Deny or accommodate? - Discursive response strategies of gaming companies facing institutional complexity on Reddit
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
Authors
Date
2019
Department
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
Corporate Communication
Language
en
Pages
77
Series
Abstract
This study aims to develop our understanding of organizational responses to institutional complexity, which is caused by the conflicting demands of different stakeholders. The context for this study is gaming companies acting in Reddit amongst their customers. The study has two objectives: (1) Identify how gaming companies manage and respond to the institutional complexity caused by conflicting demands. (2) Recognize how gaming companies choose discursive response strategies when facing different demands from different stakeholders? The result of this study is new information for the gaming industry on the use of response strategies and its significance. This thesis was conducted as a qualitative study. The empirical data of this research consists of four discussions from social media Reddit, where gaming companies responded to customers in situations where the actions of the company were criticized, and their legitimacy was threatened. The data also includes texts from company websites, which were used to research the core values of the companies. The values were then compared to the actions of the companies in communication situations. Texts and the interactions between them were analyzed through critical discourse analysis (CDA). Through the analysis, this study addresses the means and discursive response strategies that gaming companies use when they face institutional complexity. The theoretical framework is based on previous findings and literature on different organizational response strategies, legitimacy, trust, and credibility. The theoretical framework was also bound together through some theory of issue management and corporate social responsibility. The study recognizes two distinct types of situations where companies face institutional complexity. In the first type, the policies of the company, such as pricing and censorship, were criticized. Companies responded to these cases at first by denial and dismissal. Later the companies had to turn to accommodation strategy as the customers stayed critical. In the second type, the company got criticized because of employee action. In this type of situation, the most used and the most efficient strategy was putting all the responsibility to the employee and then removing said employee from the company. The significance of choosing the correct strategy on Reddit is debatable because no clear link between the chosen response strategies and sales figures was found. The study reveals the connection between institutional complexity and the use of organizational response strategies in the context of the gaming industry by revealing that gaming companies primarily aim to please investors. However, they have to respond to the customers as well in order to put an end to the controversy. Every case in this study ended with the companies using response strategies that were primarily accommodating.Description
Thesis advisor
Moisander, JohannaKeywords
institutional complexity, response strategy, gaming industry, Reddit, legitimacy