Forms of Talk-Action-Inconsistency: Introducing Reverse Coupling

Challenging Consistency

Analytically, we distinguish three established approaches that challenge the idea of consistency between managerial talk and action with different emphases on talk, action, and coupling.

Drawing on theories from social psychology, management scholars have challenged the implied prescriptive clarity of managerial talk and instead emphasize its interpretive flexibility (Eisenberg, 2007; Weick, 1979). Flexibility is reflected both in ambiguous managerial talk that allows for adaption in subsequent organizational actions (Eisenberg, 2007) and in managerial talk that does not precede, but rather follows actions in terms of retrospective sensemaking and authorization (Weick, 1979). Both views reject the idea of linear causality and strict coupling between talk and action and emphasize a more indirect causality in terms of a “loose coupling” (Orton & Weick, 1990).

Neo-institutional scholars follow a different emphasis on talk-action-inconsistency. They assume growing incompatibility between external legitimation claims and internal functional demands in contemporary organizations (Brunsson, 2003; March & Olsen, 1984). Furthermore, they argue that managerial talk is increasingly focused on coping with external legitimacy claims, while subsequent action is often lacking, or action shows “little known relationship to intended goals” (Bromley & Powell, 2012, p. 490). Thus, inconsistency is explained in terms of “de-coupling” (Boxenbaum & Jonsson, 2008) implying that managerial talk remains either ceremonial or unachievable in practice, and thus rejects a causal relation between talk and action.

Most recently, scholars who follow the premise that communication is constitutive of organizations (CCO) have entered the debate on talk-action-inconsistency. Following speech act theory (Austin, 1962), the CCO approach challenges a rigid distinction between talk and action. Rather, it considers certain forms of managerial talk as performative. This means that an intended and authoritative articulation of managerial aspirations in official proclamations and policies has practical impact, as it exerts pressure within the organization to live up to these aspirations, even if these aspirations cannot yet be fulfilled (Christensen, Morsing, & Thyssen, 2013, 2015). This view sheds another light on inconsistency. Here, de-coupling is not framed as stable incompatibility between talk and action. Rather, it is considered as a “transitory state” by assuming an approximation and “creeping commitment” of organizational practices to prior managerial aspirations (Haack, Schoeneborn, & Wickert, 2012).

Table 1 describes the major differences between extant approaches in their respective emphases on talk, action, and inconsistency.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Established Forms of Talk-Action-Inconsistency.

Approach	Understanding of talk	Understanding of action	Understanding of inconsistency
Social-psychological	Flexible and ambiguous	Adaptive or antecedent	Loose coupling (indirect causality)
Neo-institutional	Legitimation seeking	Noncorresponding or not goal oriented	De-coupling (no causality)
CCO	Aspirational and performative	Creeping commitment	De-coupling as transitory state (approximating causality)

Note. CCO = communication is constitutive of organizations.

Reverse Coupling

The presented systematic comparison not only contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of established forms of inconsistency but also allows for the discovery of new forms. Thus, building on established concepts, we introduce the idea of reverse coupling.

Following the CCO approach, we propose an understanding of managerial talk as aspirational and performative. However, we challenge the idea of eventual creeping commitment, particularly in the case of highly ambitious managerial aspirations that overstrain current organizational practices. Still, this inconsistency does not necessarily result in de-coupling, which assumes no causal relation between talk and action. Rather, we propose a reverse causality between talk and action, whereby organizational actions counteract managerial talk.

This idea of reverse coupling is not entirely new. In fact, Brunsson (2007) discusses it in his seminal work on organizational hypocrisy as a form of coupling where

[t]alk and decisions in one direction compensate for actions in the opposite direction and vice versa. [ . . . ] In the model of hypocrisy talk, decisions, and actions are still causally related, but the causality is reverse [ . . . ]. The model of hypocrisy implies that talk, decisions, and actions are “coupled” rather than “de-coupled” or “loosely coupled,” but they are coupled in a way other than usually assumed. (pp. 115-116, emphasis in original)

Brunsson, however, mainly discusses reverse coupling in terms of hypocritical managerial talk that contradicts organizational actions. We, in turn, focus on organizational actions that counteract aspirations articulated in managerial talk. In both cases, we can assume a compensatory relation between talk and action. In Brunsson’s case, it is hypocritical managerial talk that compensates for illegitimate organizational practices. In our case, it is organizational practices that compensate for ambitious managerial aspirations. Finally, we can assume an immediate, but reverse causality between talk and action. In Brunsson’s case, chances for hypocritical managerial talk increase the more practices deviate from external expectations. In our case, we assume that chances for practices to counteract managerial talk increase the more ambitious the aspirations articulated in managerial talk.

While this idea may seem counterintuitive at first, we see growing evidence for reverse coupling in contemporary organizations that try to find managerial response to an increasing number of flexibly changing and partly competing external demands (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micelotta, & Lounsbury, 2011). In the following, we sketch three prominent examples to illustrate the process and the underlying mechanisms of reverse coupling.

One central topic of current managerial talk is to increase organizational transparency in response to increasing external demands for insight, accountability, and participation (Schnackenberg & Tomlinson, 2016). This ubiquitous managerial aspiration of transparency, however, leads to new forms of opacity (Christensen & Cheney, 2015). Opacity is mainly created through informal organizational practices, which emerge to meet organizational demands that are hindered by too much transparency. Prominent examples are collusive behavior and “pre-meetings” to negotiate decisions before official assemblies (Fenster, 2006) or informal strategies of “bounded voice” that limit and streamline open speech and disclosure to selective contexts (Dempsey, 2007).

Another prominent topic in contemporary managerial talk concerns a comprehensive inclusion of different and partly competing external demands. One recent example for such “hybrid organizations” is the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship that aspires an inclusion of social welfare and commercial demands at the same time (Battilana & Dorado, 2010). However, the managerial aspirational talk of comprehensive inclusion of different demands appears to be hard to achieve in everyday organizational practices. Rather than inclusion, managerial aspirations result in highly selective practices that only respond to a few—preferably the most visible—demands, while fading out all others (Pache & Santos, 2013).

A third example of reverse coupling is the topic of decentralization that is prominent in recent managerial talk. Managers increasingly encourage more autonomy in local teams to find flexible and reliable solutions to various and ever-changing external demands (Castelló, Etter, & Årup Nielsen, 2016). However, such new forms of “heterarchical organization” do not necessarily foster the managerially aspired local autonomy in decision making. Rather, they can nourish constant dissonance and power negotiations between locally established practices on how to concretely handle respective demands (Aime, Humphrey, DeRue, & Paul, 2014; Stark, 2009). This means, instead of aspired local autonomy, managerial talk triggers constant comparison and competition, and thus co-dependency between local practices.

These examples illustrate reverse coupling as a form of organizational inconsistency, whereby actions counteract and compensate for highly ambitious managerial talk. We suggest that practices that promote opacity may counteract managerially aspired transparency, practices of selectivity may counteract managerially aspired inclusion, and dissonant practices may counteract managerially aspired local autonomy. Reverse coupling, thus, can be distinguished from established forms of talk-action-inconsistency by acknowledging a causality between talk and action that is neither loose, inexistent, nor approximating, but reverse to what was aspired to in managerial talk.

Conclusion

This essay encourages critical management scholars to move beyond a well-established critique of consistency between managerial talk and action. In addition, it suggests putting more effort into a joint research agenda comparing different emphases and evaluations of inconsistency in current approaches. This may facilitate the exploration of new forms of inconsistency, including that of reverse coupling proposed here. Certainly, the introduced concept of reverse coupling requires further conceptual and empirical foundation, particularly with regard to the conditions and circumstances that cause it.

Nevertheless, the concept of reverse coupling and this essay more generally already point at the value of a systematic comparative view on talk-action inconsistency: First, a comparative view allows for a reevaluation of existing concepts of inconsistency, such as loose coupling, de-coupling, or de-coupling as transitory state. Second, it allows for a more inclusive understanding of how managerial talk and organizational action can possibly interact in contemporary environments driven by multiple, flexibly changing, and partly competing demands.