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Workplace Myth-Building As a Unifying Rhetorical Strategy Jacob D Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2013 Building Consensus: Workplace Myth-Building as a Unifying Rhetorical Strategy Jacob D. Rawlins Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Communication Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Rawlins, Jacob D., "Building Consensus: Workplace Myth-Building as a Unifying Rhetorical Strategy" (2013). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 13016. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/13016 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Building consensus: Workplace myth-building as a unifying rhetorical strategy by Jacob D. Rawlins A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Rhetoric and Professional Communication Program of Study Committee: Gregory D. Wilson, Major Professor David Roberts Benjamin Crosby Dometa Brothers Marc Anderson Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2013 Copyright © Jacob D. Rawlins, 2013. All rights reserved. ii To Laura; that is all. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vii ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORKING DEFINITION OF MYTH ...... 1 Overview of the New PMS Project ..................................................................... 2 Defining Rhetorical Myth ................................................................................... 5 Workplace Myths ................................................................................................ 20 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 22 CHAPTER 2 APPROACHES TO RHETORICAL MYTH ................................ 24 Myth as Power ..................................................................................................... 26 Rhetorical Myth in Public Discourse .................................................................. 33 Myth By Any Other Name .................................................................................. 40 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 44 CHAPTER 3 STUDYING RHETORICAL MYTH AT PRINTING SERVICES ...................................................................................... 46 Finding Rhetorical Myth through Ethnography .................................................. 48 Description of Research Site ............................................................................... 49 Data Collection .................................................................................................... 58 Data Analysis ...................................................................................................... 61 Ethical Considerations and Privacy ..................................................................... 67 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 68 iv Page CHAPTER 4 CREATING AND MAINTAINING A RHETORICAL MYTH ......................................................................................... 69 Creating and Accepting the Myth at Printing Services ....................................... 70 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 98 CHAPTER 5 RE-CREATING RHETORICAL MYTHS .................................... 100 The Problem of Specificity in Myth .................................................................... 101 Prophetic Failure among the Jehovah’s Witnesses ............................................. 104 Prophetic Failure at Printing Services ................................................................. 107 Mapping Printing Services onto Zygmunt .......................................................... 112 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS ........................... 114 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 118 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ............................................................ 123 APPENDIX B: PROPOSAL TO PRINTING SERVICES ....................................... 125 APPENDIX C: INFORMED CONSENT FORM ..................................................... 127 v LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1 Narrative and Chronographia .................................................................... 9 vi LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1 Identification Statements and Rules for Interaction in Deuteronomy and the Printing Services Website .................................................. 18 Table 2 Purchasing Committee .............................................................................. 53 Table 3 Implementation Team ................................................................................ 56 Table 4 Stages of Myth-Building and Elements of Myth ...................................... 65 Table 5 Responses to Prophetic Failure ................................................................. 112 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee chair, Greg Wilson, for his guidance, support, and friendship for the past four years. I would also like to thank my committee members, David Roberts, Ben Crosby, Dometa Brothers, and Marc Anderson, for their guidance and support throughout the course of this research. In addition, I would also like to thank my friends, colleagues, the English department faculty and staff for making my time at Iowa State University a wonderful experience. I want to also offer my special appreciation to the administration and staff at Iowa State University’s Printing Services, without whom this research could not have been possible. I’d like to thank Rob Louden, especially, for inviting me to study Printing Services, and for being a friend and voice of encouragement along the way. Finally, thanks to my family for their encouragement, my children for their patience, and to my wonderful wife, Laura, for her many hours of support and her neverending patience. viii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores how managers and leaders build consensus in the workplace through creating rhetorical myths. A three-year long ethnographic study of Iowa State University’s Printing Services as it went through a change to its central print management system reveals a concentrated effort by leadership to create and maintain a rhetorical myth. This dissertation defines the three main elements of rhetorical myth: chronographia (or an interpretation of history), epideictic prediction (defining an action for the present by assigning praise and blame to the past and the future), and communal markers (using concepts of Burkean identification and rhetorically-defined boundary objects to create a unified community). It also documents the three stages of myth- building: Creation, Acceptance, and Re-creation. Through examples and discussion from meeting observations and interviews, this study shows how the rhetorical myth at Printing Services was created and accepted over several months and then re-created in response to missed deadlines and frustrated expectations. The dissertation concludes with a forecast of future directions to expand the study of rhetorical myth in workplace settings. 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: A WORKING DEFINITION OF RHETORICAL MYTH In December 2010, more than a year after I started observing the committee charged with buying a new print management system (PMS) for Iowa State University’s Printing Services department, the members of the committee finally got to see a demonstration of the new system in action. Several members of the committee and other key employees drove two hours to the University of Iowa, where the new PMS was already installed and running. The trip, designed to allay concerns and answer questions, did not have the desired unifying effect. In fact, rather than building consensus among the employees, the fact-finding mission simply raised more questions. In a contentious committee meeting the day after the trip to Iowa City, most of the people in the room were still not convinced the upgrade would be a good move. Some members of the committee and nearly all of the staff saw an upgrade to the PMS as an expensive, time- sucking threat to their jobs. It would, after all, change how they worked: it involved new equipment, new software, new processes, new pricing structures, and new standards. For the employees who worked in the previously semi-autonomous copy centers, the new PMS would also bring a change in culture and, possibly, consolidations and cuts that could lead to layoffs. Throughout
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