This dissertation is a qualitative discourse analysis study. The study seeks to understand roles of organizational discourse and management discourse in stimulating strategic organizational change, and facilitating organizational culture dynamics and identity development. Specifically, this study examines how The Haier Group Company has constructed, disseminated and entrenched its corporate public discourse (CPD) as a symbolic and rhetorical means for stimulating organizational change in the context of global challenges. Theoretical positions guiding this study are: globalization, the nexus of the global and local, glocalization, transculturation and hybridity, as well as organizational communication, organizational discourse study, organizational discourse analysis, and corporate public discourse. Methodologically, to better reveal the impact of globalization on organizational communication in a primarily non-Western context, this study adopts an interpretive-oriented approach, and adds a critical element from the language- ideology-power perspective. The data for this study is composed of a multiplicity of corporate public discourses (including print, online, audio-visual forms of texts, and artifacts) primarily produced by Haier between 1984 and 2004. In analyzing Haier's main CPD, this study examines how Haier has strategically constructed, disseminated, and entrenched the organization's culture, ideology, identity, and brand building. It also analyzes and demonstrates how Haier has, discursively and strategically, cultivated an organizational environment that fostered strategic organizational change. As the data set is diverse and large, the textual analysis and discussion depends on a combined use of organizational rhetorical analysis and storytelling analysis. To conclude, broadly, this study of Haier's corporate public discourse demonstrates China's current position within the historical phenomenon of globalization. More specifically, it shows that through constructing and communicating a specific organizational discourse about globalization and Haier's place in it, the Haier CEO and management is creating a reality that is challenging the dominant West- and U.S.-centric interpretations of globalization. This discourse challenges the notion that globalization is a new phenomenon, and that certain established and powerful global economic players will forever remain in positions of dominance. It frames globalization as a fluid phenomenon involving cultural fusion. This study is significant in at least two aspects. First, it demonstrates the impact of global mobility and interconnectivity upon a non-Western business corporation's communication strategies thereby adding to the scant numbers of empirical studies on this topic. Also, it differs from the extant studies on Haier, which are primarily case studies conducted by MBA scholars and practitioners of business and management, and provided an intercultural and organizational communication perspective. Second, this study demonstrates the utility of specific globalization concepts such as the global-local dialectic, glocalization, as well as some international/intercultural concepts such as transculturation and hybridity in studying organizational communication in a transnational context. One contribution of this study is its "insider" Chinese view of how Confucianism has shaped organizational communication practices in P. R. China. Another contribution is the "insider-outsider" perspective adopted in examining Haier's strategic communication about organizational change in an age of globalization. This `straddling' position is helpful in achieving an interpretive understanding of the impact of globalization upon organizational communication as it is situated in a mainly non-Western context.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-10-07T15:38:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MARIA DE FÁTIMA RIBEIRO DOS SANTOS_.pdf: 484314 bytes, checksum: dab0fbe05c25cb2977a334ac4054cfeb (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-10-07T15:38:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MARIA DE FÁTIMA RIBEIRO DOS SANTOS_.pdf: 484314 bytes, checksum: dab0fbe05c25cb2977a334ac4054cfeb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-19 / UEMA - Universidade Estadual do Maranhão / A Introdução, como parte inicial de um trabalho acadêmico, indica aos leitores informações prévias para o estudo relatado no trabalho. Sua finalidade é a formulação clara e simples do tema da pesquisa. Devido às restritas pesquisas com o gênero TCC, em especial sobre a seção Introdução, e por ser considerado um dos componentes obrigatórios na redação de qualquer texto acadêmico, resolve-se trabalhar com esse importante segmento. Tem-se como objetivo geral analisar a organização composicional da seção Introdução dos TCC de 2012 do Curso de Pedagogia da UEMA a fim de verificar se os segmentos previstos para o plano de texto do gênero TCC ocorreram e se houve ligação entre as unidades textuais. Especificamente, procurou-se identificar as unidades do plano do texto que compõem a Introdução dos trabalhos analisados, considerando as unidades arroladas por Feltrim, Aluísio e Nunes (2000); examinar o papel dos organizadores textuais e dos conectores argumentativos na marcação de segmentação das etapas do plano de texto assim como de conexão entre as diferentes partes; explicitar o papel da continuidade referencial como marca de continuidade temática. A teoria adotada foi a Análise Textual dos Discursos (ADAM, 2011), principalmente no que se refere ao plano de texto, construção de referência e conectores argumentativos. Estabelecem-se relações com Conte (2013), Koch (2011), Mondada e Dubois (2013) entre outros. Os procedimentos metodológicos deram-se mediante abordagem qualitativa, pesquisa exploratória, descritiva, bibliográfica e documental. O corpus da análise qualitativa foi constituído de cinco Introduções, retiradas do conjunto dos TCC investigados. Partiu-se de 36 Introduções cujas composições textuais revelaram-se representativas do fenômeno investigado. Os resultados mostraram que as Introduções (a maioria) apresentam estrutura composicional/sequência e plano de texto compatíveis com os estágios obrigatórios e opcionais previstos por Feltrim, Aluísio e Nunes (2000), obedecendo a uma estrutura convencional. As operações linguístico-discursivas deram o necessário suporte à construção de unidades semânticas no processo de textualização, embora se tenham identificado lacunas (ausências, descontinuidades), indicativas da inexperiência linguístico-textual dos produtores, correlato também com algumas dificuldades quanto ao domínio das diretrizes recomendadas para a construção do texto científico, ocorrências que não chegam a comprometer a dimensão de sentido dos textos, tampouco comprometem a manutenção dos blocos e segmentos temáticos responsáveis pela realização do plano de texto e da consequente garantia de sua comunicabilidade. / Introduction section as an initial part of a TCC (Course Final Assignment) indicates to its reader’s previous information to this study paper. Its aim is a clear and simple formulation of the theme of this research. Due to the restrict studies about TCC (Course Final Assignment), in special about the Introduction section, which is considered one of the compulsory components of an essay in any academic text, it was decided to work on this important section. It is aimed to analyze the compositional organization of the Introduction section in the TCC (Course Final Assignment) from the year 2012 of the Pedagogy Course in UEMA (State University of Maranhão) to verify if the expected segments to the text planning in a TCC (Course Final Assignment) gender have occurred and if there was a link among the textual units. As specific objectives, it was identified the units of the text planning that compose the Introduction section of the TCC (Course Final Assignment) analyzed, considering the units mentioned by Feltrim, Aluísio and Nunes (2000); to examine the role of textual organizations and the role of argumentative connectors as a mark on the segmentation of the stages of the text planning as well as the connection among different parts of the text; to explicit the role of a referential continuity as a mark to a theme continuity. The theory adopted was Discourse Textual Analysis, Adam (2011), mainly about text plan, development of references and argument, ative connectors. It was established relations among, Conte (2013), Koch (2011), Mondada e Dubois (2013) and others. The methodological procedures were done by qualitative approach, exploratory, descriptive and bibliographic research. The corpus of the qualitative analysis was built based on five Introduction sections taken from TCC (Course Final Assignment) investigated. It was started from 36 Introduction sections from which the textual compositions were representative marks of the investigated phenomenon. The results presents a majority number of Introduction sections has shown compositional sequence and compatible text planning to the compulsories and optional stages expected from Feltrin, Aluisio and Nunes (2000),obeying to a conventional structure. Linguistics and discursive operations were a necessary support to the construction of semantic units in the process of a text planning, even though, some gaps were identified (absences, discontinuity), presence of linguistic and textual inexperience of the writers, also connected to some difficulties on recommended directrix to write a scientific text, some occurrences that has not affected the meaningfulness of the text, neither the maintenance of blocks and theme segments responsible for the text planning and for the guarantee of its communicability.