securing BSA accreditation.
This progression of rhetorics indicated that earlier ambiguities about whether BSA was worth the
effort had been minimized. Now, asserting effort to attain BSA was considered to be a responsible
action to take.
Choice opportunity #8: Inter-cultural training course established (April – June 2004).
While BizEd was now largely constructed as a willing participant in BSA, academic distancing and
doubting rhetoric had not gone away. As explained in choice opportunity #4, academics persistently
rejected financial incentives for teaching exchanges, which continued to worry senior managers.
Academics justified their position with distancing rhetoric that referred to their own goal ambiguity: ‘I
think staff [for teaching exchanges] has also been an issue because of the Research Assessment
Exercise pressures and I think there are some obvious conflicts there’ (SM/2004). The problem was
that academics had multiple commitments, so the best solution was to reject additional teaching, which
distanced them from BSA actions and validated their ongoing lack of participation. This academic
response was complemented by inevitability rhetoric in administrators, who positioned themselves as
the people who had to carry BizEd through BSA: ‘the average academic is research driven. If we
hadn’t had those full time administrators nothing would have happened’ (AD/2004).
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However, some academic cooperation was still necessary. BSA had earlier written to BizEd to
ask ‘whether, in the context of internationalization, the intercultural training component could be
offered to all students whether or not they undertake an international placement’ (letter, April 2004).
BizEd’s Organizational Behavior group was asked by senior managers to create a course on
intercultural training for students studying at BizEd. Providing input to the standard BizEd courses
was a reasonable request of academics that did not raise the same ambiguity as extra teaching
exchanges. The request was expressed in terms of responsibility rhetoric and academics responded
with a similar responsibility rhetoric; ‘the meeting that I just pulled out of is about something that a
PhD student of mine developed as part of her PhD work, which is a cross cultural training for
students, which is evaluated and everything’ (AC/2004). Responsibility rhetoric minimized goal and
authority ambiguity for academics by framing the problem of intercultural training as one which
academics could solve, using their existing resources, so enabling them to be constructed as helpful
participants in BSA. Thus, technology ambiguity about the lack of substantive academic engagement
in BSA activity was minimized, and academics were constructed as contributors to the BSA effort.
Choice opportunity #9: Rehearsal and preparation for BSA panel visit (November 2004 –
February 2005). As the BSA visit drew close towards the end of November 2004, senior managers
instigated a ‘Mock’ BSA panel rehearsal, involving twenty academic and administrative staff divided
into five groups being quizzed by three ‘BSA evaluators’. This was a choice opportunity for the
various constituents of BizEd to be incorporated into the BSA effort and ensure they would not
unwittingly let BizEd down at the accreditation. Two main forms of rhetoric supported this choice
opportunity by minimizing ambiguity about the ability to achieve BSA. First, impression management
rhetoric was a key element of the BSA documents that were distributed to staff for the rehearsal,
explaining the activities that BizEd had undertaken to demonstrate its internationalization; ‘the
principal aspects of the strategy are to continue the managed growth in international student numbers
and to improve the international and intercultural skills of students through increased
internationalization of the curriculum, foreign language courses, the provision of study opportunities
at partner schools, group visits and work placements outside the UK’ (BizEd documents for BSA
visit, 2005). In these documents, teaching exchanges were not mentioned, rather focusing on those
25
positive aspects of internationalization where BizEd could shine. Impression management rhetoric
constructed the problem of achieving BSA as one of managing impressions to the BSA accreditation
committee during the visit, with rehearsal of positive aspects of the BizEd activities as an important
solution that would demonstrate how well BizEd had performed the BSA goal.
As academics would be members of the BSA panels, the problem was that they needed to be
co-opted to perform for the accreditation visit. All academics who might participate in BSA activities
were sent ‘Hymn sheets’ that outlined exactly what BizEd had done to attain BSA. These hymn sheets
were accompanied by an email from the Dean; ‘[Internationalization] is a very important aspect that
is likely to be explored by the assessors in all the other panels and we must avoid any contradiction or
confusion. Everyone must therefore be ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’. The ‘hymn sheet’ is
attached.… Please read and digest this. It doesn't matter if you cannot sing in tune but you need to get
the words right!’ (Dean’s email 2005). This email used responsibility rhetoric to help counteract
ambiguity about the extent of substantive academic involvement in BSA. Academics could counteract
their earlier lack of engagement and be part of the BSA solution by accepting their responsibility to
‘get the words right’ for the performance. By all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’, academics
would be willing participants in BSA.
Choice opportunity #10: BizEd receives BSA panel visit (February 2005). A BSA committee
visited, providing BizEd with a choice opportunity to perform for the committee and try to gain the
final stage in the BSA accreditation goal. This choice opportunity involved two forms of rhetoric that
helped to minimize goal, authority and technology ambiguity by focusing solely on the performance
for the BSA committee. Responsibility rhetoric demonstrated the extent of BizEd’s commitment to
BSA. Senior managers and administrators presented BSA with a clear trail of the way that
internationalization had been embedded within all academic activities since the last BSA visit,
including evidence that ‘Internationalisation’ was always an agenda item at all subject group meetings:
‘Noted: Subject groups should have ‘Internationalisation’ as an agenda item at each meeting. SIG
would provide guidance by looking to other business schools who had excelled in this area’ (SIG
minutes 23rd Feb 2003 in 2005 BSA documentation). This detailed responsibility rhetoric constructed
a solution to counteract the problem that BSA might perceive lack of academic commitment to BSA
26
activities. In doing so, it constructed BizEd as a reformed participant that had totally overhauled all its
processes and activities in order to better comply with BSA. At the same time, impression
management rhetoric governed all performances in front of the BSA committee, with any staff due to
appear before the BSA panel assembled 45 minutes before their performance for a briefing. Constant
vigilance over impressions by senior managers and administrators was seen as a solution to the
potential problem of poor performance; ‘I had a falling out with a member of the staff involved with
the event. Not an academic, a member of staff of BizEd that was working on it. … The falling out was
because this person was upset that we jumped when they said jump and we were too hysterical about
it. But actually when these people are here, when they say jump, you jump’ (SM/2005). Thus, all
BizEd members were constructed as committed participants in BSA.
The process over the previous three years, combined with these two culminating forms of
rhetoric had the desired outcome. All players performed as willing participants during the visit, which
was regarded as a great success: ‘In the reviewers’ opinion BizEd clearly meets the quality criteria and
will recommend this to the BSA awarding body’ (Minutes of BSA Informal Feedback Session
February 2005). In March 2005, BSA granted full accreditation to BizEd, with a champagne reception
at BizEd to celebrate. Looming on the distant horizon in everyone’s mind was the coming Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE) which was to become the next policy deadline after BSA that demanded a
redirection of effort. The preoccupations of the garbage can moved on to new choice opportunities,
problems, solutions and participants.
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
This paper set out to answer two questions; How do organizational members draw upon
rhetoric to respond to the ambiguity they encounter over strategic action within garbage can
contexts?; and What role does rhetorical coping with ambiguity play in shaping garbage can
processes around specific strategic actions? In answering these questions, we found six forms of
rhetoric, that organizational members used to cope with the ambiguity that they encountered. Aside
from the specific ways that each rhetoric identified the speaker with particular constructions of the
internationalization goal, such as doubting the goal, a key issue was whether rhetoric maximized or
minimized ambiguity. We found three rhetorics (doubting, distancing and fogging rhetorics) that
27
maximized ambiguity and that dis-identified from a BSA-oriented BizEd and that thus legitimized
inaction. We found another three rhetorics (inevitability, responsibility and impression management
rhetorics) that minimized ambiguity and that constructed a self or organizational identity that
identified with a BSA-oriented BizEd and that thus legitimized action. We then showed how these
rhetorics structured the garbage can processes involved in moving towards BSA accreditation.
Specifically, the different rhetorical forms were used to construct particular events as choice
opportunities that could provide solutions to problems involved in attaining BSA. However, different
actors used rhetoric to cope with the ambiguity they encountered in these choice opportunities,
problems and solutions by either constructing themselves as participants, so legitimizing action, or
non-participants, so legitimizing inaction. These two sets of findings about how different forms of
rhetoric enable actors to cope with ambiguity and how this coping structures strategy processes in
garbage cans, make contributions in four areas; to the literature on garbage can theories of action, to
the social processes of strategizing, to strategic ambiguity, and to rhetoric in organizations. We now
discuss these contributions.
We found that rhetoric structured the garbage can by having an effect on minimizing (or
maximizing) ambiguity, which then in its turn had an effect on action (or inaction). That structuring
process took place by means of the rhetorical construction of ‘problem’, ‘solution’, and ‘participant’, a
construction process that was contextualized and therefore was different for each of the ten ‘choice
opportunities’ that we observed. In order to explain further this structuring process we develop a three
step process model that contributes to the literature on how action is socially constructed within
garbage can contexts (Bendor et al, 2001; Lee and Yue, 2001; O’Connor, 1997; Padgett, 1980;
Pinfield, 1986). At each choice opportunity, agents construct the three steps as a sequence in which
rhetoric is an initial step and action or inaction is the final step, and where both steps [2a] and [2b] are
simultaneous intermediate steps. Step [2a] (minimizing ambiguity legitimizes action or maximizing
ambiguity legitimizes inaction) and step [2b] (constructing links between participants, problems,
solutions and specific choice opportunities enables action; negating links between participants,
problems, solutions and specific choice opportunities enables inaction), which both have an effect on
28
step 3 action or inaction. Figure 1 illustrates this process, and shows how the final step then structures
the garbage can context for further rhetorical construction.
INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE
Model step [1]. The first step of the process is rhetoric. Each ‘choice opportunity’ offered a
way for organization members to construct themselves and the organization as reflections of the BSA
goal and associated actions. Rhetorical construction of the individual and / or organizational self
induced identification or dis-identification with any particular choice opportunity. Doubting,
distancing and fogging rhetorics constructed the individual self as dis-identified with a BSA-oriented
organization and its associated choices. These rhetorics were counteracted by inevitability rhetoric that
constructed a convincing identity as a BSA-oriented organization. Identification with a BSA-oriented
organization was further reinforced by responsibility rhetoric that emphasized implementation of BSA
and impression management rhetoric that managed BSA as a performance. These latter three rhetorics
induced identification with a BSA-oriented organization and its associated choices.
Model step [2a]. This part of the model is the effect of the rhetoric in terms of maximising or
minimising ambiguity. Goal ambiguity, generated by a plurality of interests, was heightened by
discussion of whether BSA was necessary (doubting rhetoric), whether there were alternative
objectives (distancing rhetoric) or whether there was an uncertain connection of strategy to interests
(fogging rhetoric). Goal ambiguity was minimised by suggesting consensus about a global drive
towards accreditation (inevitability rhetoric), suppression of personal interests in order to see BSA
implemented (responsibility rhetoric), and counteracting threats to academic time by proposing that a
staged performance would satisfy the accreditation body (impression management rhetoric). Authority
ambiguity, generated by diffuse sources of power, was increased by professionalism (distancing
rhetoric) and by the vagueness of strategy that undermined authority over actions (fogging rhetoric).
Authority ambiguity was minimised by associating inevitability with compliance (inevitability
rhetoric), and by arguing that once a task was assigned (responsibility rhetoric) or when one was
acting to impress outsiders (impression management rhetoric) then issues of power were irrelevant.
Technology ambiguity, generated by an unclear means – ends relationship, was maximised by
criticising the need for BSA (doubting rhetoric), denying any personal role in BSA (distancing
29
rhetoric), or lamenting the lack of clear actions to take (fogging rhetoric). Technology ambiguity was
minimised by implying the accreditation process was an institutionalized routine to follow
(inevitability rhetoric) or that it was predefined through accountability (responsibility rhetoric) or
theatrical effectiveness (impression management rhetoric).
Model step [2b]. This part of the model is the effect of rhetoric on the garbage can processes.
This comprised the rhetorical construction of ‘problem’, ‘solution’ and ‘participant’ at each ‘choice
opportunity’. This is a critical step in the model because it is the point where garbage can processes
are linked in a contextualised way to events as they occur in the process. For example, in choice
opportunity #1 when BizEd was told it did not succeed in getting BSA accreditation, doubting rhetoric
constructed BSA as an unnecessary problem, BSA as an ineffective solution to internationalization,
and BizEd as a non-participant. However, in choice opportunity #3 doubting rhetoric constructed
BSA’s demand for teaching exchanges as a non-problem for academics, time for research as
academics’ solution, and academics as non-participants. In choice opportunity #6, responsibility
rhetoric constructed the appointment of administrators as a solution to the problem of demonstrable
commitment to BSA, and so constructed administrators and BizEd more broadly as participants in
BSA. The model therefore accedes to the prescription to deal with context and time when studying
process (Pettigrew, Woodman and Cameron, 2001). It shows the structuring effect of rhetoric on the
garbage can process through the construction of different meanings to problems, solutions, and
participants at each choice opportunity, which over time enabled alternative choices, problems and
solutions to be constructed that co-opted sufficient participation to move the organization towards
BSA.
Model step [3]. The last step of the model is action or inaction. As argued above, rhetoric had
its effect through its intermediate effect on ambiguity. In those choice opportunities where rhetorics
maximised ambiguity the effect was inaction. For example, the rhetorics used at choice opportunity #1
maximised goal ambiguity (doubting need for BSA) and technology ambiguity (keeping distance from
BSA and critiquing its lack of strategic justification), so that nothing was done in response to the
withholding of accreditation. In those choice opportunities where rhetorics minimised ambiguity the
effect was action. For example, the rhetorics used at choice opportunity #6 minimised goal ambiguity
30
about the BSA goal (focusing on progams such as teaching exchanges and on the creation of posts)
and this led to action in the form of new international teaching progams. In those choice opportunities
where different rhetorics both maximised ambiguity and minimised ambiguity, there was some action.
For example, the rhetorics used in choice opportunity #3 contained goal ambiguity in terms of the
relative importance of academic versus administrative goals and authority / technology ambiguity in
terms of the impossibility of administrators forcing academics to do things they refused to do, yet
despite the existence of this ambiguity incentives were adopted as a policy. This finding indicates that
where ambiguity is reduced but not eliminated there is scope for managerial fiat and manipulation to
steer the process towards action, elaborating those studies that propose that skilled managers can
influence garbage can processes (e.g. Cohen and March, 1974; Denis et al, 1996; Jarzabkowski and
Seidl, 2008).
Our model makes a contribution to the literature on garbage cans by elaborating and extending
those studies that suggest that garbage can processes are not totally random, but that individuals have
some degree of agency for managing choice opportunities (e.g. Bendor et al, 2001; Lee and Yue,
2001; O’Connor, 1997; Padgett, 1980; Pinfield, 1986). For example, Pinfield’s (1986) study showed
that individuals can successfully manage choice opportunities and the participation of others in the
process. Our process model illustrates the important effect of rhetoric in coping with the various forms
of ambiguity encountered in garbage can processes and, in so doing, constructing or negating links
between choice opportunities, problems, solutions and participants. Furthermore, we show that this
process of rhetorical construction evolved over time, enabling the organization to progress towards
BSA accreditation, by developing alternative choices, problems, solutions and participants. Thus those
rhetorics that maximised ambiguity were more strongly present in the first half of the process, whereas
those rhetorics that minimised ambiguity dominated the later parts of the process as different
problems, solutions and participants were linked to different choices.
While other studies have suggested that garbage can processes may be more structured than is
apparent in Cohen et al’s (1972) theory, they divide into two camps, one of which preserves the
randomness of the theory but suggests that order occurs from largely exogenous influences (e.g. Kalu,
2005; Levitt and Nass, 1989; Masuch and Lapotin, 1989; Mezias and Scarselletta, 1994; Mirabella,
31
2002; Olsen, 2001) and the other that suggests order may be socially constructed (e.g. Bendor et al,
2001; Lee and Yue, 2001; O’Connor, 1997; Padgett, 1980; Pinfield, 1986). However, with the
exception of two studies of political tactics (Cohen and March, 1974; Denis et al, 1996), there are few
detailed studies of the specific elements that construct order and particularly, the process through
which specific elements construct order over time. We elaborate and extend social construction studies
of garbage cans by providing evidence of how rhetoric, through its influence on minimizing or
maximizing ambiguity and on constructing links between problems, solutions, participants and choice
opportunities, enables actors to influence the garbage can. Furthermore, our detailed process model
illustrates how influence occurs over time. This process model is the major contribution of our paper.
A second contribution of our paper is to the literature on the social processes of strategizing
(Maitlis, 2005; Maitlis and Lawrence, 2007). Our model is able to capture and explain the episodic
and opportunistic stops (as in choice opportunity #4) and starts (as in choice opportunity #5) in the
strategy process, and the slight changes of direction (in our case from staff to student exchanges with
foreign business schools) even when the ultimate goal (in our case attaining BSA) does not change.
Our model suggests an important characteristic of a strategy process is its filtering capability, able to
deal both with the high ambiguity generated by the rhetoric used when academics persistently refused
incentives and teaching exchanges, and able equally to use the low ambiguity generated by the rhetoric
of the awayday to fix criteria for the selection of BSA partners.
A third contribution of our paper is to the literature on ambiguity. As discussed in the
theoretical framework, there are two broad views of ambiguity, one of which suggests that ambiguity
is a problem for organizations, because of the goal, authority and technology ambiguity that frustrates
the ability of those with responsibility, such as top managers, to construct collective strategic action in
highly ambiguous contexts (e.g. Alvesson and Sveningsson, 2003; Cohen and March, 1974; Denis et
al, 1996; Middleton-Stone and Brush, 1996). Ambiguity is thus a typical problem that is encountered
by actors in garbage can contexts, who must develop ways of coping with ambiguity, and which
further exacerbates the problem of action in such contexts. Our findings confirm that actors do indeed
encounter goal, authority and technology ambiguity in garbage can contexts and our findings elaborate
existing research by showing that different forms of rhetoric enable actors to cope with the ambiguity
32
they encounter. Rhetoric enables them to cope by either maximizing ambiguity, constructing
themselves as non-participants, and so justifying a stance of inaction, or minimizing ambiguity and
enabling action. This finding links to and elaborates the second vein of literature on ambiguity, which
proposes that ambiguity can also serve strategic purposes for those who are able to exploit it to their
own ends (e.g. Davenport and Leitch, 2005; Eisenberg, 1984; Ring and Perry, 1985). We show that
rhetoric is both a means of coping with ambiguity and also a resource for action, and, where desired,
for inaction, as different actors are able to exploit the ambiguity that they encounter to construct
themselves as either participants or non-participants in particular events. In particular, our finding
extends existing research by showing that ambiguity is not only a resource for top managers to
persuade others to act but may also be used by academics to resist action and by all actors,
administrators, senior managers and academics, to construct themselves as participants or nonparticipants in particular events.
Our study also provides two contributions to knowledge of the context in which rhetoric is
used. First, within rhetorical theory it is the audience that provides the context in the form of the
speaker’s purpose of persuading the audience (Kinneavy, 1971). Our paper seeks to build on this
research into audience as a central element of context. From this perspective, speakers construct an
implied audience, even when there is no audience present (Bitzer, 1999). As speakers draw on context
as a source of rhetorical influence, that context also influences the way that speakers construct their
agency, persuading the self in the process of persuading others (Heracleous, 2006; Jarzabkowski and
Sillince, 2007). Thus, through their talk, actors persuade themselves and their implied audience about
their actions. We sought to find out how, in order to resolve ambiguity, people needed to persuade
themselves about how they identified with an issue. We chose ‘new rhetoric’ as our view of rhetoric
being used to construct identification with particular actions and goals. We found that rhetoric
constructed two very different implied audiences. When people maximised ambiguity, they stated their
own views as an inactive and uninvolved individual justifying only themselves. When people
minimised ambiguity, they spoke as involved in and seeking to persuasively engage with a community
in order to promote action.
33
Our other contribution to rhetoric in context relates to the problem of the ephemeral nature of
discourse and thus its tenuous hold on explanations of social action (Boje et al., 2005; McPhee, 2004,
p. 366; Reed, 1998; Sillince, 2007). We found that rhetoric gives a structure and thus a meaning to
context over time in the form of higher ambiguity at the start and lower ambiguity at the end of a
process. Therefore looking at the process of coping with ambiguity helps us to overcome the problem
of the temporary significance of rhetoric on any particular occasion. A process of coping with
ambiguity by means of identification with an action and of self relative to that action has longer
duration because the identification that is constructed by the rhetoric is not easily shifted. This process
can be managed by several types of rhetoric that adhere to the longer term process, even as any
individual rhetorical act is located in a specific event within the process. When there is high
ambiguity, even if a particular rhetoric fixes problems, solutions and participants to a choice
opportunity, there may still be only a temporary effect because of the disidentification from the goal or
action that has been constructed by the rhetoric. When ambiguity is low, on the other hand, rhetoric’s
effect of fixing problems, solutions and participants is more enduring. Linking rhetorics to ambiguity
within a strategy process helps us to understand the temporal context of rhetorics by illuminating the
‘changing “meaning context” of choice’ (Padgett, 1980: 586). The temporal pattern may also explain
why strategy processes resemble garbage cans less and less as they approach deadlines (Weiner,
1976). Deadlines ‘forced the ‘ejection’ of extraneous garbage from the can and a focusing on the
remaining issues’ (Eisenhardt and Zbaracki, 1992: 28). This both strengthens the contextual nature of
rhetoric and also suggests that rhetoric performs a useful function in garbage can contexts by reducing
randomness.
CONCLUSION
The garbage can model suggests that problems, solutions, participants and choice
opportunities are independent streams of activity that randomly converge. A key problem with this
theory is how organizations generate strategic action in such contexts. The over-simplicity of the
randomness view has in the past weakened garbage can theory and attracted authors to suggest
structures that can explain some of the predictability that is observed in organizational decision
processes. Our paper has addressed this issue by showing how rhetoric helps to structure the garbage
34
can by providing an initial step in the strategy process in garbage can contexts. Another criticism of
garbage cans has been the original garbage can model’s lack of attribution of agency to actors. We
have approached this problem by means of a situated yet generic process model of how rhetoric is
used to construct particular forms of action or inaction within garbage can contexts by enabling actors
to either identify with or disidentify from specific choice opportunities within the garbage can. Our
findings have extended existing theory by explaining the process through which rhetoric constructs
these effects, developing a three step process of the effects of rhetoric upon action or inaction in
garbage can contexts. Additionally, our findings contribute to the literature on ambiguity, explaining
both how actors use rhetoric to cope with the ambiguity that they encounter and how this rhetorical
coping may be a strategic resource that enables actors to justify particular stances on action or
inaction. Finally, our findings have extended rhetorical theory, particularly new rhetoric, by
illustrating the relationship between rhetoric and context over time.
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40
Figure 1: A Process Model of Rhetorical Influences on Ambiguity and Action in the Garbage Can
Step 2a
Step 1
Rhetorical
identification with
choice opportunity:
Dis-identify with
choice opportunity
•Doubting
•Distancing
•Fogging
Identify with choice
opportunity
•Inevitability
•Responsibility
•Impression
management
Rhetorical coping with goal,
technology, authority
ambiguity:
i. Minimize Ambiguity:
Inevitability
•
Responsibility
•
Impression management
•
ii. Maximize Ambiguity:
Doubting
•
Distancing
•
Fogging
•
Step 2b
Rhetorical influence on
garbage can elements
i. Construct links between
choice opportunities,
problems, solutions and
participants
ii. Negate links between
choice opportunities,
problems, solutions and
participants
41
Step 3
Action or inaction on
any specific choice
opportunity:
Action
•Mostly rhetorics that
minimize ambiguity
(2a.i) and construct
links between garbage
can elements (2b.i)
Inaction
•Mostly rhetorics that
maximize ambiguity
(2a.ii) and negate links
between garbage can
elements (2b.ii)
Rhetoric
1. Rhetoric
identifies or
dis-identifies
with an
action
2. Representative
Example
3. Response
to ambiguity
encountered
4. Rhetoric’s
effect on
action
TABLE 1: Examples of the six rhetorics and how they were used to cope with ambiguity
Distancing rhetoric
Fogging rhetoric
Inevitability rhetoric
Responsibility
rhetoric
Raises doubts about
Positions the individual Claims that the
Argues that a particular Constructs the
any particular action,
as distant from any
individual is confused
action to attain BSA is
individual or Biz-Ed,
such as BSA or the
particular action, such
about what the
unavoidable by
the organization, as
means to achieve BSA, as BSA by constructing strategic action is by
constructing
responsible for
on behalf of BizEd by
self as identified with
constructing self as dis- organization as
implementing specific
constructing self as
other commitments
identified from a BizEd inevitably BSAactions for BSA
dis-identified from a
and dis-identified from that has no strategy
oriented
BSA-oriented BizEd
a BSA-oriented BizEd
‘“Do we need it?” and I
‘I sort of felt that I have
‘It is not very clear this
‘So we live in a globalized
‘if we really want to get the
have no idea. I don’t know’ actually got more important strategy’ (AC/2003).
world and education to a
subject groups rewarded, we
(AC/2004)
things to do’ (AC/2003).
large extent follows what is have got to think what it is
happening in the world’
in each area which would
(AC/2003)
make a difference to BSA’
(SM/2003).
 Maximizes goal
 Maximizes goal
 Maximizes goal
 Minimizes goal and/
 Minimizes goal and/
and/or technology
and/or technology
ambiguity by
or technology
or technology and/ or
ambiguity by querying
ambiguity by
suggesting that the
ambiguity by
authority ambiguity by
the validity of any
distancing the speaker
goal is not clear and
suggesting that a BSA- suggesting that, an
particular strategic
from BSA or their role dis-identifying from a
oriented BizEd and
individual or BizEd
action or means to
in its achievement and
BizEd that has no
the means of achieving has been constructed
achieve it and
expressing disstrategy.
BSA are inevitable.
as responsible for
expressing different
identification with
BSA; they will
 Maximizes authority
 Minimizes authority
interests from and dis- BSA actions/goal.
therefore perform the
and/or technology
ambiguity by
identifying from a
necessary actions to
 Maximizes authority
ambiguity as people
suggesting that the
BSA-oriented BizEd
achieve the goal.
ambiguity by
cannot be expected to
organization or
identifying with a
perform actions that
individuals must
research-oriented
might not be the
comply with the
rather than BSAmeans to achieve valid
inevitable
oriented BizEd.
goals
Ambiguity maximised,
Ambiguity maximised,
Ambiguity maximised,
Ambiguity minimised,
Ambiguity minimised
which legitimizes
which legitimizes
which legitimizes
which legitimizes
which legitimizes
inaction; it is
inaction; it is
inaction; it is
action; we will have to
action; it is responsible
impossible to act if one unnecessary to act if
impossible to act if one conform to action,
to support BizEd’s
doubts the validity of
one is distant from the is not sure what the
whether we want to or actions
the action
action
action is
not
Doubting rhetoric
42
Impression
management
Affirms that BizEd is
confidently achieving a
specific action by
constructing individual
or organizational self as
a performer
‘other things are more to do
with the presentation to
present the information
more cleverly’ (SM/2003)
 Minimizes goal and/
or technology
ambiguity by
suggesting that a
performance to create
a good impression is
easy and does not
distract academics.
 Minimizes authority
ambiguity by
suggesting that only a
theatrical rather than
actual academic
performance is needed
Ambiguity minimised
which legitimizes
action; as BizEd is
already good at this,
action will display
BizEd positively
Table 2: Effects of rhetoric in shaping garbage can processes around specific strategic actions over time
Ambiguities Encountered
Rhetoric
Rhetorical construction Rhetorical construction Rhetorical construction
(Goal, Authority,
of ‘problem’
of ‘solution’
of ‘participants’
Technology)
Doubting
BizEd does not need BSA BSA is not a solution to
BizEd as non participant
 Goal: Ambiguity about
rhetoric
to be international
the internationalisation
in BSA
BSA as a BizEd goal
goal
 Technology: Ambiguity
BSA accreditation
There is no need to act, as BizEd as non participant
about how to achieve BSA Distancing
rhetoric
processes are the problem BSA is not achievable
in BSA
Fogging
We are confused about
There is no strategy, so
BizEd as non participant
rhetoric
what international is
we cannot act
in BSA
#2. May 2002 to  Goal: Ambiguity about
Inevitability
BSA is an
BizEd must change in
BizEd as BSA participant
Aug 2003
rhetoric
internationalization
order to achieve BSA
BSA as a BizEd goal
Strategic
problem
 Authority: Ambiguity
Internationalizati
BSA is not worthwhile
BSA is not worth effort,
BizEd as non participant
because academics need to Doubting
on Group (SIG)
rhetoric
so we should not act
in BSA
participate in BSA
plans response
Distancing
BizEd is helpless unless
Academic subject groups Academics are reluctant
 Technology: Ambiguity
academics achieve BSA
need to focus on BSA
participants in BSA
about how to achieve BSA rhetoric
#3. Feb 2003
Distancing
The BSA goal is not
BSA solutions are not an
Academics as non
 Goal: Ambiguity about
Incentives
relevant to academics
academic task
participants in BSA
academic vs. Biz Ed goals rhetoric
become a BizEd  Authority/ Technology:
Responsibility
Academics must be
Financial incentives are a Academics as persuadable
policy to
rhetoric
induced to take
solution to make
participants in BSA
As academics cannot be
motivate teaching
responsibility
for
academics
responsible
for
coerced, ambiguity about
exchanges
supporting the BSA goal
teaching exchanges
how to get them to
participate in BSA
#4. Feb 2003Distancing
Research, not BSA is the
Incentives are not a
Academics as non
 Goal: Ambiguity about
Feb 2005.
solution but a distraction
participants in BSA
academic vs. Biz Ed goals rhetoric persists academics’ problem
Academics
throughout the
for the research problem
 Authority: Ambiguity
persistently
study
about BizEd authority
refuse incentives
Doubting
BSA teaching exchanges
Academics need to be left Academics as nonover academic actions
and teaching
rhetoric
are not a valid problem
to concentrate on their
participants in BSA
 Technology: Ambiguity
exchanges
for academics
core problems
over means to achieve
BSA, without academic
cooperation
#5. Nov 2003.
BizEd can consolidate its Identify appropriate
BizEd and its actors as
 Goal: Minimize ambiguity Responsibility
SIG awayday to
rhetoric
existing reputation
partner institutions to
participants in BSA
over BizEd goals by
establish BSA
through achieving BSA
help gain BSA
asserting BSA
partners and
Doubting
BSA undermines BizEd’s BSA is not a solution
BizEd as non participant
Key events as
‘choice
opportunities’
#1. March 2002
to Aug 2003
BizEd does not
get BSA
accreditation
43
Action or
non-action
Non-Action:
BSA is not a
valid goal
Action: BSA
is a valid if
ambiguous
goal
Action:
Incentives
will enable
teaching
exchanges
with BSA
partners
Non-action:
Teaching
exchanges
are not a
choice
opportunity
Action:
Specific BSA
partners are
a choice
assert BSA goal
 Authority: Attempts to
#6. Feb and July
2004. Managers
appointed to
coordinate BizEd
responses to
BSA, including
student
exchanges with
key partners

#7. March and
June 2004. Two
BSA-accredited
MBA partners
finalized



minimize ambiguity about
BizEd authority over
academic actions, which
were undermined
Goal: Minimize ambiguity
about specifics of BSA
goal
Technology: Minimize
ambiguity over how to
attain BSA by proposing
specific solutions
Authority: Minimize
ambiguity about BizEd
authority over academic
actions, by assuming
stronger administrative
management of BSA goal
Technology: Minimize
ambiguity about achieving
BSA by undertaking
specific actions towards
BSA
rhetoric
Fogging
rhetoric
existing values
The meaning of
internationalization for
BizEd is unclear
in BSA
Academics as non
participant in BSA
opportunity
Impression
management
rhetoric
Responsibility
rhetoric
We must demonstrate
exchange activities with
partner institutions
Demonstrating
committed
internationalisation is
critical for BSA
Student exchanges on
international programs is
a solution
BizEd is so responsive to
BSA that it has appointed
a professional
international exchange
manager
BizEd prioritizes the
internationalization of its
flagship courses
BizEd as participant in
BSA
Action: Key
personnel
are
appointed to
BSA. These
personnel
implement
BSA student
exchange as
a choice
opportunity
Inevitability
rhetoric
Demonstrating
commitment to student
exchange programs is
critical for BSA
Doubting
rhetoric
BSA is not an important
problem
BSA goes against BizEd
strategy
Impression
management
rhetoric
BizEd is clearly in the
BSA league but needs to
demonstrate this
Inevitability
rhetoric
BizEd needs to establish
specific links with other
BSA-accredited partners
This is an effort as
University regulations are
not set up for exchanges
with partners
Balancing all the academic
commitments is a
problem
Academic engagement
with BSA is not going to
BizEd should only
appoint partner
institutions that are BSA
accredited
Exchange programs with
BSA-accredited partners
are the solution
BizEd is so committed to
BSA, it invests effort to
change University
regulations
Academics should avoid
taking extra teaching
commitments
Administrators have to do
everything to ensure BSA
Occasional misgivings
and construction of
individual as nonparticipant
BizEd as participant in
BSA
Responsibility
rhetoric
#8. April to June
2004. Work
Psychology
group creates
inter-cultural
 Goal/ Authority:
Minimize goal/ authority
ambiguity by asking
academics to undertake
Distancing
rhetoric
Inevitability
rhetoric
44
There is no strategy, so
we cannot act
BizEd and its senior
managers, administrators
as participants in BSA
BizEd and its senior
managers, administrators
as participants in BSA
Action: Key
BSA partners
are a choice
opportunity
BizEd as compliant
participant in BSA
BizEd as committed/
reformed participant in
BSA
Academics as non
participants in BSA
Administrators as helpful
participants in BSA
Action:
Developing
specific
academic
teaching for
training course
for BizEd
students
#9. Nov 2004.
Mock BSA panel
rehearsal
#10. Feb 2005.
BizEd receives
BSA panel visit
activities towards BSA
goal that are within the
academic remit
 Technology: Minimize
ambiguity about achieving
BSA by addressing specific
points, while marginalizing
academic lack of
engagement
 Goal/ Authority/
Technology: Minimize all
three forms of ambiguity
by ensuring that BizEd
members are rehearsed in
a consistent BSA
argument
 Goal/ Authority/
Technology: Minimize all
three forms of ambiguity
by focussing solely on
managing BSA
impressions during the
accreditation visit
Responsibility
rhetoric
happen
BizEd does not do intercultural training, which is
a BSA requirement
Impression
management
rhetoric
Attaining BSA is a matter
of managing impressions
during the BSA visit
Responsibility
rhetoric
Academics will be a key
part of BSA panels, so
must be co-opted to
perform
BSA will want to see
evidence of academic
engagement in BSA
activities
Responsibility
rhetoric
Impression
management
rhetoric
Poor performance by
BizEd members during
the visit, could create bad
impression on BSA panel
45
Providing training,
particularly within their
research areas, is
something academics can
do to support BSA
Academics as helpful
participants in BSA
Rehearsing is a way to
ensure appropriate
performance to the BSA
accreditation committee
Provide academics with
hymn sheets, which they
can learn, in order to
support BizEd with BSA
BizEd has a thorough
record of the tasks and
activities that it has
undertaken to address the
previous BSA criticisms
Senior managers are
vigilant, including meeting
with each panel, for 45
minutes before they go in
front of BSA
BizEd as performing
participant in BSA
Academics as responsive
participants who support
BizEd in attaining BSA
BizEd as responsive and
reformed participant in
BSA
All BizEd members are
engaged participants in
BSA
BSA is a
choice
opportunity
Action:
Rehearsing
for BSA visit
is a choice
opportunity
Action:
Attaining
BSA is a
choice
opportunity