Faculty of Business Admin

Based on the argumentation theory of new rhetoric, this paper offers an analytical framework to facilitate empirical investigations on how managers in organizations handle unfairness claims. The proposed framework advocates a rhetorical approach that seeks to understand whether managers absolve themselves of unfairness accusations by pseudo- legitimations. Pseudo-legitimation is defined as an attempt to legitimate an action without any genuine reasoning. While the precision of formal deductive reasoning tends not to apply to moral disputes, rhetoric enables rational argumentation and the use of practical reasoning to achieve resolution. Therefore, if managerial judgments are genuine products of reasoning, managers’ use of rhetoric to legitimate their actions should be respected in acknowledging value plurality within their boundaries of authority. By contrast, managerial legitimations that are based on irrational grounds should be disrespected, as they can lead to arbitrariness and abuse of power. Institutional dynamics may either permit or inhibit such uses of irrationality. Thus, the proposed framework should be considered alongside the perspective of rhetorical institutionalism

In this blog, Dr Rasim Serdar Kurdoglu, who recently defended his doctoral thesis, discusses his research on establishing the truthfulness of ‘managerial legitimacy’ arguments, and how to adjudicate in controversial cases of employees’ claims of unfairness.

https://staffblogs.le.ac.uk/management/2018/09/27/disagreeing-on-what-is-fair-in-the-workplace-and-what-we-can-do-about/?platform=hootsuite

Price and country of origin information are two of the extrinsic cues which consumers can practically utilise to have inferences about the quality of a product (Miyazaki, Grewal and Goodstein, 2005). The relative weight of country of origin and pricing effects is of concern of this paper. It was hypothesised that pricing is a more salient quality signalling cue than country of origin for low and medium technology products while country of origin is more salient than pricing for high technology products. A questionnaire was designed to measure how consumers rate the quality of chocolate, leather shoes, washing machine and private jet by relying on country of origin and pricing cues. A convenience sample of 60 British and 60 Turkish respondents answered the questionnaire. The results fail to provide evidence for the hypothesis that relative salience of pricing and country origin change on the basis of technological level of the product. It was also found that Turkish consumers rely on country of origin cues more than British consumers.

The impact of globalization on the consumption patterns of the Less Affluent World are examined, drawing on examples of consumer culture contact with the More Affluent World. We find that rising consumer expectations and desires are fueled by global mass media, tourism, immigration, the export of popular culture, and the marketing activities of transnational firms. Yet rather than democratized consumption, these global consumption influences are more apt to produce social inequality, class polarizations, consumer frustrations, stress, materialism, and threats to health and the environment. Alternative reactions that reject globalization or temper its effects include return to roots, resistance, local appropriation of goods and their meanings, and especially creolization. Although there is a power imbalance that favors the greater influence of affluent Western cultures, the processes of change are not unidirectional and the consequences are not simple adoption of new Western values. Local consumptionscapes become a nexus of numerous, often contradictory, old, new and modified forces that shape unique consumption meanings and insure that the consumption patterns of the Less Affluent World will not result in Western consumer culture writ globally. Der Beitrag behandelt die Auswirkungen der Globalisierung auf die Konsummuster von weniger entwickelten Gesellschaften und bezieht sich auf beispielhafte Berührungen ihrer Konsumkultur mit Wohlstandsgesellschaften. Er zeigt, daß eine Wirkungskombination aus weltweit agierenden Massenmedien, aus Tourismus und Einwanderung, aus dem Export von Alltagskultur und aus grenzüberschreitenden Marketingaktivitäten zu zunehmenden Erwartungen und Wünschen der Verbraucher führt. Anstelle eines demokratisierten Konsums bewirken diese globalen Konsumeinflüsse jedoch eher soziale Ungleichheit, gesellschaftliche Polarisation, Verbraucherfrustration, Stress, Materialismus und Gefahren für Gesundheit und Umwelt. Als alternative Reaktionen, die eine Globalisierung ablehnen oder ihre Auswirkungen abmildern wollen, kennzeichnet der Beitrag die Rückkehr zu den regionalen Wurzeln, den Widerstand der Verbraucher, die lokale Anpassung von Allerweltsgütern und Veränderung ihrer subjektiven Bedeutungen, sowie vor allem eine “Kreolisierung” im Sinne einer eigenständingen Vermischung und Verschmelzung von Bedeutungsgehalten der unterschiedlichsten Herkunft. Wenn es auch ein Machtungleichgewicht zugunsten eines größeren westlichen kulturellen Einflusses gibt, so gehen die Veränderungsprozesse dennoch nicht einseitig in eine Richtung und das Ergebnis besteht nicht einfach in der Übernahme neuer westlicher Werte. Regionale Konsumpanoramen ergeben sich als Verknüpfung zahlreicher, oft widersprüchlicher, alter, neuer und modifizierter Kräfte, die eigenständige Konsumbedeutungen schaffen und gewährleisten, daß die Konsummuster der weniger entwickelten Welt nicht generell einem westlichen Kulturdiktat unterworfen werden.