Introduction
Bullshitting is distinct from lying, and as a result, it is distinct from greenwashing and whitewashing. A liar is aware of the facts but actively strives to evade them, whereas a bullshitter is unconcerned with the truth and does not care about it. The first two articles addressed in this study evaluate bullshitting and its relevance in organizational management. Other than bullshit, there are various issues in organizational management that may affect its functionality. For example, the failure of employees to embrace change in an organization affects the effectiveness of an organization.
Human beings are different and therefore have different ideas and ways of doing things, which results in conflicts within organizations. These conflicts, if not resolved, affect the management of the organization. As a result, the annotated bibliography has also addressed studies on conflicts, strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity, and the reasons for the failure of change in organizations. The analyses of these studies give hope for future management in various organizations in that they give solutions to the problems discussed. The writers highlight the contemporary issues in the studies and find a way to resolve them.
Initial Provocation
Christensen, L. T., Kärreman, D., & Rasche, A. (2019). Bullshit and Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 40(10), 1587-1600.
Bullshit is a communication practice is found in almost every aspect of organizational life and is used by everyone. The essay had a purpose of outlining various interpretations of bullshit and to discuss their significance in the context of organizational studies. It has also discussed the various social purposes of bullshit and how they relate to each other. The writers examine bullshit in the context of organizations, taking into account the messages, senders, and receivers who are involved. They had a particular emphasis on the relationships that exist between these dimensions in the setting of organizations. In the third section of the essay, they have discussed why bullshit, although widely acknowledged by organizational members, is rarely called out and openly rejected informal settings.
One may dismiss bullshit as being detrimental to rational organizational behaviour. It is due to the ambiguity of the importance of its organization and performance as it does not consider the truth. Bullshit has numerous negative effects on the functionality of an organization. They include disintegrating communications from actions, formulating assumptions other than dealing with facts and the tendency to separate voices and perspectives. It may be claimed that one of the most significant sources of organizational bullshit is the increasing proclivity for subjective stances and self-presentations to play a more significant role in contemporary organizations. This is something that has the potential to destroy the trust and credibility of arguments based on logic.
A critical edge distinguishes bullshit, directing attention to fraudulent and manipulative practices in society. However, it is suggested that it is vital to examine its organizational importance and performative nature in greater depth. Bullshit and organizational studies may be applied in the future in two sorts of managerial activities in which they are likely to play a big role. They include commanding and planning. The writers believe that bullshit has a particular significance in contemporary organizations, where greater complexity, various interests, and opposing agendas tend to encourage particular outcomes in particular situations. Our understanding of how and what bullshit does allows for a better understanding of the conflicts and challenges that shape much communication in an organizational setting. Future management should not only contextualize the role of bullshit in organizations, but should also provide considerable insight into the many different facets of organizational communication, which are currently underdeveloped. Bullshit will enable future management to investigate the imprecise, obscure, deceptive, or nonsensical features of corporate and management discourse and the various social and managerial roles that they serve.
Article 2
Herold, D. M., Dietrich, T., & Breitbarth, T. (2020). Banking on bullshit: Indifferences towards truth in corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Bank Marketing, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print).
This study aims to find out and analyze bullshit in banks’ corporate social responsibility (C.S.R.) communications to improve the management rhetoric research environment in the banking industry. It has been characterized as a lack of concern for the truth and significance. The research focuses on speech and text in order to identify blatant lies in banks’ corporate social responsibility statements. It gives implementable intelligence on how stakeholders can respond to and avoid bullshit statements from being made in the future, and it does so in a straightforward manner.
Social responsibility in the banking business, as well as the internal and external communication that goes hand in hand with it, according to the argument in the paper, is pure bullshit. Bullshit, as defined in the context of corporate social responsibility, is nonsensical language that is used to deceive others about the performance of a company or the activities linked with it. This essay aims to expose and dismantle nonsense in the field of corporate social responsibility in the banking business, with a particular emphasis on the financial sector. Its purpose is to promote the subject of management rhetoric research by bringing it up to date. There is a classification of bullshit phenomena presented by the authors, along with examples of each sort of phenomenon. Therefore, they explore some thoughts on how bank managers, business spokespersons, and regulators all have the capacity to intercede and prevent the development of bullshit from being prevalent. This is accomplished through the implementation of the C.R.A.P. framework, which is based on a study conducted by McCarthy and colleagues (2020), and which provides direction on how to perceive, recognize, respond to, and prevent C.S.R. bullshit in the workplace and in the community.
However, even though the banking industry has structural distinctions from other industries, it has its own language and its own set of traditions, which are being jeopardized by the growing use of bullshit. It is because every industry has its own culture and structures. Reduced management bullshit will necessitate a collaborative effort that goes beyond simply understanding and acknowledging bullshit as such. For future bank’s management to reduce bullshit, they should develop reflective thinking skills. People who are more sensitive to bullshit tend to be less thoughtful and have lesser cognitive abilities. In order to eliminate bullshit, banks should also make changes to the reward systems that motivate bankers. The C.R.A.P. framework should be used by future bank management to present a process for understanding, recognizing, acting against, and preventing bullshit in banking in order to control it.
Article 3
Salem, P. (2008). The seven communication reasons organizations do not change. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 13(3), 333-348.
The purpose of this research is to highlight seven frequent communication patterns that are associated with organizational failures to reform. The research describes six prevalent communication behaviours that occur during failed organizational transformation efforts. In the combination of these behaviours, a seventh pattern may be discerned. Communication during unsuccessful attempts is rarely effective because it lacks sufficient communication possibilities, displays a lack of developing identification, instils suspicion, and lacks productive laughter. In avoiding conflicts and lack of practical communication skills contribute to escalating these difficulties. Members disconnect the system, protecting the entire culture until such time as it is safe for it to reappear later in the process. Some of the reasons are discussed. A great deal of management literature implies that management has an exclusive position within organizations, as if managers were not a member of the organizations they manage. As well as the inclination to equate communication with the production of a message, as though obtaining the proper message is the most difficult part of communicating.
The use of certain terms in the announcement of a change would automatically imply agreement with the changes. The findings reveal the constraints of administration and the impersonality of communication. We acknowledge that the researcher identifies change as a dirty process, and transformative change will not occur until management can endure the uncertainty and confusion that grows in communication between departments. A key challenge with any social reform research, the study acknowledges, is determining how to frame time and how to interpret disparities across time frames. Results also indicate that communication skills are essential in hiring methods, supported by the data. Future management ought to ask themselves why change is difficult to achieve.
First and foremost, organizational transformation inevitably alters the nature of “the work” that needs to be done in the organization. People’s apprehension about not being able to succeed in a new organization is a second primary source of resistance to change. They are concerned that “what got them here will not get them there.” Future management ought to know that hiring people with fundamental communication skills and training them in these qualities not only increases the likelihood of maintaining a thriving organization, but also benefits people in their personal and professional life.
Article 4
Hoffjann, O. (2021). Between strategic clarity and strategic ambiguity – oscillating strategic communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 27(2), 284-303.
The research concentrates on the oscillations between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity, keeping it apparent that the goal is not merely to replace the clarity that has characterized books thus far with new domination of ambiguity, as has been the case in the past. Instead, it is an issue of managing the difference between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity deliberately. When processes of strategic ambiguity and clarity are systematized, a toolset for the practical implementation of specific ambiguity and clarity can be developed. In recent times, the notion of ambiguity has emerged as a significant concept in strategic communication study. This work aims to fill three significant gaps in the research conducted to date. As a starting point, clarity-focused methods and ambiguity-focused methods are opposed to one another, amplifying the benefits and opportunities offered by the corresponding preferred perspective and a lack of explanation for the opposing perspective at best. Secondly, the study on strategic ambiguity is primarily focused on the perspective of organizations, with little attention paid to social change. The third aspect is that there has been very little research into distinct actions of strategic ambiguity, and these activities have not been encountered before systematically documented or documented.
The responses to the research questions were provided following the “Theory of Social Systems.” The perspective seems to be relevant because the critical ideas of communications and judgment are critical to the T.S.S operation. According to the study’s findings, strategic communication oscillates between clarity and ambiguity to resolve a dilemma or paradoxical situation. The subsequent entry of the difference is a second-order insight, and as a result, it highlights the blind spots of techniques centred on clarity and ambiguity, respectively. As a result, a systematic methodology is devised that incorporates various aspects of strategic clarity and ambiguity, as well as their intersections. However, the writer does not inform us of policies in strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity. Do they integrate to match the solutions to their differences? The writer would have highlighted their significance in an organization to ensure more clarity. For future management, they should embrace the systematic approach in their organizations to avoid confusion between strategic clarity and ambiguity in strategic communication.
Article 5
Contu, A. (2019). Conflict and organization studies. Organization Studies, 40(10), 1445-1462.
The author draws attention to the relationship between conflict and organizational studies. He begins by examining management students’ information about the corporate conflict. It includes the information that has been communicated to them, the preconceptions that have been made and the political and ethical repercussions of those preconceptions. Bringing back to action Mary Follett’s insight into conflict as “differences in the world,” this paper evaluates expansively the way organization studies, with its diverse theoretical apparatuses, treats conflict, and in so doing contributes to the co-construction of social order, including what it means to work, organize, and live in particular manner of living. By using a primary imagination that regulates, manages, and settles down differences, organizational studies aims to tame conflict and bring it under control. Sense of harmony illusions is explored from the perspectives of the ‘functionalist perspective’ and the ‘behavioural theory of the company.’
For its role in solidifying our current dominant economic governance, particular emphasis is placed on the ‘organizational economic approach,’ with its economist dream. As a result, the author points out that gaps in market governance are becoming more visible, and differences are arising that the specialized apparatus of conflict domestication is having difficulty reconciling. The paper also highlights that many techniques, such as corporate social responsibility, “corporate citizenship,” “enlightened stakeholder theory,” and “shared-value” have been recognized by modern theorists, particularly in leading American journals, as being aimed at addressing several contemporary conflicts and attempting to build “good capitalism” by restricting the more deleterious elements of capitalism. Organizational theorists should reconsider their theoretical frameworks, and they should consider adopting a kind of conceptualizing known as ‘demiurgic theorizing,’ according to him. In contrast to other writers, we acknowledge that the author confronts the basic flaws and paradoxes of hegemonic responsive and dislodges the entrepreneur’s illusion, which is contrary to conventional wisdom.
Management of conflict, according to the author, is simultaneously something that is ‘possible’ and something that should be pursued, because it allows for a positive encounter of differing views, beliefs, wants, ambitions, and choices. However, these are not just included inside precluded parameters, hence restricting the scope of the investigation. Future management in organizations will be able to control disputes in companies more effectively as a result of this. They will be able to manage, control, and stabilize differences that arise inside organizations as a result of the basic delusion.
Conclusion
The five studies discussed are all correlated in the contemporary issues in management. The first has explained the bullshit communication in organizations and their importance despite the many cons associated with it. We acknowledge its significance in the complex organizational structures. We conclude that bullshit will enable the future management to investigate the imprecise, obscure, deceptive, or nonsensical features of corporate and management discourse. The second study narrates of the elimination of bullshit in the banking industries. Major steps have been taken to exclude bullshit in the banking sector.
The major one noted is based on considering the hiring processes to minimize bullshit. Though the banking industry has tried to share their ideas with other industries, they have encountered barriers due to the differences in structures and culture. We conclude that the C.R.AC.R.A.P.ework should be used by future bank management. The third article has tried explaining why organizations face challenges when trying to implement change. However, the writer comes up with solutions that enhance employees to embrace change. We conclude that the future management ought to know that hiring people with fundamental communication skills and training them in these qualities not only increases the likelihood of maintaining a thriving organization.
The fourth article explains the differences between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity. They are diffused strategically to enhance communication in the management of organizations and minimizing conflicts. We conclude that the future management should embrace the systematic approach in their organizations so as to avoid confusion between strategic clarity and ambiguity in strategic communication. The final article has addressed conflicts in organizations. The study points out that gaps in market governance are becoming more visible, and differences are arising that the specialized apparatus of conflict domestication is having difficulty reconciling.
References
Christensen, L. T., Kärreman, D., & Rasche, A. (2019). Bullshit and Organization Studies. Organization Studies, 40(10), 1587-1600.
Contu, A. (2019). Conflict and organization studies. Organization Studies, 40(10), 1445-1462 Herold, D. M., Dietrich, T., & Breitbarth, T. (2020). Banking on bullshit: Indifferences towards truth in corporate social responsibility. International Journal of Bank Marketing, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print).
Hoffjann, O. (2021). Between strategic clarity and strategic ambiguity – oscillating strategic communication. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 27(2), 284-303.
McCarthy, L. (2020). Collective action in SCM: S.C.M.all for activist research. The International Journal of Logistics Management.
Salem, P. (2008). The seven communication reasons organizations do not change. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 13(3), 333-348.
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