The behavior of organizations is informed by multiple, and sometimes conflicting, pressures from employees, shareholders, clients, regulators, and others. In an article written with Delfina Gomes (University of Minho), Lídia Oliveira (University of Minho), Ana Caria (University of Minho) and Lee Parker (RMIT University, Melbourne), Adelaide Martins (ORGMAN) studies the role of firms’ discursive practices in their strategic response to those pressures.
She offers a qualitative case study of Energias de Portugal (EDP), a major player in the socially relevant and sensitive electricity sector that has been mired in controversy. For Adelaide, EDP is a promising case to investigate the use of discursive practices to foster organizational legitimacy, especially in less-than-friendly environments.
To do this, the authors collected and analyzed thirty-one media interviews or statements by EDP’s CEO during the period of analysis, António Mexia, reports by various regulators and stakeholders, EDP’s annual reports, and the outputs of media outlets.
They found that "EDP strategically resisted institutional pressures as it negotiated among competing forces of institutional control, delaying partial compliance to coercive pressures." According to the authors, the discursive responses made by its CEO against accusations were key. They offered denials associated with avoidance, defiance, and manipulation strategies, especially "as a response to the accusations that EDP was responsible for the increase in electricity bills, and that it enjoys excessive rents"
As research like Adelaide's shows, firms use media and communication to foster their strategic goals, including legitimizing profit-seeking activities. Also, her research illustrates how propositions are strategically asserted by firms' representatives in general communications that yet contradict what is found in official reports and accounting. As she shows, the evidence suggests that EDP's CEO produced "a discourse denying the existence of excessive rents, but financial reports showed otherwise."
