The methodological pathway through the semiotic analysis of discourse to research organizational identity

Abstract

This article proposes a methodological pathway based on a semiotic analysis of organizational discourses, inspired by Greimas, to carry out research on organizational identity (OI). The primacy of this approach consists of its potential to deepen the understanding of defining characteristics of the seminal concept of OI, firstly introduced by Albert and Whetten (1985). There is a small body of Brazilian and foreign research that adopt the perspective of discursive text semiotic. In Brazil, the studies on OI predominantly employ some analysis techniques, such as: discourse analysis through the French or critical approach, content analysis, and other ones generically named as interpretative analysis of textual data. Such analysis has methodological limitations to apprehend the concept of OI. As a theoretical contribution, the semiotic analysis of discourse, as proposed in this article, allows advancing to understand the concept of OI, by analyzing binary relationships of opposition, contradiction, and complementarity, provided by the semiotic square.