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Religious discourse and organizational change
Legitimizing the stakeholder perspective at a Saudi conglomerate
Yusuf Sidani American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon, and
Sammy Showail Missouri Western State University, St Joseph, Missouri, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a case of proactive change that occurred in a large organization in Saudi Arabia.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper explains how management actively used religious discourse to institute a stakeholder perspective within the organization.
Findings – The process of change that occurred leads to the development of a successful change process that borrows from legitimacy theory and legitimation in discourse. The findings show the impact of religious discourse on organizational change in the context under study.
Research limitations/implications – While this change process, grounded in religious discourse, cannot be assumed to work across contexts, future research can uncover what contextual or cultural dimensions facilitate or impede such an approach.
Social implications – This study provides an example as to how change agents can engage people within their organizations in the change process through a systematic process of sensemaking that grants moral legitimacy to company’s initiatives.
Originality/value – The paper draws attention to the importance of religious discourse in institutional change, a thing that has rarely been discussed at the firm level.
Keywords Sensemaking, Religion, Change management, Discourse, Legitimacy, Legitimation, Saudi Arabia
Paper type Case study
Introduction Earlier contributions to institutional theory mainly looked at organizations as a source of stability and order (Scott, 2001) rather than looking at processes by which organizations change or processes by which organizational actors champion new institutional arrangements (Dacin et al., 2002; Greenwood and Suddaby, 2006). Attention was also directed at the contribution of exogenous shocks on the process of institutionalization in organizations (Battilana et al., 2009). More recent work on institutional entrepreneurship[1] recognizes the function of internal organizational actors in change (Battilana et al., 2009; Koene, 2006), their contribution to dislodging existing practices and introducing new ones (Hardy and Maguire, 2008), and their role in managing change
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0953-4814.htm
The authors thank Professor Paul Beamish, Richard Ivey School of Business, for his feedback on an earlier version of this paper.
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Received 8 November 2012 Revised 26 February 2012
26 March 2013 9 May 2013
Accepted 27 May 2013
Journal of Organizational Change Management
Vol. 26 No. 6, 2013 pp. 931-947
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0953-4814
DOI 10.1108/JOCM-11-2012-0175
through identity development (Reissner, 2010) and sensemaking (van der Heijden et al., 2012; Weick et al., 2005). In this paper we present a case of proactive change that occurred in a large organization in Saudi Arabia. We aim to uncover the discursive processes by which this company applied and legitimized the stakeholder theory perspective. The significance of this issue relates to problems that Arab organizations face when dealing with change (Sidani and Thornberry, 2010). By providing the example of a successful change initiative, based on local religious grounding, this case could be used as a model for like-minded firms facing similar situations.
In this paper, we adopt the notion advanced by earlier researchers that actions generate texts, and that some of those texts lead to discourse that facilitates organizational change (Phillips et al., 2004). Actions themselves stem from ideas and through a process of translation, as explained below, this idea takes shape (Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996). In the case study that we present, we argue that discourse that aims at organizational change is enabled through the links that it enjoys with other types of discourses, which is religious discourse in this case. This is in response to Phillips et al.’s (2004, p. 640) critical question that invites an exploration into “which texts are more likely to influence discourses?” and which types of discourse are most expected to generate institutional change.
This paper draws attention to the importance of religious discourse in institutional change, a thing that has rarely been discussed at the firm level. We aim at uncovering the role of religious texts and how these could be used as the basis for organizational change. Based on the premise that institutional entrepreneurs can be individuals or groups (Battilana et al., 2009), we explain how organizational leadership actively embarked on a project to institute a stakeholder perspective in an environment that is used to alternative conceptions. We show how the use of religious texts helped in the process of advancing divergent change that is at odds with existing structures (Battilana et al., 2009). We elucidate mechanisms used in introducing this concept and how a novel perspective was successfully inculcated in the company’s lingo guiding managerial and employee action. We explain how the organization, drawing from its audience’s attachment to religion, translated the stakeholder perspective to language that made sense. We offer below a review of the role of discursive processes in facilitating change and the relationship between discourse and legitimacy. We also present a brief synopsis of the stakeholder approach before providing an overview about Saudi culture and organizational behavior. Then we present the case of Salam Company (a pseudonym) borrowing from organizational legitimacy literature to explain the case at hand.
Discourse and organizational change Interest in discursive processes in organizations has intensified over the past few years (e.g. Dunford et al., 2013; Hardy and Maguire, 2010; Oswick et al., 2010). Language is thought to form organizational reality that gives meaning to experiences (Long and Mills, 2010; Vaughn, 1995). Organizational discourse is an integral process in sensemaking and organizational identity creation, and thus is an intrinsic aspect of managerial behavior (Green, 2004; Oswick et al., 1997; Thurlow and Mills, 2009). Beyond just being disjointed pieces of text, discourse does not merely reflect but actually constructs organizational reality (Hardy, 2001; Hardy et al., 2005). Historical discourses are not lost in organizational memory but rather, these are woven in current
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discourses to produce common understanding about the present and the future (Anderson, 2005). Discursive tools help in understanding and constructing reality through invoking cognitive, emotional, and political processes understood within the social context where they appear (Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 2010; Fairclough, 1993; Grant et al., 2001; Vaara et al., 2003). Discourse thus helps in understanding the dynamics of change processes and resistance to change (Ford and Ford, 1995; Grant et al., 2005; Heracleous and Barrett, 2001; Heracleous, 2002; Pieterse et al., 2012; Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005) and, compared to traditional behaviorist or cognitive approaches, it offers greater potential for understanding the complexity of organizational change (Tsoukas, 2005). In sum, discourse generates a context where new meanings are formed and it can actually alter attitudes and behaviors leading to significant organizational change (Marshak and Grant, 2008).
Phillips et al. (2004) explain the relationship between texts, discourse, institutions, and actions. They argue that action impacts discourse through the creation of texts. However, not all texts that are produced in organizational settings end up being discourse that causes change. For a text to take shape into enduring widely-shared organizational discourse, two conditions have to be met, sensemaking and legitimacy. Sensemaking is the process by which individuals make sense of their complex organizational environments (Thurlow and Mills, 2009). It “involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action” (Weick et al., 2005, p. 409). Texts help create “sense” when they link new practices to old ones (local grounding) and cast new initiatives in a revered moral frame (moral evaluation). Such texts are more likely to be discussed, disseminated, and may eventually become embedded in organizational discourse depending on their source, genre, and relationship to other texts (Phillips et al., 2004). The source/producer of the text has to be a legitimate agent who has the “right to speak” (Hardy and Phillips, 2004). In addition, some forms (genres) are more likely to be embedded in organizational discourse as they become presented in company manuals, memos, and newsletters thus increasing the possibility that they are used by organizational members (Phillips et al., 2004; Yates and Orlikowski, 2002). Finally, the relationship of organizational texts to other relevant texts, such as religious or cultural texts, facilitates the embedding of such texts into organizational discourse. Audiences are more likely to remember, retrieve, and repeat texts that are easily linked to earlier embedded texts, especially if these are revered in the context in which they are used.
Leaders change organizations through developing discourse that is coherent and not highly contested by alternative discourses (Phillips et al., 2004). The four elements that companies use to implement change include having a vision for change and using appropriate rhetorical strategies (Battilana et al., 2009), in addition to using discourse that is consistent, and supported by other discourses and texts (Phillips et al., 2004).
Discourse and legitimacy Strategic change involves not only changes in organizational structures and technologies but also changes in cognitive processes (Fiss and Zajac, 2006). In developing strategies for their organizations, especially those that require significant culture change, leaders need to get the commitment of different stakeholders, through an astute legitimation process. Leaders make frequent use of framing to present their change initiatives in a way that makes sense and provides legitimation (Kaplan, 2008).
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Leaders are able, through proper use of frames, to give meaning to organizational behavior. Frames “provide a singular interpretation of a particular situation and then indicate appropriate behavior for that context” (Payne, 2001, p. 39). Frames are used to alter organizational norms or institute practices that are otherwise not present or inconceivable. Frames become particularly important when someone is trying to introduce a foreign concept (Boxenbaum, 2006).
Organizations need legitimacy in order to operate. An organization without legitimacy becomes less meaningful, less predictable, and less trustworthy (Suchman, 1995). Similarly, organizations need to legitimize practices that are perceived to be unusual. Suchman (1995) describes three types of organizational legitimacy. The first is termed pragmatic legitimacy relating to self-interests of the organization’s closest members. The second pertains to the moral dimension. People do not decide to confer legitimacy solely based on pragmatic terms; they often like to offer moral explanations to behaviors. On top of these two types of legitimacy, practices – over time – earn a “taken-for-grantedness” quality, or cognitive legitimacy (Suchman, 1995). Such practices become part of organizational practice supported by local practice and acceptance, and meet a certain level of moral evaluation (Van Leeuwen, 2007).
Legitimating an organizational practice refers to processes by which it is given credibility, a “right to exist” (Maurer, 1971), or a right to replace another legitimate practice. The legitimation process has been widely discussed in institutional theory (e.g. Boxenbaum, 2006; Deephouse and Suchman, 2008; Suchman, 1995). Boxenbaum (2006) asserts that if a foreign best practice conflicts with taken-for-granted one, it is likely to be rejected. Discourse is used to legitimate organizational actions and is vital for a deeper understanding of organizational practices (Chia, 2000). As discursive strategies are used in understanding social reality, sensemaking becomes central to legitimation. A new managerial practice cannot earn the taken-for granted status unless it makes sense, and thus the process of legitimation is preceded by a rationalization process within an argumentative and linguistic context (Green, 2004). Discursive legitimation strategies have been shown to aid in the sensemaking process of change efforts in various contexts such the global industrial restructuring in the media (Vaara et al., 2006). They have also been used to explain legitimating intense institutional change in the accounting and legal professions in the nineties (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005). Creed et al. (2002) also analyze how texts were used as legitimating accounts for and against policies prohibiting workplace discrimination. Phillips et al. (2004) explain that organizational actors play a vital role in producing discourse that legitimates certain organizational practices.
We present a case where a company legitimated organizational change through an astute use of religious language. Although previous research has underscored the importance of discourse in understanding and shaping organizational reality and explaining change, little has been investigated regarding what type of discourse would lead to such outcomes. There are many ways to classify discourse (see for example Meyer and Freedle, 1984; Vaara, 2002), but our classification rests on the religious dimension of such discourse. Religious metaphors have often been used in business – even in secular environments – and religious language is frequently invoked to send messages (Vinten, 2000). Vaughn (1995) found that religious metaphors operated as powerful integrative symbols bringing organizational groups together and facilitating organizational identification. Religious metaphors have also been used to facilitate
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change initiatives such as business process redesign (Schultze and Orilkowski, 2001). The case remains, however, that the role of religion and religious discursive processes have generally been undertheorized (Scott, 2007).
The next section presents a case study where Salam Company, headquartered in Saudi Arabia, used some of those tools in its organizational discourse to advance a new organizational understanding, the stakeholder perspective. The research questions that this study answers are:
RQ1. What were the discursive strategies that the company used to create organizational change and institute the stakeholder perspective?
RQ2. How was the company able to use such discourse (grounded in religion) to provide legitimacy to this new initiative?
Before we present this case, we briefly cover the stakeholder perspective and offer a glimpse of Saudi society.
Stakeholder perspective Scholars attribute the origin of the Stakeholder Perspective to the Stanford Research Institute in 1963 where stakeholders were defined as “those groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist” (Lepineux, 2004). The Stakeholder Perspective identifies certain players who have interest in the organization, to whom management pays – or should pay – attention. Such an approach asks two questions (Freeman, 1994; Freeman et al., 2004):
(1) What is the purpose of the firm?
(2) What responsibility does the organization have towards the stakeholders?
Definitions of a stakeholder vary (Kochan and Rubinstein, 2000), but many scholars agree that it includes customers, suppliers, and employees, in addition to other relevant players. Part of the attractiveness of this perspective lies in its ability to address the shortcomings of a shareholder myopic perspective. It has the capacity of introducing central moral principles into corporate life (Cragg, 2002). A productive relationship between a firm and its stakeholders, where both parties benefit rather than supersede each other, requires the organization to internalize the needs of stakeholders (Buchholz and Rosenthal, 2005). Despite its wide popularity, such an approach is not without critics as some consider it to be a weak theory (Lepineux, 2004), deeply inept in terms of securing better corporate governance (Sternberg, 1997), or even morally lacking (Marcoux, 2003).
Saudi culture The two main forces that have historically impacted Saudi Arabia are religion and Bedouin traditions (Rice, 2004). Saudi Arabia is home to Islam’s holiest places, and it implements a strict understanding of Islam among its people (Robertson et al., 2001). The Saudi society values honor, helping those in need, kindness to relatives and tribal members, and hospitality. In addition values of dependency and respect for authority are emphasized[2]. The society is a status society giving importance to certain societal members depending on age, tribal affiliation, and connections. This is reflected in the dimension of power distance, or the acceptability of being treated differently based on status or power (Hofstede, 2001). The Saudi society has been able to embrace Western
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technology while still attaching lots of importance to traditional values (Ali and Al-Shakis, 1985). Tribal values emphasize concentric circles of obligations attaching most importance to the family and the clan. Such affiliations often precede commitment to the country and other affiliations. This partially explains the prevalence of nepotism and the phenomenon of wasta addressed in prior literature in Arab societies (Sidani and Thornberry, 2013; Jabra and Jreisat, 2009).
Islam is argued to embrace the stakeholder approach (Beekun and Badawi, 2005) which puts the Saudi manager in conflict between commitment to Islamic values emphasizing justice and fairness, and tribal values emphasizing primal kindness to family and tribal members. In such a context, organizational decision makers find themselves reconciling two sets of obligations, an obligation to family and clan, and another conflicting obligation to universal concepts of justice and fairness. This tension is relevant to our current discussion as a stakeholder perspective of conducting business is alien to a narrow tribal understanding. A stakeholder perspective emphasizes the need to consider various parties, and accords each one of them a given level of recognition. Such a perspective may not be welcomed by a strict tribal standing, where tribal affiliation is paramount.
Some studies on Saudi Arabia indicate that subordinates have strong dependency needs (Harris and Moran, 1987; Bhuian, 1998). This could mean that they may respond well to change initiatives initiated by a powerful convincing leader. On the other hand, high uncertainty avoidance hints towards more resistance to change complicating institutional entrepreneurship efforts. Accordingly, change agents need to balance between their audience’s desires to comply, with a conflicting degree of intolerance to ambiguity. So leaders do not only have to strike a delicate balance between tribal and religious understandings, but they also have to cater to a workforce that, while responding positively to change initiatives that come from above, have a tendency to be alarmed by new initiatives. A company that wants its employees to embrace alternative practices must ensure that employees are accepting this wholeheartedly, and that they are not just being submissive given their respect to authority.
The case study Data collection involved internal and external company data. The external data included an acquisition of a deep understanding of the Saudi culture in general, in addition to articles that pertain to the company found in outside sources. We also had some access to internal company documentation that was deemed relevant to this study. This included internal company newsletters, press releases, some company memos, key managers’ company presentations, and company policies. The lead researcher made an extensive preliminary assessment of the company and many of its subsidiaries which lasted about three days. Meetings were conducted with key personnel at the vice-president level in addition to some middle managers. After this initial analysis of the company, its culture, and the research objectives and methodologies, two researchers conducted 12 detailed interviews with managers, employees, and consultants at the company. They key criterion for including an interviewee was his/her presence during the process of change that occurred. We used a snowballing technique where researchers first met with the organizational development manager who suggested names of people who witnessed the change process. The interviews were conducted in 2010 spanning for about two months. They involved questions regarding the change process at Salam, managerial actions, and
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employee responses. The interviews included – among others – the chief executive officer, managing director of one of the primary business units, and a former key manager (now company consultant) who closely accompanied the change initiative (See Table I for a description of interviewees and types of data collected). We concentrate on the company’s discourse in this process; we analyze textual information, both from company documentation and interviews, to explain managerial action.
Legitimating the stakeholder approach at Salam Salam is one of the largest conglomerates in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA). Established more than three decades ago with a capital equivalent to over USD 10 million, it grew to have a capital of over 1 billion USD. It operates across many sectors and has more than 15,000 employees across the region. Salam considers itself a pioneer in the implementation of modern operational and managerial practices. One of the initiatives that the company embarked upon, the subject of this study, was the
Position Data collected
1. Chief executive officer Discussed the corporate vision for change and the main drivers for the change process. Discussed the discourse development process and drivers and implications thereof
2. Organizational development manager
Discussed the change process across organizational units and subsidiaries. Identified key players and stakeholders in the change process. Discussed the discourse development process and drivers and implications thereof
3. Managing director of a business unit
Discussed the change process in his specific unit in relation to internal and external stakeholders
4. President of a company division
Discussed the change process in his specific division in relation to internal and external stakeholders
5. Head of HR Discussed the role of HR in the change process especially in relation to external stakeholders
6. Head of CSR Discussed the role of her unit in the change process and the implications thereof especially in relation to external stakeholders
7. Vice-President for finance Discussed the role of his department in the change process and implications of the change process
8. Head of training and development
Discussed how the change initiative was reinforced in the company’s development programs
9. Operations manager of a company division
Discussed how the process of change impacted key operational metrics in the organization
10. Former vice-president Discussed the drivers and implications of the change process and the role of top management in the change process
11. HR key officer Discussed the role of the HR department in the change process
12. Company consultant A former manager in the firm, this person was a key person who witnessed and contributed to the change process. Discussed the discourse development process and drivers and implications thereof
Table I. Interviewees and data
collected
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adoption of a stakeholder approach designed to take over narrow familial, tribal, or mere shareholder perspectives of running the business.
We concentrate on the company’s discourse analyzing textual information to explain the process used by management. We do not discuss the outcomes of this process other than indicating that the stakeholder approach successfully became part of the organizational culture. The company used various organizational communication and discourse channels to engage its constituencies. After all, “sensemaking is about organizing through communication” (Weick et al., 2005, p. 413).
There is no clear date as to when top management became first convinced of a formal introduction of the stakeholder perspective. It was an incremental process and, based on our review, the enabling factors were external and internal. Key competitive pressures were making it necessary for the company to move into a broader, more-inclusive circle of responsibilities. Many key managers were introduced to the concept through their formal education and training in the West. Another source were company consultants, many of them Western consultancy firms, who used strategy tools inclusive of different company stakeholders (e.g. the balanced scorecard).
A review of company documents reveals an organizational dialogue that was welcoming of a progressive managerial lingo that is also accommodative of the existing context. Initially, the company wanted to integrate two concepts into the culture. One was business-based and task oriented; the other was more rooted with the indigenous culture. The business concept was to adopt what the company called a “can-do” attitude. Company leadership appreciated the value of being entrepreneurial, and encouraged taking initiatives and making bold decisions. The indigenous concept was tawado’, humility, a valued attribute in Arab culture which would guide a person towards becoming more considerate of others. It acts as a moral compass that tells the individual that profit-seeking, while perfectly justifiable, should not come at the expense of others.
This can be seen as the first attempt to legitimize a local variant of the stakeholder perspective. Company leaders accentuated the compatibility between the two concepts where a good business sense does not contradict tawado’. However, over time it became evident that just internalizing those two concepts was not sufficient. In the words of a manager who witnessed that period:
The can-do and the tawado’ are in a sense sometimes conflicting, you know, . . . if you have too much of a can-do, invariably you will have the arrogance, . . . , if you have too much of humility then you will have the pacifism or the timidity that will not make you aggressive enough to push ideas that are correct to stand up and defend the proposals and therefore it will undermine the business[. . .]
The company later moved beyond this bipolar concept to the stakeholder perspective. At this point, the company laid the ground for an organizational discourse, based on Islamic principles, to promote this initiative. This discourse, evident from the company’s documents, newsletters, chairman’s presentations, and press releases detailed the rationale for this perspective. The company’s legitimation process passed through a religious construal as the texts elaborated on the reasons why a stakeholder perspective was in line with both company interests and Islamic principles. While it may seem absurd to some audiences, the company’s discourse advanced an explicit religious language as shying away from such use would only dilute the message being
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sent. The company chose a path where it believed that using such a language, in a religious society, will be helpful in granting the moral legitimacy of the company’s initiative.
The company came up with an ethics code of conduct that clearly outlines their vision. Achievements in business, it was asserted, have a prerequisite which lies in an approval or a blessing from God that comes through good intentions. Employees and managers have to act sincerely to deserve the blessing or baraka from God. The rationale used at Salam is strikingly similar to Calvin’s arguments about the necessity of hard work as a sign for God’s grace. In the Islamic tradition, however, intentions take precedence over action. God, it is often emphasized, judges people according to intentions not according to what they do. People who attempt to do a good deed with good intentions will be rewarded even if they fail.
The company was aware that such emphasis on intentions could be used by company’s internal stakeholders as an alibi for lack of business accomplishment. That is why the text notes that business success is a natural consequence of good intentions. Good intentions lead to a moral engagement with different stakeholders. In all of this textual presentation, the company was framing expected employee behaviors in ways that provoke a positive personal response (Boxenbaum, 2006). Invoking the religious imperatives is a powerful framing mechanism that is more likely to be met with employee and managerial support.
The company emphasized that it was not a charity; making money is integral to what it does. Here the company made a link to another religious term, amanah which means honesty, integrity, or trusteeship. Religion, it was asserted, requires company managers, who act as agents, to be truthful to those who entrusted them with their monies. So it becomes a religious duty to be truthful to those who want to make profits out of their investments. Business efficiency becomes a duty as it safeguards the interests of an important stakeholder, the investors. Thus, the first pillar of the stakeholder approach was built.
The company used another religious term, taqwa, which is an attribute belonging to persons who are conscious of God’s presence and refrain from committing evil deeds. This word is typically used to reflect a personal relationship with God. The company extended this usage and, interestingly, argued that observing one’s relationship with God cannot be separated from observing relationships with other parties including customers, suppliers, and the general public. The company asserted that part of fulfilling one’s duty towards God is fulfilling duties to those stakeholders. The company emphasized that this entails being truthful in advertisement, being fair in contracts, and being candid in relations to the community at large.
The third important party in the company, employees, was addressed through invoking the concept of birr which the company translated as “caring justice”. Again this is an interesting translation as the word, especially in the religious understanding, means efforts to expand one’s acts of righteousness. The word is also used to mean benevolence to parents and accordingly it means “care” and “kindness”. The only reason, in our estimation, as to why the company would invoke the word “justice” in the translation is that it clearly indicates that care to employees has to be done within an environment of justice in line with a stakeholder perspective. The company acknowledges that the basic trait of birr is “care and concern for people”, yet it stresses
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that in a business environment it has to be done within the boundaries of “fair play and justice”.
In the translation process of the above terms, especially taqwa and birr, the company has been able in a clever way to adjust those terms slightly, in order to fit a business objective. The translations were not a manipulation of the religious terms, but rather a novel application of their usage to the business realm. Such an extension, while unusual, is a clever way of inculcating the authority of the religious text in the legitimation process. This is an example of the authority legitimation by custom outlined by Van Leeuwen (2007) which included conformity and tradition.
The fourth term used by the company in advancing the stakeholder approach was the concept of Mujahadah which the company translated as personal control. This refers to the effort a person exerts in order to lead a balanced life. The company argued that this is the toughest of all the ethical imperatives to exercise; it involves a personal struggle to bring about the amanah, taqwa, and birr in a seamless manner. No one can successfully execute the first three attributes without mujahadah acting as a harmonizing mechanism. It balances among competing tensions that may arise due to the conflicting demands of different relevant parties.
Discussion The Salam case shows the impact of religious discourse in institutional change. It presents how a company was able to transform a Western managerial perspective into concepts that were embraced by the internal participants. The company was able to steer successfully through a course where cultural understandings posed significant hurdles at the outset. The company was able to lead change through developing a discourse that is coherent and not highly contested by alternative discourses (Phillips et al., 2004). It disseminated a lucid message built on affinity with religious discourse that is – by definition – not severely contested in the context in which it operates. The company was able to propagate a vision for divergent change (Battilana et al., 2009) using persuasive religious language, or rhetorical strategy (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2005), to diffuse the new institutional logic.
Salam Company initiated a process to implement the stakeholder approach which was diffused successfully into the organization. The initial cultural affiliation to family and tribes put an obstacle to a consideration to multiple stakeholders. The company had to go through a deep religious discourse in its corporate documents to create a rhetoric that is convincing to its employees and other constituencies. In doing so, and in a manner that is perhaps not found in many other parts of the world, the company had to invoke the religious argument clearly in its corporate lingo. In developing legitimacy for its stakeholder approach, the company used local grounding (Boxenbaum, 2006) or local validation ( Johnson et al., 2006) leading to moral validation (Suchman, 1995). Company leaders, convinced that the stakeholder perspective approach is the way to go in their organization, worked on linking those initiatives to values that resonate well in the local culture. The company’s use of the religious terminology and references to religious texts in its persuasion process was deemed necessary in that context. The role of language does not pertain to it being a mere tool to implement change, but also plays a role in identity construction and the advancement of relevant discourse within a specific context (Thurlow and Mills, 2009).
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The company thus introduced and integrated western practices into a conservative Middle-Eastern setting. We argue that the company was successful in adopting these concepts because it used local vocabulary and sensemaking mechanisms that are unique to the environment it found itself in. While the Salam Company is still expanding and developing new markets, a closer future look at the organization should help in unraveling the success of these values as the company moves beyond the Islamic countries into non-Muslim majority countries.
Conclusion and implications The Salam case has underlying implications regarding the ethical appropriateness of management’s actions. Some would perceive such managerial initiatives as imposing a certain type of religious worldview on employees thus robbing them of their individuality. Indeed, earlier research has addressed the varying levels of control that organizations tend to enforce in their approaches to spirituality. Ashforth and Pratt (2010) identified three such approaches. The first is enabling, which involves organizations that facilitate high individual control. They acknowledge and facilitate spiritual endeavors, but do not enforce a specific spiritual perspective on the individual. On the other extreme is directing, which represents high organizational control. This refers to companies which have strong cultures with a degree of imposition of a specific spiritual worldview. In the middle, there is partnering, which involves a space of shared individual and organizational control. In this case, spirituality is “socially constructed” and the individually and the organization grow together or “co-evolve”. The authors assert that there is no single approach that is better across the board; all have advantages and disadvantages. In addition, certain classes of individuals may be attracted more to one form over the other, given their own backgrounds and worldviews. Salam company seems to have used the directing approach which has the benefit of elevating commitment, spiritual fulfillment of like-minded organizational members, workplace identity, and a sense of augmented organizational citizenship behaviors (Pratt, 2000). The problems associated with such an approach include pressures on people to conform, especially those people who do not share the same worldview. This could pose problems for companies like Salam which are working in new contexts outside their home countries. This is in addition to the possibility that such standpoints could lead to limited diversity and myopic postures (Ashforth and Vaidyanath, 2002). This risk of extreme corporate culturalism can potentially promote authoritarianism and indoctrination (Willmott, 1993). If not managed well, this top-down approach to organizational spirituality could have severe negative implications on employees’ freedom and on organizational diversity and ability to adapt in the future.
The Salam case points to a number of observations concerning the role of discursive processes in organizational change. There is a need not only to link discourse to change but also it is important to highlight what types of discourse lead to change. It has been shown that religious discourse in this specific context was successfully utilized in instituting new practices and understandings. Moreover, it has also been shown that religious discourse, in the company under study, aided in the legitimation process of the stakeholder approach. This contributes to the literature by showing the role of religious discursive processes in organizational change, a thing that has been, as
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explained earlier, largely understudied. The case as presented offers interesting answers to our earlier research questions. Organizational change can be realized through the concerned company having a vision for change supported by a rhetoric that is consistent and relevant to the people involved through their ability to find support for it in other discourses (religious texts in this case). A new foreign management technique can be more harmoniously introduced when it is framed in an organizational discourse that is sensitive to other dearly valued discourses, which were religious in the case of the company under study. An idea, a stakeholder perspective in this case, is objectified through repetitive and consistent use. Translation is key to organizational change (Czarniawska and Sevón, 1996), and in the case that we presented, the process of sensemaking and legitimation were the vehicles that facilitated “translation” in this specific context.
The Salam case leads to several implications for practitioners and researchers. Organizational audiences are more likely to embrace initiatives that are closer to their “mental programming”. Importing Western managerial practices into an Eastern society has to be done in a careful well-thought of manner so as not to be perceived as a foreign imposition on local value systems. This study provides an example as to how change agents can engage people within their organizations in the change process through a systematic process of sensemaking and moral legitimation. While this change process, grounded in religious discourse, cannot be assumed to work across contexts, it would be interesting for future research to uncover what contextual or cultural dimensions facilitate or impede such an approach. This would require several case studies, some comparative within and across contexts, to reveal the dimensions of success or failures of those change initiatives. Future researchers could also attempt to uncover how alternative discourses – both religious and secular – operate in similar and dissimilar contexts.
This study is not without limitations. As in all case studies, the Salam company success experience cannot be generalized across situations as it is hard to duplicate the exact internal and external contexts of the organization. In addition, relevance of religious discourse is not likely to be the same for all companies, not only across cultures, but within the same culture as well. Organizational actors who chose this course of action and that type of discourse were not only motivated by pragmatic firm interest, but they may have also been motivated by personal ideological philosophies that facilitated such an initiative. It is not necessary the case that managers who have different personal philosophies would enjoy the same level of success. Nevertheless, this case offers a rare insight into the use of religious language at the firm level. This is, to our knowledge, the first endeavor that attempts to present a case of successful change based on such discourse in this region. Looking at the discursive tools and legitimation practices used by the company could help similar companies, especially in this region, to successfully embark on new initiatives. This emphasizes how a certain type of thinking that has proven to work in foreign settings could be imported efficaciously when done with proper framing and linkages to local indigenous discourses. This could be accomplished, as shown in this case, through the advancement of a coherent discourse that is consistent, credible at source among the relevant stakeholders, and in line with other valued texts and discourses.
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Notes
1. Institutional entrepreneurs are actors who leverage resources to create new or transform existing institutions (Battilana et al., 2009, p. 68).
2. We acknowledge that recent Arab Spring movements have showed a young generation that is less attached to many traditional values. The extent to which such new values will be adopted by the whole society is yet to be seen.
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About the authors Yusuf Sidani is Associate Professor of Leadership and Business Ethics at the Suliman S. Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut (AUB). His research interests include work values, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and cross-cultural management behavior. His works appeared in several prestigious journals including Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics, and International Journal of Human Resource Management. He has co-authored Management; Arab World Edition (Prentice Hall, 2011) and CSR in the Middle East (Co-editor, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) in addition to numerous book chapters. His consulting and training experience has included various institutions in management, strategy, fraud prevention, leadership, and related topics. Yusuf Sidani is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: yusuf.sidani@aub.edu.lb
Sammy Showail is Assistant Professor at the Craig School of Business, Missouri Western State University. Dr Sammy Showail has a Multi-functional background, where he has experiences in academe, architecture, contracts administration, management, and negotiations. He started his career at a Saudi Arabian government agency in 1992 and later joined the private sector. He was a consultant to the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources where he was a member of the negotiation team representing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He also advises businesses in Saudi Arabia on organizational issues. Dr Showail has several publications and conference presentations about contemporary management issues. He holds a PhD in Management, specializing in Organizational Behavior and Strategic Planning, and several master degrees in management and construction management. His areas of research are negotiations and he has developed an interest in Business Ethics and is currently developing case studies about the ethical values of Saudi Arabian companies. Dr Showail travels extensively across the world and currently resides in the US, after being in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria.
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