Rasim Serdar Kurdoglu

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.