Policing language in the world of new work: the commodification of workplace communication in organizational consulting

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines how the shift to knowledge and innovation economy has created new sites for the commodification of language and communication in the context of organizational consulting. The data come from a consultant-led development and training program of the management teams of a Finnish educational organization. In the study, the year-long training was videotaped (45 h) and followed ethnographically. By using rhetorical discourse analysis as a method, we examine how the consultant-led training activities present the role of language and communication in changing working life. The results show how the activities factualize the transformation of work and the centrality of language in this transformation. They conceptualize language and communication as key elements of professional competence and resources for organizational improvement. Moreover, they construct causal relations between organizational success and the ability to assess and modify one’s own communicative behavior. With its focus on language awareness and contextual variation the training differs from settings examined in previous studies where the mechanisms of commodification are based on standardization practices. In conclusion, we reflect the training programs both as indicators and vehicles for social change and discuss how they act as spaces where the new worlds of work are discursively construed.