LANGUAGE
AS a RESOURCE IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT:
A CASE STUDY AND A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Nuno Gil,
Manchester Business School, The University
of Manchester (Nuno.Gil@mbs.ac.uk)
MBS WORKING
PAPER
(Forthcoming
in IEEE Transactions Engineering Management)
Abstract
This study
sheds light on how project managers can use language as a resource for
communicating with local communities and stakeholders alike, and protect
the legitimacy of their decisions and actions. We examine in-depth the
verbal accounts produced by a senior project management team. The accounts
address the claims raised by residents affected by the expansion of
the Heathrow airport. The context for the talk-in-interaction is one
of conflicting interests: the promoter undertakes actions to mitigate
the impacts of the construction works, but some residents feel frustrated
that the business can grow at the expenses of their welfare. The findings
reveal that managers tend to acknowledge all claims even when perceiving
they lack legitimacy. The analysis of the words and phrasing in the
conversational turns that form the accounts reveals three tones─caring,
assertive, and apologetic─which managers use intentionally to frame
linguistically the acknowledgements. We discuss how the tones fit with
the extent to which, first, managers consider that the claims are factually
correct, fair, and precise as opposed to unfair, exaggerated, or opportunistic;
and second, managers find technical or institutional references available
for constructing the accounts. We also discuss the effects of congruence─or
the lack of it─between what managers mean to say the project team
will do, what they actually say, how listeners interpret what was said,
and what the project team actually gets done.
Key
Words: language, communication, legitimacy, project stakeholder,
local communities
Our success
in delivering T5 in a way that minimises nuisance to our neighbours
is a crucial test for BAA and for the construction industry. We have
to be deadly serious about this. (T5 Programme Handbook)
Introduction
Projects are
socio-technical enterprises, and technical know-how alone is insufficient
to bring a project to successful completion. This premise makes communication
central to project management. Communication skills are a behavioral
competence that professional associations require for certified project
managers (PMI 2004, IPMA 2006). Communication has also long deserved
attention in the project management literature. Gaddis’ (1959) seminal
article exhorts project managers to invest in learning to communicate
adequately. It also notes that frankness and integrity are key features
of communication when discussing the future. Subsequent literature on
the so-called soft side of project management─which embodies Lechler’s
(1998) dictum “when it comes to project management, it’s the people
that matter”─has since then sought to flesh out seminal ideas (e.g.,
Cleland 1986, Pinto and Slevin 1987, Cooke-Davis 2002).
One
subset of this literature has focused on the communication skills necessary
to manage effectively stakeholders external to projects (Shenhar and
Wideman 1996, Wideman 1998). This literature has focused on managing
local communities, media, and other constituencies (e.g., environmentalists,
preservationists) affected by large-scale infrastructure projects. The
theory is underdeveloped, but the issues are well understood. At the
onset, project management teams need to develop a public-relations plan
about how to deal with the public and media, and to divide the communication
workload among the team members (Wideman 1985). To be effective, project
managers need to build coalitions and communication channels with the
affected groups, manage their expectations, listen to their concerns,
keep them up-to-date on project progress, attend public meetings, and
participate in community affairs (Cleland 1986, Baker 1998). They also
need to foresee and forestall emergent issues, prepare detailed responses,
and respond quickly to misleading information that circulates about
the project (Wideman 1985, Pinto and Slevin 1987).
Taken
together, these actions help project managers to make the affected groups
gain confidence and trust in the project team (Shenhard and Wideman
1996). These actions may also bring on the affected groups to see the
project as an opportunity to improve their welfare rather than a threat
to vested interests (ibid). In doing so, managers will protect institutional
legitimacy, i.e., the public perception that the actions are proper
and appropriate rather than negligent and irresponsible (Suchman 1995).
But these are challenging tasks because the public that stands to gain
from the project is not necessarily the same that the project affects
most (Wideman 1985). How project managers can use language to communicate
effectively with the affected groups, thereby protecting project legitimacy,
is the question at the heart of this study.
As
a proxy for researching this question, this empirical study examines
in-depth verbal accounts produced throughout the interaction between
a senior project management team and representatives of the local communities
affected by the construction works for a new airport terminal. Our setting
is the £4.2bn (2006 prices) Terminal 5 (T5) project at Heathrow, a
private airport owned by British Airports Authority (BAA). The analysis
departs from Elsbach’s (1994) work on how firms use accounts (which
encompass explanations, justifications, proclamations of innocence,
use of enhancements and entitlements) to protect institutional legitimacy.
Elsbach identifies two linguistic forms to frame the accounts: acknowledgements
and denials; and two types of content to construct the accounts: references
to institutional and technical practices.
Somewhat
surprisingly, the findings reveal that ‘denials’ (Elsbach 1994)
and ‘silence’ (Gordy 1993) when residents make claims are hardly
an option for the project management team. Rather, the acknowledgement
of the issues at the core of the claims emerges as an almost necessary
condition to talk people into believing that the project team is committed
to mitigate the detrimental impacts of the project. Managers appear
to acknowledge intentionally the issues even if they perceive that the
claims have low legitimacy in the sense that they may be factually incorrect,
opportunistic, or exaggerated. In light of this constraint, the findings
suggest that the tone of the acknowledgements, i.e., the attitude conveyed
through the choice of words and phrasing, becomes critical to fit the
acknowledgments to the perceived legitimacy of the claims and to the
content available for constructing the managers’ accounts. Grounded
on the analysis of the empirical findings from this case study, we propose
a conceptual framework about the strategic use of language as a resource
to manage local communities and stakeholders alike.
We
structure the remainder of this paper as follows. We first review work
in communication for protecting legitimacy in firms and projects (§2).
We then describe the research methods and setting (§3), analyse the
verbal accounts (§4), and discuss the findings (§5). Finally, we discuss
the implications to practice and theory (§6), limitations and opportunities
for future research (§7).
COMMUNICATION
AND LEGITIMACY: In FIRMS AND PROJECTS
Organizations
are eager to communicate to protect institutional legitimacy and maintain
a positive reputation in the public eye and in the eyes of the actors
that can influence their fate (Scott 1992). This is especially so for
large firms, which are more likely to be the target of institutional
actors (Dutton and Ottensmeyer 1987). These actors, such as media and
interest groups, create coercive and normative pressures for conformity
to public expectations, as well as an arena in which firms can build
legitimacy (Elsbach 1994). Firms that fail to meet expectations undermine
their institutional legitimacy, and compromise prospects of growth and
existence due to lawsuits, regulatory changes, and boycotts (Freeman
1984, Gordy 1993).
Various
studies have uncovered structures which firms create to communicate
and protect institutional legitimacy, namely work in impression management
(e.g., Elsbach 1994), issues management (e.g., Chase 1977, Dutton and
Ottensmeyer 1987, Greening and Gray 1994), public affairs (e.g., Post
et al. 1983, Gordy 1993), and corporate communication more recently
(Cornelissen 2008). The ‘boundary spanning’ role (Meznar and Nigh
1995) of these structures is twofold. On the one hand, they build bridges
to help managers understand the outside word, and learn how the firm
can adapt so as to meet or exceed regulatory requirements and conform
to expectations (Meznar and Nigh 1995). On the other hand, they work
as a buffer which managers use to insulate the firm from external interference,
or to engage in advocacy and advertising for influencing policy, regulation,
and socio-political expectations (ibid.).
One
stream of this literature focuses on the verbal accounts that these
structures produce to protect institutional legitimacy. Elsbach’s
(1994) study of the accounts produced by the California Cattle Industry
reveals two broad linguistic framings and two types of contents. Accounts
can be framed as acknowledgements or denials. A denial (‘it didn’t
happen’) attempts to separate the firm from the controversial event,
whereas the acknowledgement (‘we recognise the negative event, but’)
recognises it but tries to attenuate negative perceptions. The acknowledgements
can be more effective to induce positive reactions because they seem
less defensive and more concerned with the public needs than the denials
(Marcus and Goodman 1991). The content may include references to technical
or institutional practices. The technical references stress efficiency
and effectiveness in organizational performance, conveying rationality
and validity (Elsbach 1994). The institutional references to normative
and socially endorsed practices and goals improve the credibility and
believability of the accounts. The institutional references can be more
effective than the technical ones because they provide evidence that
the firm is acting in a responsible, legitimate manner. Conversely,
the technical references can induce perceptions of self-serving or uncaring
feelings (Elsbach 1994).
Recent
studies have started to explore how the performance of the firm is affected
by the links between the verbal accounts and its actions ex-post. Scholars
exhort firms to establish routines, make resources available, and commit
to embed in the firm shared cognitive and linguistic maps of the relevant
stakeholders (Buysse and Verbeke 2003, Roome and Wijen 2006). This approach
can lead the firm to move beyond ‘skilful public relations exercise
and rhetoric framing’ (Meyer and Rowan 1977) into engagement with
the stakeholders in the ways that are strategically desirable (Basu
and Palazzo 2008). In particular, Erhard and al. (2007)’s model defines
integrity as ‘the state or condition of being whole and complete’.
In oversimplified terms, integrity for an individual or organization
is about ‘honoring one’s word’. This involves, first, doing what
you said you would do and by the time you said you would do it; and
second, as soon as you know that you will not do it, saying that you
will not do to those who were counting on your word, and ‘clean up
any mess’ caused by not keeping the word (ibid.). Erhard et al. (2007)
argue that integrity is a factor of production that provides access
to increased performance and value-creation. But, insightfully, they
also demonstrate that the application of cost-benefit analysis to one’s
integrity can cause out-of-integrity and untrustworthy behavior.
Communication
and Project Management
Communication
has long been recognized a behavioral competence for project management
practice. Building on the experience of professionals, the PMI’s Code
of Professional Conduct acknowledges that communication styles vary
according to the personality of the project manager. Still, it highlights
a set of principles for effective communication: listen to the concerns
of stakeholders; maintain professional integrity; adhere to ethical
standards; balance stakeholder interests; and be aware of the emotional
barriers (e.g., preconceived opinions and beliefs, prejudices, biases,
egos, and politics). Likewise, Gadeken’s (1994) experience-based reflection
on behavioral competences required for successful project managers spells
out key attributes relevant for effective communication: (1) assertiveness
(stating one’s own position forcefully in the face of opposition from
influential others); (2) strategic influence (building coalitions with
influential others to overcome obstacles and obtain support); (3) relationship
development (spending time and energy getting to know program sponsors,
contractors, and other influential people); and (4) political awareness
(understand who the influential players are, what they want, and how
to work with them). Along the same lines, Pinto (1998) encourages managers
to develop political acumen and persuasive skills to account for the
ubiquitous presence of politics and power imbalances in projects. Communication
is also part of the critical factors for determining project success,
namely the abilities: to communicate what the issues are with affected
constituencies, to deal with the issues, and to sell the project output
(Pinto and Slevin 1987).
The
literature on managing architecture-engineering-construction projects
has also long established that effective communication is central to
high project performance (Pietroforte 1997, Thomas et al. 1998). Extant
studies are mostly descriptive, and focus on internal communication
between design and construction teams, and between the project suppliers
and client. Building predominantly upon anecdotal evidence and exploratory
surveys, the studies reveal that on-site construction project managers
may spend up to nearly 80% of their workdays communicating verbally
(Laufer et al. 2008); and that inter-personal communication is critical
to crisis management (Loosemore 1998) and to develop proper design briefs
(Boweni and Edward 1996).
Not
surprisingly, communication skills also play an essential role in developing
relationships with local communities affected by new infrastructure
projects. In these settings, antagonistic vocal minorities can create
difficulties while the silent majority may sit on the sidelines (Wideman
1985). Using vignettes on projects to illustrate the issues but not
as an empirical basis, Wideman (1985) exhorts managers to attend public
meetings, produce community information bulletins, and support talks
with visual aids and scale models. And El-Diraby and Wang (2005) develop
a semantic model to communicate to local communities (via an e-portal)
the environmental impacts of highway construction and mitigation measures.
More strategically, Baker (1998) discusses how project managers may
need to shift the communication pattern occasionally, for example, from
coalition building and listening to counterattack and delaying tactics,
but he doesn’t elaborate on the topic. Such shifts shouldn’t compromise,
however, on the principles of honesty, fairness, and integrity that
should underpin project relations (Wideman 1998, Webster and Owens 1998).
Clearly,
the infrastructure project managers face the challenge of developing
a positive relationship with the local people. We next research how
the T5 managers took on this challenge.
METHODS AND RESEARCH
BASE
The research
method is a single-setting case study with multiple embedded units of
analysis (Yin 1984). Case study research suits well to examine ‘underexplored’
topics (Eisenhardt 1989). This is exactly the case of investigating
how project management teams can use language for protecting legitimacy.
This method is also appropriate because studies of how organizations
deploy language in the management of self-other relations must consider
the socio-organizational contingencies to generate meaningful insights
(Schegloff 1986, Schgloff 1995). The units of analysis are the pairs
of residents’ claims and corresponding accounts produced by the T5
managers in the interaction with the residents. This approach borrows
from studies of talk-in-interaction, which consider language a resource
to coordinate social action (Schegloff 1986, 1995). But the focus here
is on the tones that project managers’ words and phrasing convey.
Our
empirical setting─the T5 project at Heathrow airport─is relevant
to studies on managing external stakeholders, and local communities
in particular. As a monopolistic owner of the three major London airports,
BAA operated under the eye of the public and regulator. Many people
were frustrated that the government had approved T5 on the basis that
the economic benefits outweighed the environmental impacts. “T5 was
not for the benefit of the residents as illustrated by BAA”, a resident
claimed. If T5 managers neglected the well-being of the residents or
the environment during the construction works, they would offer an argument
to the oppositionists lobbying the regulator to call for the government
to break up the monopoly. Further, ninety percent of the residents had
opposed in a ballot against the government plans (backed by BAA) to
add a third runway to increase Heathrow capacity. But while the local
authorities had threatened to take court action if these plans went
forward, a government report had concluded that there was a case for
adding a third runway if the environmental impacts could be reduced.
Notwithstanding
this, as any public listed company, BAA needed to balance the investments
in social responsibility and in the environment with institutional pressure
for economic efficiency and profit generation. For the T5 senior managers,
this meant that they needed to balance the need to respond effectively
to the concerns of local residents with pressure to deliver T5 on time,
on budget, and efficiently. We next discuss how we set off to research
these issues.
Data Collection
and Analysis
The fieldwork
lasted from mid 2004 until mid 2007 as part of a broader research programme
on managerial practices in large infrastructure projects. At the heart
of the empirical database for this study are the minutes of 12 Local
Focus meetings held between 2003 and 2005 and of 27 meetings of the
Heathrow Airport Consultative Committee (HACC). The Local Focus meetings
were attended by the T5 senior managers and representatives of the resident
associations. The HACC meetings were attended by the T5 senior managers,
senior BAA corporate staff, and many stakeholder groups, including local
councils, resident associations, London assembly, and environmental
groups. The HACC minutes remain available online on a website run by
the HACC. The Local Focus minutes were available online on a website
run by BAA/T5 until 2008.
We
read systematically through the minutes to identify the accounts that
the managers produced reactively in response to the claims raised by
the residents, as well as the accounts that the managers produced proactively
in anticipation of foreseeable claims. We identified 32 distinct claims,
each one demanding that the project team would take actions to mitigate
a different impact of the construction works, e.g., noise, traffic congestion,
air pollution. The predictability of the claims given the large-scale
of T5 fits with Heugens et al.’s (2004) description of issues, i.e.,
gaps between the stakeholder’s expectation of the firm’s behavior
and the stakeholder’s perception of the actual behavior. The localized
nature of the issues was unlikely to have major impacts to the reputation
of BAA. But if the managers left the issues unattended, they could find
it difficult to work cooperatively with residents, and consequently
with the local authorities.1
We
also identified 59 BAA accounts, each consisting of a sequence of conversational
turns. In general, BAA managed to produce one account that closed off
the discussion around the claim in the first meeting after the meeting
when the claim surfaced. Five claims, however, generated up to ten accounts
each as the issues remained unresolved from one meeting into the next.
For those, we built time series in tabular form that traced the sequence
of the conversational turns.
As
characteristic of qualitative studies (Miles and Huberman 1994), our
coding effort progressed iteratively after an exploratory exercise at
the onset. This exercise was informed by a set of high-level codes:
(1) whether the BAA accounts were acknowledgements or denials; and (2)
whether the BAA accounts included technical and/or institutional references.
For each claim, we copied sections of the accounts from the minutes,
pasted the sections into separate tables, and compared our data with
the codes. Although we uncovered a lack of denials in the BAA accounts,
we sensed differences in the linguistic framing of the acknowledgements.
The data suggested that the T5 managers used systematically different
words and phrasing to convey different attitudes when acknowledging
the issues. This led us to pursue a fine-grained analysis.
Specifically, we looked at the linguistic construction of the conversational
turns─the primary constituents of interaction (Schgloff 1995)─which
formed the acknowledgements. We cycled between examining the turns for
words and phrases that the T5 managers used to convey a specific verbal
tone or attitude. We populated matrices with the words and phrases to
make sense of data, and counted the turns that fit with each potential
tone (Langley 1999). We stopped cycling when a saturation process set
in the sense the three broad tones that emerged─assertive, apologetic,
and caring─exhausted satisfactorily the data. We summarized our insights
in a conceptual framework on the use of language to communicate strategically
with local residents.
We
handled the issues of internal validity by triangulating the conceptual
output against face-to-face interviews and archival documents. Specifically,
we played our insights against: (1) the transcripts of interviews with
the T5 senior managers ‘focused’ (Merton et al. 1956) on how they
handled the residents’ claims; (2) relevant excerpts of the conversations
which we conducted with over seventy T5 participants as part of the
broader research programme; and (3) archival data, such as media interviews
with representatives of the local communities and BAA, clips in the
T5 press (The Site) and local press, and the content of the websites
of the local councils.
We
refined the scope of this study through presentations with practitioners
and scholars. We tested the reliability of our coding by, first, engaging
a graduate-standing student in coding the same material (Steen 2005);
and second, submitting drafts to peer-reviewed conferences. The exemplars
in Tables 1-5, picked from the final matrices, illustrate the discussion
that follows.
ANALYSIS
The T5
project context
BAA submitted
the planning application for T5 in February 1993, which encompassed
the construction of three concourses, a 4,000 space car park, 13.5km
of tunnels, taxiways, and the diversion of two rivers. At the peak of
construction, BAA expected over 5,000 workers to turn up daily on site.
The government approved the planning application in 2001, noting “it
was right to rely on the assurances given by BAA to control the widespread
impacts of construction works to the environment.” It also imposed
690 planning conditions, including restrictions on working hours, no-go
routes, parking provisions, control of emissions, and noise barriers
(GOL 2001). The construction of T5 started in 2002 with a target to
open in 2008. Table 1 summarizes the initiatives that BAA launched to
gain community support and meet the planning conditions.
Table 1 –
Initiatives to gain community support and meet the legal obligations
Aim
Initiative
Objectives
Exemplar
Improve
external
communication
Open site annual event; weekly
guided tours of T5
Progress update; be agreeable
OpenSite is a great opportunity
for us to explain how T5 is being constructed and for people to see
for themselves the work (T5 community liaison manager 05)
Itinerant
T5 Exhibition
Show how T5 will look; share
archaeological findings
We hope the new exhibition
will encourage local people to come and learn more about T5 development
(T5 design and development director 03)
Local
Focus Forum
Listen to people; address
people’s concerns;
respond to
complaints
We don’t always get what
we want, but BAA does listen (…) I always report back to my members,
and it helps them understand why certain things happen (Chair of resident
association 05)
Newsletter
with 10,000 copies, distributed four times a year
Keep local communities informed
One of the T5 inquiry commitments
was to keep local residents informed about the development as it progresses.
This is part of that commitment (T5 inform, issue 1, Summer 02)
Monitor environment
program (e.g., dust deposition stations, noise levels)
Collect data to ensure environmental
impacts are acceptable
We’re carrying out noise,
dust, air and water quality monitoring to provide us with an early warning
system should things not go to plan (T5 environment manager 02)
Nurture
long-term relationship
Adult training scheme, network
of vocational training centres
Provide local people training
and education opportunities
We aim to utilise T5 as a
vehicle to develop a variety of training and education schemes in construction-related
trades (T5 project director 06)
Teacher
Resource Pack to assist with vocational learning
Help schools benefit from
the T5 learning potential
For us, T5 is a local project
and therefore of real interest to our pupils, which makes this pack
all the more useful and relevant (Local head teacher 05)
Good
will
T5 registered
charity; fundraising events
Support local organizations
We feel that T5 has a responsibility
to the local community and by helping in this way we’re proud to be
making a contribution (Chair of T5 charity 05)
One group of
initiatives focused on improving external communication. They aimed
to keep the local residents informed about the construction works, and
to allow them to express concerns about the T5 activities, i.e., they
aimed at short-term cooperation (Dunham et al. 2006). This passed by
writing progress updates in the newsletter and using a double-decker
bus to show around displays about T5. As put by the T5 community liaison
manager (2005): “Keeping people informed about what’s happening
is more than half the battle in keeping them reasonably content”
(emphasis added). These initiatives also helped the project team to
develop ‘moral imagination’ (Werhane 1999) in the sense they could
anticipate better the residents’ concerns, and potential claims which
could be raised. The T5 community liaison manager explained:
“Initially,
we had people complaining of dust in their windows, in their washing,
there was common anger that tends to escalate. In those cases, we’d
be out there meeting them very quickly. That has a huge effect to diffuse
anger, avoid they call the local newspaper and then we’d get an angry
mob.”
A second group
of initiatives focused on the long-term relationship between BAA and
the local communities i.e., they aimed at long-term collaboration (Dunham
et al. 2006). Specifically, they aimed to reinforce the relationship
between BAA Heathrow and the local communities in terms of employment.
BAA expected the T5 project to generate over 16,000 person-years of
employment. The BAA local labour strategy recognised that around Heathrow
there were areas of deprivation, as well as a shortage of construction
workers (BAA 2002). A BAA economic development manager (‘typically
a public sector job’ in his own words) was responsible for implementing
the strategy. BAA committed to invest £150,000 per annum from 2002
until 2012 to help the local residents access employment opportunities
at the T5 project. But the economic development manager acknowledged
that the overhead from implementing the labour strategy was modest relative
to the reputation benefits it generated, particularly in the public
sector. As he put it ‘they’re all looking to T5, to the things we
tried, and try to extract lessons from that’.
The
third initiative involved donations from the T5 charity, an activity
built exclusively upon employee voluntarism and fundraising. Charities
are a way to improve visibility, demonstrate social responsibility,
and develop social influence (Brammer and Millignton 2004). While the
amounts were small (maximum donation of £2,500), the impacts in terms
of generating positive emotions could be high as typical of donations
above and beyond required activities (ibid.).
Content
and form of the T5 senior managers’
accounts
Interestingly,
apart rare exceptions, the T5 managers acknowledged invariably the issues
brought out in the residents’ claims. This indicates a difference
relative to studies where firms employ both acknowledgments and denials
to maintain legitimacy (Elsbach 1994). Table 2 illustrates the residents’
claims and the content of the managers’ acknowledgements. The phrasing
in italic indicate how the tone in brackets can be conveyed, a topic
which we discuss later in this section.
Table 2- Sample
of claims and analysis of the content and framing of the managers’
accounts
Issues
at the core of the claims
Content
of the acknowledgements produced by the T5 senior management team
Technical
turns
Institutional
turns
Lack
of community policemen
BAA has employed
78 internal security officers to look after the T5 site and hostel [ASSERTIVE]
We will
facilitate discussion with police [CARING]
Floodlights
from T5 site are a nuisance
Floodlighting
after dark is necessary to work safely. With the progression
of summer, need will diminish [ASSERTIVE]
Noisy
generator
We‘ll replace
it. On behalf of BAA, we pass on apologies to the local residents
who experienced the disturbance
[APOLOGETIC]
Increasing
demand on medical services
There’s
an Occupational Health Unit to service workforce on site [ASSERTIVE]
BAA expects
to use the services of the local hospitals in case of a major accident
as it’s normal [ASSERTIVE]
Mud
on local roads
There’s
a constant road sweeper in action to alleviate the problem [ASSERTIVE]
We cannot guarantee
2004 won’t be without difficulties [ASSERTIVE]
Works
on M25 highway
We can arrange
a visit of someone from the Highways Agency to talk [CARING]
On the one
hand, the findings suggest most claims were grounded in occurrences
linked plainly to T5. It wouldn’t make sense, for instance, the T5
managers denying that the construction works caused dust or that T5-related
traffic had circulated through restricted residential areas. If they
did so, they would go against the logical expectations of the claimants
(Marcus and Goodman 1991). This would deteriorate the relationship with
the residents. The exception was a claim that the 24hr hotline wasn’t
working properly. T5 managers deemed it incorrect and unfair. Here,
a manager argued that she believed ‘the level of service provided
was good,’ and explained that the system diverted calls to the answer
phone when the line was busy or staff was out of the office.
On
the other hand, the T5 management team was interested in asking the
local councils to relax occasionally the application of a planning condition.
T5 managers could undermine the legitimacy of their requests if they
denied claims so as to decouple the project from activities perceived
as illegitimate (Elsbach 1994). Hence, the managers would acknowledge
the claims even when they, first, doubted as to whether the claim was
correct and precise (‘people try their luck’, noted sharply one
manager); and second, they felt the claim was legitimate but the project
team was not accountable for it due to institutional boundaries: ‘This
isn’t a part of the T5 project, but a stand-alone Highways Agency
scheme’, remarked a manager in one account.
But
if the institutional context constrained the T5 managers to acknowledge
the claims, they also didn’t want to signal that ‘willingness to
compensate local people is an open checkbook’ as put by the T5 communities
liaison manager. Accordingly, the managers were careful in producing
the acknowledgements. The T5 environment manager illustrated two situations:
“You need
to be careful about how far you want to go; neighbors talk ‘BAA helped
me to get £200’, and then the next person says ‘I need £500 because
my car is filthy due to your project,’ but T5 may have nothing to
do with it.”
“A lady who
runs a nursery for plants 250m away said it was costing her a lot more
to clean the glasses. We didn’t have baseline data on her place, but
data on the vicinity didn’t show even a marginal increase. We thought
the way she was going was that she wanted a lot of money to pay for
cleaning the green houses. So we talked with her, showed the data, and
said “we understand your concerns, but we don’t believe we’re
having an impact as far as dust is concerned.”
We next probe
into the content of the acknowledgements.
The content
of the acknowledgements
We found that
the T5 managers employed only technical references in the construction
of nearly 50% of the accounts, used both technical and institutional
references in the construction of around 20% of the accounts, and used
only institutional references in the construction of around 30% of the
accounts. Many of the technical references aimed at providing a ‘credible,
rational, and adequate explanation’ (Elsbach 1994) for actions which
the managers knew could disturb the residents’ welfare, but they were
interested to pursue nonetheless for the sake of the project performance;
for example, ‘we need to extend the height of the stockpile because
the rate of backfilling isn’t happening at the same pace of extraction’;
or ‘we need to safeguard additional hours to bring back soil for backfill
in times of weather delays.’ Other technical references aimed to demonstrate
that the project team was mitigating the impacts; for instance: ‘we
increased the presence of water bowsers, road brushers, and spraying
of stockpiled soils.’ If managers had hard technical data at hand,
they would not hesitate using it to stress that the words agreed with
the deeds: ‘the data shows that there were no exceedences in 2004
across the 20 dust stations.’
The
T5 managers seem to have found the use of institutional references suitable
whenever they wanted to explain that, although they felt with the residents’
concerns, the project team did not have authority to resolve the issues.
‘We acknowledge the ditch is drying up, but we don’t have liability
to feed it’, a manager explained in one case. In doing so, the T5
managers recognised that the issues could be associated to the project,
but they attempted to justify in a ‘believable way’ (Elsbach 1994)
that it was unfair to blame the project team for their occurrence.
Framing
linguistically the acknowledgements
Our analysis
of the language used in the 123 conversational turns forming the 59
verbal accounts produced by the T5 senior management team reveals three
broad tones: caring, assertive, and apologetic. Table 3 illustrates
how the managers used systematically selected words and phrases to frame
linguistically the acknowledgements in order to communicate a specific
intent.
Table 3 –
Tone of BAA accounts as a function of content and perceived legitimacy
of the claim
Tone
of the turns*
Key
linguistic indicators
Content
of the account
Perceived
legitimacy
of claim
Intent of
project management team
Exemplars of
the linguistic framing in pairs of
local
residents’ claims – project managers’ turns
Turns
conveying emotional status of caring
(#35~28%)
we’ll help
out;
we care;
we
respect your frustrations;
what do you feel if we;
we take this seriously;
we strive to be good neighbours;
we listen to your concerns
Institutional
Moderate
Help people overcome institutional
barriers (#13~10%)
[local] Could BAA use your
influence on new coach operators and the routes they take? This matter
has still not improved (…).
[T5] I’ve
taken the issue up with the coach operator concerned
[T5] This remains
a problem. We will further follow up.
Technical
High
Recognise claim legitimacy
(#11~9%)
[local] Since issuing fly-parking
warnings to relevant construction workers, has any re-offended?
[T5] Some have
re-offended. The T5 managing director receives a weekly dossier of offenders
and has taken this very seriously.
Technical
and institutional
High
Express concern proactively
(#11~9%)
[T5] Works will start at the
end of July to develop the road system (…)We hope that a visible
improvement will be evident
in the landscaping and the surrounding area
Assertive
turns
(#81~66%)
we’ll
do/act;
we’re exceeding best practice;
negotiations are ongoing;
we didn’t
accept;
no guarantee
can be given;
we are not
involved
Technical and
institutional
High
Express commitment to resolve
issues
(#65~53%)
[local] Could BAA produce
a policy that would deter people setting up illegal caravan sites?
[T5] We’ve
submitted a planning application for a 600 bed Hostel and temporary
caravan park (…) There’s a greater requirement for caravans than
originally envisaged
Technical
and institutional
Low
Express sense that claim
has low legitimacy
(#12~10%)
[local] The roads in the area
of Stanwell Moor are dusty when dry and muddy when wet due to the tippers
from the T5 site
[T5] There
are three full time sweepers in action on the road surrounding the
project. Permission will be sought from the Highways agency to clean
the A3044 and A3113. We‘re happy to come and sweep if
informed
Technical
Low
Develop realistic expectations
(#4~3%)
[T5] Regrettably there have
been occasions when issues of this nature [a T5 worker used a pneumatic
drill at 4am] occurred. But no guarantee can be given
that this sort of thing will never happen again.
Apologetic
turns
(#7~6%)
we apologize
for;
we pass on our apologies
Technical
High
Express
regret
[local] Due to the crane works
at the A3044 on the weekend, six hours of continuous overhead flights
were experienced (…) the residents haven’t been informed with a
Notification of Works
[T5] Although
a generic notice was issued covering a 5-6 week period, the specifics
weren’t realised at that time. BAA apologizes for this”
* Number
of conversation turns framed in the tone; percentage relative to the
total number of turns (123)
Acknowledging
in a Caring Tone
The T5 managers
appeared to use purposely a caring tone to convey senses of concern
and feeling interested in the residents’ wellbeing, or put differently,
to convey an emotional status that they cared with residents
(rows one to three in Table 3). They used this tone when the accounts
involved both technical and/or institutional references, albeit difficulties
to sound caring when presenting only rational and technical arguments
(Elsbach 1994). We identified three key situations for which managers
used caring turns.
First,
the managers sounded caring when they judged that the institutional
boundaries didn’t make the project team accountable for the claim,
but they felt that the claim was legitimate. The caring turns tried
perhaps to meet the residents’ expectations that managers had a moral
obligation to help people overcome institutional barriers. Second, the
managers employed caring turns for framing an acknowledgment which recognised
the project team hadn’t resolved yet a legitimate issue. The managers
were interested in talking people into not inferring from the delay
that the project team neglected their wellbeing and behaved out of integrity.
Thus, they would, caringly, recognise a gap between the deeds and the
reasonable expectations of the residents. But managers would also resort
to institutional references and eloquence to explain and justify the
gap: ‘I wouldn’t try in any way to offset this incident [noise during
silent period] by putting into context that T5 is the largest construction
programme in Europe,’ said the T5 director.
And
third, the T5 managers employed caring turns when acknowledging proactively
a foreseeable legitimate claim. This happened whenever they planned
to request local authorities to relax the application of a planning
condition:
“The project
requested us 24 hour working to hit a milestone. Before going to the
local authorities, we assessed the impacts and asked the residents:
‘what do you feel about this if we put mitigation measures
in?’ Their main concerns were the headlights of the trucks and the
noise of the reverse beepers. We proposed to work in a circular way
and deposit the material away from their homes” (T5 environmental
manager 07) (emphasis added).
The T5 managers
knew that the residents could perceive their requests as evidence that
the project team put commercial interests ahead of people’s welfare.
In an effort to pre-empt a claim, the managers would raise proactively
the issue, and query caringly the residents for ways through which the
project team could mitigate the negative impacts.
Acknowledging
in an Assertive Tone
The T5 managers
appeared to use an assertive tone as a means to express determination
in their opinions, promises, and sense of responsibility. The assertions
were associated to choices of phrasing in the active voice (rows four
to six in Table 3) - a commonly regarded technique to reduce ambiguity
and establish objectivity (Coupland and Brown 2004). This tone was used
to frame about two-thirds of the conversational turns. We identified
three main situations in which the managers would be systematically
assertive.
First,
the T5 managers would use assertions to try to persuade the residents
that the project team was committed to mitigate the construction impacts.
‘We’re not sweeping the T5 impacts under the carpet’, the T5 director
stated bluntly. Second, the managers would be assertive when responding
to a claim which they perceived was opportunistic, unfair, or exaggerated
the issue. This was the case of assertive turns responding to claims
which asked the project team to help the residents block planning applications
of third parties. Another example involved claims suggesting that the
project team was not meeting the legal obligations. In both situations,
the managers acknowledged the issues. But they sought, assertively,
to close off the discussion as they deemed the claim lacked legitimacy.
We found few instances of this situation, though, perhaps because the
managers felt that this tactical positioning risked inducing negative
perceptions.
And
third, the T5 managers used assertions when they deemed that the claims
were unreasonable given the scale of the project. ‘We’ll look into
this matter, but cannot give guarantees’, they remarked occasionally.
These assertions aimed to avoid residents from developing unrealistic
expectations, which managers knew would be difficult to meet. They also
sought to pre-empt people from perceiving that the project team weren’t
behaving in integrity. But managers seldom used this type of assertions,
concerned perhaps they would backfire and residents could perceive them
as insensitive.
Acknowledging
in an Apologetic Tone
Apologies show
the realization of and regret for a fault or wrongdoing. The T5 senior
managers would run occasionally into situations where the residents
perceived they had failed to keep their word. This is unsurprising given,
first, the institutional and operational complexity of the T5 programme;
and second, the misunderstandings that stem sporadically from the structural
ambiguity inherent to verbal interaction (Goffman 1976). The T5 managers
would apologise whenever they perceived that the residents’ claims
were correct and precise (see last row in Table 3). The managers aimed
perhaps to communicate their awareness of both the rights and obligations
of BAA relative to the residents. Apologies were perhaps also a managers’
attempt to honour their word and earn the trust of people. Notwithstanding
this, the apologies were coupled tightly to precise technical references
since they were an admission of fault. The number of apologetic turns
was a very small fraction of the total number of turns.
Shifting
Tone over Time
The majority
of the accounts were formed by conversational turns all in the same
tone, i.e., they were fairly ‘monotonic.’ The T5 senior managers
appeared to stick to one tone whenever they sensed that the choice of
that linguistic framing for the content available was effective to neutralise,
or at least attenuate, the negativity in the claim (Table 4).
Table 4 –
Excerpts of the longitudinal analysis of a monotonic conversational
sequence (italic words and phrasing convey linguistic tone)
Claim
by the local residents
Turns
from the T5 senior project management team
Technical
content
Institutional
content
Could
BAA support the “Slough Anti Incinerator Network” and try to stop
this horrendous proposal? (Jun04)
We’re
aware of it, but not involved (…) we’ll ensure our planning
department will be made aware of it (Jun04)
[ASSERTIVE]
Has
BAA determined the accuracy of the [incinerator] proposal? (Jul04)
Isn’t BAA
concerned that it [the incinerator] will add to the already high levels
of pollution in the vicinity of the airport? (Jul04)
The planning department
didn’t judge it close enough or in the right location to be an
insurmountable obstruction (Jul04)
[ASSERTIVE]
BAA does not
feel we could tell another company that they couldn’t proceed
with an application that they had gone through a democratic process
to achieve (Jul04) [ASSERTIVE]
We acknowledge
your strong sentiments, but you should try to focus on airport
responsibilities (Jul04) [ASSERTIVE]
But occasionally,
the T5 managers shifted from one tone into a different one. For example,
they followed up the assertive turns with caring turns in a conversational
sequence. They did so if the initial choice for framing linguistically
the content available hadn’t rested people assured that the project
team was working hard to mitigate the impacts. Table 5 illustrates a
common situation which we observed.
Table 5 –
Excerpt of the longitudinal analysis of a multitonic conversational
sequence (italic words and phrasing convey linguistic tone)
Claim
by the local residents
Turns
from the T5 senior project management team
Technical
content
Institutional
content
On certain days, there’re long
queues of traffic …BAA needs to ensure that we don’t end up totally
grid-locked (Jul 02)
It’s the
intention of the T5 Project Team to report to the Transport
Manager whose role will be full-time to manage the flow of traffic
(Jul 02) [ASSERTIVE]
A temporary
bridge has been installed. This will minimise
the impact of construction related traffic (Nov 02) [ASSERTIVE]
A Transport Policy
for the workers is being compiled
(July 02) [ASSERTIVE]
This
matter [traffic issues] has not improved (Jul 03)
Directional
signage was invisible to the traffic due to the trees and shrubs (Jul
03)
We’ve
erected directional signage showing ‘No Through Route to T5 Traffic
(Jul 03) [ASSERTIVE]
The signage
is now visible to passing traffic. We’ll monitor the situation
(Sep 03) [ASSERTIVE]
We apologize for failing to notify
the specifics of a road closure (Sep 03) [APOLOGETIC]
…
local communities haven’t been treated with respect … the liaison
team is informed, but perhaps T5 doesn’t listen to them (Jan 04)
We’re aware
that whilst striving to be good neighbours,
on occasions, we didn’t meet our own aspirations (…) I respect
residents’ frustrations...these are taken very seriously and
every attempt is made to listen to the concerns
(Jan 04) [CARING]
This ‘multitonic’
situation was noticeable in the way the T5 senior managers responded
to the claims about fly-parking, traffic congestion, and illegal caravan
parking - issues that dogged the project from the onset. The managers
acknowledged that these claims were legitimate. The need to mitigate
these impacts was a legal obligation, and recommendations were spelled
out in the induction booklet distributed to all workers: “whether
you drive your own car or car share with others, please be mindful that
you are entering a highly residential area. Ensure you use only those
dedicated areas made available for parking.” Still, the managers were
cognizant that the strategies to mitigate these issues were difficult
to implement effectively as they involved many actors. Hence, the managers
often followed up assertive turns about the traffic issues (which used
technical references) with caring turns (which used institutional references).
DISCUSSION
The moral legitimacy
of the people living in the vicinity of Heathrow airport for clean air,
quietness, and maintenance of their welfare made them a ‘normative’
stakeholder relative to the T5 project, i.e., one “to whom the firm
[the T5 team] has a moral obligation, an obligation of stakeholder fairness,
over and above that due other social actors simply by virtue of their
being human” (Phillips 2003 p. 124). But residents were also an ‘instrumental’
stakeholder (Donaldson and Preston 1995) in the sense that they had
power to affect project performance. If the managers jeopardized the
relationship, hostile residents could request the local councils to
cooperate less with their requests for relaxing the application of planning
conditions, and in extreme, to stop construction works.
The
empirical findings suggest that the T5 senior managers were well aware
of the dual stakeholder status of the local communities. They also reveal
that managers faced a balancing act. They needed to be both responsive
to people’s concerns and to avoid making unreasonable concessions
that could damage the bottom line. Since legitimacy is relative to people
(Giugni 1998), the management of this tension was far from trivial.
The analysis suggests the managers used language intentionally as a
resource to manage this tension. First, they shied away from using denials
when communicating with claimants even when they perceived the claims
lacked legitimacy. And second, they varied the linguistic framing of
the acknowledgements as a function of the content available for constructing
the accounts and of whether they perceived the claim to be legitimate
or not.
Interestingly,
these findings resonate with Erhard et al.’s (2007) studies on the
long-term value of integrity for individuals and organizations pursuing
high performance. About two-thirds of the T5 managers’ conversations
turns were assertive, suggesting that the managers were committed to
preempt residents from developing unrealistic expectations about whether
and when the issues would be resolved. Managers asserted unequivocally
what they knew the project team could (not) do, and when the team could
do it. In about another third of the accounts, managers seem to have
pursued a similar logic for managing the normative-instrumental tension.
But they resorted to the politically adept caring turns. These turns
conveyed an emotional status that the managers weren’t just giving
lip service to the residents’ well-being and environment. And the
apologies can be interpreted as a managers’ attempt to ‘honor’
their word when they considered that the project team had unarguably
failed to ‘walk the talk.’
Table
6 summarizes this rudimentary conceptual understanding of how project
managers can use language strategically to protect the legitimacy of
their decisions and actions relative to claims raised by the local communities
and external stakeholders alike.
Table 6 –Using
language to manage local communities and project stakeholders alike
Verbal
acknowledgements of the claims
Verbal
denials
Caring tone
Assertive
tone
Apologetic
tone
Perceived legitimacy
of the claim
Low
Suitable with
technical and institutional references to:
i) express
sense that claim has low legitimacy
ii) help people
develop realistic expectations
Use
in exceptional situations
(extremely low legitimacy)
High
Suitable with
institutional references to:
i) express willingness to help
people overcome institutional barriers
ii) recognise legitimacy of
people’s claim
iii) proactively express concern
with people’s well-being
Suitable with
technical and institutional references to:
i) express
commitment to resolve issues raised by people
ii) express
commitment to mitigate detrimental impacts
Suitable with
technical references to:
i) express
regret
ii) try to
honour the word, after failing to keep the word
Admittedly,
misunderstandings between the T5 managers and local people surfaced
occasionally despite the strategically-constructed assertions, caring
turns, and apologies. Talk is in a sense a working agreement between
what people say (which may not be exactly what they meant) and what
listeners interpret (and they may be a little off) (Goffman 1976). These
discrepancies in interpretation were particularly conspicuous in analyzing
the issues around the third runway, which beset the relationship between
the T5 managers and some residents from the project onset. Some people
indignantly saw BAA’s backing for a third runway as the firm performing
a U-turn since they understood BAA had promised an end to the expansion
of Heathrow during the public inquiry; one resident remarked “BAA
purely looks to get more money for its shareholders. Is this not greed?”
BAA insisted, however, that it had merely stated that T5 didn’t require
a third runway to operate, and this was still true. Our findings don’t
rule out the possibility of BAA planting intentionally ambiguity in
the early accounts about the third runway. But if this was true, BAA
paid dearly for it. It incurred─ and continues to incur─people’s
wrath from the moment it backed the third runway. And the T5 managers
had to put a lot of effort into clarifying the discrepancies in communication
so as to avoid the third runway issues undermining their efforts to
sustain a positive relationship with the local residents.
Noteworthy,
our qualitative data does not lend itself to untangle the extent to
which the strategic intent behind the framing of the accounts was truly
effective. Surely, the managers succeeded to close off the discussions
about the issues with one account in eighty-five percent of the situations.
This alone is a remarkable result, and corroborates with Elsbach’s
(1994) findings about the effectiveness of acknowledgements. But, a
claimant may give up pursuing an issue without necessarily becoming
convinced managers took proper care of it. It is plausible that a claimant
was motivated to file a claim to make a symbolic point without intending
to spend additional effort to be compensated. An alternative explanation
may be that claimants chose to give up some fights given the show of
strength put on by the project team to manage public relations.2
The
success of the T5 managers in closing off the majority of the discussions
could also result more from the ex-post deeds and less from the accounts
themselves. Pragmatically, the T5 senior management team chose to give
claimants the benefit of the doubt for the claims that they deemed reasonably
credible and involved only a marginal compensation. This was invariably
the case when residents complained that their car had got a chip on
the screen, or that the car had skidded because the roads were muddy.
Of course, the story was different if the compensation wasn’t cheap.
For example, a claimant alleged that the construction works were making
it hard to sell the house at the price that otherwise would be its market
value. But the T5 management team refused to buy the house to avoid
creating a precedent that could be costly to BAA. Caringly, though,
a T5 manager took a landscape architect to the resident’s home, arguing
that knowledge of the plans for tree screening would help the resident
find a buyer. Arguably, this strategic stance helped the T5 managers
to close off quickly most claims during the project.
Further,
the minutes were almost invariably mute about the residents’ emotions
accompanying the claims. This was in stark contrast with the skilful
accounts produced by the T5 managers. Occasionally, people would praise
the project team for a specific deed. For example, one resident said
‘on behalf of Stanwell Moor Village, we thank the support of BAA with
regard to the ‘Low Flow Scheme’. And people would also acknowledge
the positive relationship they developed with some T5 team members:
“Julie [T5
community liaison manager] has always gone to the trouble to look into
the problems that have been put before her, even if the response hasn’t
always been positive...she has become a great friend” (resident on
Julie’s departure June 2005)
But anecdotal
evidence reveals that some residents were utterly frustrated with the
‘inacceptable’ lack of resolution of selected matters over time:
“The villages
have suffered immensely during the construction period in 2003 relating
to noise, dust, intrusive lighting, and inadequate advance notice on
some forthcoming works. Despite assurances that the matters would be
investigated, no improvement was evident to rectify the problems”
(Chair of the Residents Association 2004)
All in all,
it remains indeterminate whether this frustration was legitimate, or
rather, it echoed a bias against T5 that interfered with impartial judgment.
Stated differently, did the managers ever behave out of integrity, not
‘walking-the-talk’ as some residents suggested? Putting aside misunderstandings
inherent to talk-in-interaction, the planni