Leadership Discourse at Work Interactions of Humour, Gender and Workplace Culture

by Schnurr, Stephanie

• ISBN13: 9780230201804
• ISBN10: 0230201806
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780230594692
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-02-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

Employing a discourse analytical approach, this book focuses on the under-researched strategy of humor to illustrate how discursive performances of leadership are influenced by gender and workplace culture. Far from being a superfluous strategy that distracts from business, humor performs a myriad of important functions in the workplace context.

Author Biography

STEPHANIE SCHNURR is Assistant Professor at the School of English at the University of Hong Kong. Her main research interest is the sociolinguistic and discursive performance of leadership and gender at work, and in particular the multiple functions and strategic uses of humor in workplace discourse.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. ix
List of Figures	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Transcription Conventions	p. xii
Introduction	p. 1
Leadership Humour	p. 1
Researching leadership discourse at work	p. 5
Collecting data in the workplace	p. 11
Introducing the participating leaders and their workplaces	p. 14
Outline of the content of the book	p. 23
Transactional Aspects of Leadership Discourse: Humour and Getting Things Done	p. 26
Transactional leadership behaviours	p. 27
Getting things done	p. 28
The impact of leadership roles: Humour and giving feedback	p. 33
Summary: Humour and transactionally oriented leadership discourse	p. 41
The 'Other' Side of Leadership Discourse: Humour and the Performance of Relational Leadership Activities	p. 42
Relational aspects of leadership discourse	p. 43
Reinforcing solidarity and creating a sense of belonging	p. 44
Minimising status differences	p. 49
The 'dark' side of humour	p. 55
Summary: Relational aspects of leadership discourse	p. 59
Doing Leadership in Context: The Impact of Working Groups	p. 61
The impact of working groups: Different teasing styles	p. 63
Constructing leader identities through a 'biting' teasing style	p. 64
Constructing leader identities through a 'nipping' teasing style	p. 68
Constructing leader identities through a 'bonding' teasing style	p. 72
Doing leadership differently: Teasing styles and discursive repertoires	p. 75
Leadership, Humour and Workplace Culture	p. 79
Defining workplace culture	p. 80
Workplace culture and leadership	p. 81
Bringing aspects of workplace culture to the forefront	p. 82
Enacting organisational values	p. 86
Humour as a means to enact aspects of workplace culture	p. 96
Summary: Leadership, humour and workplace culture	p. 102
Balancing Leader and Gender Identities	p. 104
Drawing on gendered speech styles	p. 105
'Doing masculinity'	p. 108
'Doing femininity'	p. 115
Gender, workplace culture and communities of practice	p. 121
Bringing gender to the forefront	p. 123
Summary: Leadership discourse and gender	p. 128
Conclusion	p. 130
Transactional and relational aspects of leadership discourse	p. 131
Leadership discourse in context: The impact of working groups and workplace culture	p. 132
Leadership discourse and gender	p. 133
Discourse analytical approaches to leadership and other organisational phenomena	p. 134
A note on humour	p. 135
Leadership discourse - where next?	p. 136
Notes
References
Index
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