The main discourses.
Order Description
Assessment Information
This assignment is designed to assess learning outcome 3 and accounts for 30% of the overall module
mark.
This assignment is an individual assignment.
This assignment requires you to write an original essay answering the following question/s:
Consider the ten-page extract on Moodle taken from Finlay’s Strategic Management text (pp. 135-
145).
a) Identify the main discourses (taken-for-granted’s) in the text;
b) discuss alternative ways that the information might have been presented i.e. alternative
discourses
c) how might these alternatives change your understanding?
Notes Discourses (as we are using the term here) are ideas that the author presents as taken-for-
granted truth(s) and therefore does not fully explain to the reader. Burr’s (1995, 2003) discussion
of foxhunting discourses is particularly useful in understanding the term and the online book and
additional notes within the module web should help you to get your plan started (particular
reference to lectures 2 and 3, seminar 2, and chapters 4 and 8 of Burr). A basic understanding of
discourses is very useful in helping us to appreciate the nature of individual truth(s). As
business people and managers this can heighten our awareness of the world that other people
inhabit, heighten our sensitivity to others, and potentially reduce the likelihood of being
involved in unnecessary conflict.