Russian Corporate Communication: A Discourse Analysis

The Joint Project will consist in an empirical study on "Russian Corporate Communication" exploring the matter in a discourse-analytical perspective in close cooperation between Russian and Austrian applied linguists, cultural analysts and an organizational researcher. Research will be based exclusively on empirical data from real-life situations (field research, recordings of verbal interactions, corporate documents and media texts). Research will be conducted in close cooperation with a Russian project partner, Dr Tatiana A. Milekhina, Professor at the Department of Russian Language and Oral Communication, Institute of Philology and Journalism. Prof. Milekhina`s is an expert in empirical socio-linguistics applied to the field of business communication, and head of a Saratov research team of social linguists. The innovative factor distinguishing the present research interest from that of preceding pertinent research is its focus on the interaction of language (in visual semiotic means and artefacts) and power structures in corporate communication and the embedding of the latter within a broader social and political context. Proceeding centrally on the Critical Discourse Analysis (Chouliaraki/ Fairclough, Wodak) methodological paradigm, the project will also draw upon critical organization and management theory taking issue with the essentially power-structured character of corporate communication. Research on corporate communication in this perspective will - not least under the influence of gender theory - shift attention from decontextualized studying "organizations" to studying "organizing" as "action" within a concrete context (Townley). Social and gender hierarchies will be major concerns in this research. Given its interdisciplinary approach, the Joint Project will also be an exploration of a section of current Russian reality, which - under president Medvedev - shows feeble signs of change and "modernization", the latter being a keyword of Medvedev`s recent public performances. We proceed on the assumption that the "power vertical" installed by Vladimir Putin and his team and still in force under president Medvedev, the high degree of interweavement of politics, business and the media, and the role bureaucracy plays in such a constellation in the establishment and running of business organizations will inevitably shape the communication of and within corporations. The Joint Project will strive to verify - or falsify - this hypothesis and trace and explain the possible effects of such tendencies in Russian corporate communication. It will therefore be of interest not only to linguists and slavists, but equally so to social scientists and to scholars engaged in Russian studies.

Russian business tends to be associated with a high degree of interweavement of politics, big business, the media and bureaucracy, for embezzlement of public property and nepotism when it comes to the distribution of financially exploitable positions, which to a certain extent is due to biased media coverage. For, there is of course business as usual going on in Russian corporations, and this was the focus of the present research project. The FWF-RFBR Joint Project conducted by the Institute of Slavic Languages WU (project head Prof. R. Rathmayr) and the Department of Russian Language and Oral Communication of Saratov State University (project head Prof. Tatiana A. Milekhina) is an interdisciplinary empirical study on Russian Corporate Communication exploring the subject matter in a discourse-analytical perspective. In close cooperation between Russian and Austrian applied linguists, cultural analysts, an organizational researcher and a sociologist and based on empirical data from real-life business situations (recordings of verbal business communication, corporate documents, e.g. mission statements, media texts and interviews with business people and experts) Russian corporate communication was analysed in its socio-cultural and organisational context.For the Austrian team, data generation involved extended travelling to Russia including time-consuming communication in advance in order to achieve access to corporations and win the trust and assistance of local management. For a number of tasks, however, researchers resorted to the web (online media, websites und new social media such as facebook and vkontakte).The focus of the joint research was on new developments in verbal and non-verbal business communication (e.g. business-customer interaction, new forms of meetings, corporate web-sites, branding, dress codes etc.). These analyses were framed by inquiries into the economic and sociocultural background (history of Russian business, relations of state and business, socio-cultural context, business etiquette, language management, terminological development etc.). A book manuscript has been prepared in Russian language and a letter of acceptance for publication has been issued by the renowned Russian publishing house Yazyki slavyanskoi kultury. Addressees of the book will be linguists, scholars in Slavic studies, social, economic and organizational scientists, and, of course, business people.