Analyzing Representations and Discourse

Research in management and organizational science often relies on the analysis of communications, either oral (conversations, individual or group interviews) or written (annual reports, strategic plans, letters to shareholders, etc.). Researchers may simply want to analyze the content or the structure of these communica­tions; or they may attempt to establish, through the text or discourse, the author’s representations or thought processes. Inspired in particular by the cognitive approach to organizations, many researchers today are developing an interest in individuals’, groups’ or organizations’ representations. In a very broad sense, by ‘representation’ we mean the structure composed of the beliefs, values and opinions concerning a specific object, and the interconnections between them. This structure is supposed to enable individuals to impose coherence on infor­mation received, and therefore to facilitate its comprehension and interpreta­tion. From this point of view, in order to understand the decisions and actions taken by an organization, one first needs to apprehend the representations of the actors with whom they originate.

Thus, discourse and documents are believed to transmit some of the represen­tations of organizational members, or their interests and concerns. Researchers can turn to different methods to enable them to reduce and analyze the mass of data contained in the discourse and documents. These methods were developed as an alternative to subjective interpretation, and to avoid running the risk of filtering or deforming the information.

We do not intend here to present all possible methods for analyzing representations and discourse. Indeed, these methods, which come from such varied domains as linguistics, social and cognitive psychology, statistics and artificial intelligence (Stubbs, 1983; Roberts, 1997) are particularly numerous. We will restrict ourselves to presenting those methods that are used the most in management research: content analysis and cognitive mapping.

Content analysis Content analysis is based on the postulate that the repetition of units of analysis of discourse (words, expressions or similar signifiers, or sen­tences and paragraphs) reveal the interests and concerns of the authors of the dis­course. The text (written document or transcription of an interview or speech) is broken down and rearranged in terms of the units of analysis that the researcher has decided to study, according to a precise coding methodology. The analyses will be based on the classification of the different units of analysis into a limited number of categories related to the objectives of the study. These analyses usually involve counting, statistical analysis or more qualitative analysis of the context in which the words appear in the discourse.

Content analysis can be used, among other things, to analyze responses to open-ended survey questions, to compare different organizations’ strategies through their discourse and the documents which they distribute, or to discern the interests of different individuals, groups or organizations.

Cognitive mapping This method, which stems from cognitive psychology, has been used frequently in management since the late 1970s (inspired in particu­lar by the work of Axelrod, 1976). The objective of this method is to establish and analyze cognitive maps, that is the representation of a person or an organi­zation’s beliefs concerning a particular domain (Axelrod, 1976). A cognitive map is composed of two elements:

1. Concepts, also called constructs or variables; ideas that describe a problem or a particular domain.
2. The links between these concepts.

Once they are collected, these concepts and relations can be represented graphically in the form of knots and arrows: the knots standing for the concepts (or categories) and the arrows symbolizing the links between these elements.

A cognitive map is supposed to be precise enough to capture the person’s perceptual filters and idiosyncratic vision (Langfeld-Smith, 1992). Although it is not aimed at representing the subject’s thought processes, the beliefs it reveals are considered to be at the their root.

Cognitive mapping is principally used in management:

• To study the representations of individuals, especially managers, to explore their vision. These studies often attempt to compare different people’s repre­sentations, or those of the same person over the course of time; to explain or predict behavior; or to assist executives in formulating strategic problems.
• To establish and study a group, organization or a sector’s representation. In this case, the studies’ goals are to understand either the evolution of corporate strategy over a period of several years, or the interactions and influence of different groups of managers.

Source: Thietart Raymond-Alain et al. (2001), Doing Management Research: A Comprehensive Guide, SAGE Publications Ltd; 1 edition.