Table of Contents
Week 1: Rhetorical Content 2
A: Giorgi, S. (2017). The mind and heart of resonance: The role of cognition and emotions in
frame effectiveness. 2
B: Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, R. (2005). Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy. 4
C: Patriotta, G., Gond, J. P., & Schultz, F. (2011). Maintaining legitimacy: Controversies, orders of
worth, and public justifications. 7
D: Stam, D., Lord, R. G., Knippenberg, D. V., & Wisse, B. (2014). An image of who we might
become: Vision communication, possible selves, and vision pursuit. 13
Week 2: Rhetorical Arrangement 17
A: Green, S. E. (2004). A rhetorical theory of diffusion. 17
B: Solinger, O. N., Jansen, P. G., & Cornelissen, J. P. (2020). The emergence of moral leadership.
19
C: Seyranian, V., & Bligh, M. C. (2008). Presidential charismatic leadership: Exploring the rhetoric
of social change. 22
D: Sanders, J., & van Krieken, K. (2018). Exploring narrative structure and hero enactment in
brand stories. 24
Week 3: Rhetorical style 26
A: Sy, T., Horton, C., & Riggio, R. (2018). Charismatic leadership: Eliciting and channelling
follower emotions. 26
B: Antonakis, J., Fenley, M., & Liechti, S. (2011). Can charisma be taught? Tests of two
interventions. 31
C: Carton, A. M. (2018). “I’m not mopping the floors, I’m putting a man on the moon”: How
NASA leaders enhanced the meaningfulness of work by changing the meaning of work. 33
D: Naidoo, L. J., & Lord, R. G. (2008). Speech imagery and perceptions of charisma: The
mediating role of positive affect. 35
Week 4: Rhetorical delivery 37
A: Sharma, A., & Grant, D. (2011). Narrative, drama and charismatic leadership: The case of
Apple’s Steve Jobs. 37
B: Caspi, A., Bogler, R., & Tzuman, O. (2019). “Judging a Book by Its Cover”: The Dominance of
Delivery Over Content When Perceiving Charisma. 39
C: DeGroot, T., Aime, F., Johnson, S. G., & Kluemper, D. (2011). Does talking help walking the
walk? An examination of the effect of vocal attractiveness in leader effectiveness. 41
Hypothesis: 41
D: Clarke, J. S., Cornelissen, J. P., & Healey, M. P. (2019). Actions speak louder than words: How
figurative language and gesturing in entrepreneurial pitches influences investment judgments. 42
1
,Week 1: Rhetorical Content
A: Giorgi, S. (2017). The mind and heart of resonance: The role of cognition and emotions in frame
effectiveness.
This article focuses on how framing comes across to an audience. It gives a framework on resonance
and examines how framing can hinder or favour resonance. An audience can seem homogeneous
but still be significantly differing in understandings, experiences, feelings and beliefs. This impacts a
framing’s ability to appeal to the audience. An examination of an audience is needed to overcome
the idea of recipients as either ‘rejecting’ or accepting’ a frame. Legitimacy reflects audience
evaluations of social fitness, while resonance captures a more personal ‘vibration’ that audiences
experience at the cognitive or emotional level.
Cognitive resonance
The frame has to be known or close to the intended audience (familiarity), because it provides the
audience with the means for quickly understanding the value or application of the object or framing.
New meanings are being connected to existing ones (blending). The frame does have to correspond
with the audience’s life experience (empirical credibility) and cultural codes (cultural credibility) in
order for it to be partially embedded in the audience. Framers are competing for the audience’s
attention, e.g. resulting in financial benefits (more customers). Framing can be done in the right way
or the wrong way, according to the fit with the audience (e.g. the expectations and stereotypes of
the audience) (causal ambiguity).
Emotional resonance
Emotional resonance exists when the audience feels aligned. Identification is the experience of an
emotion or a set of emotions, that entangles a product or service with the audience’s identity
(identification). Rituals consist of dramatic cultural performances that not only impart and reproduce
beliefs and understandings, but also create a state of collective effervescence that stimulates
audiences’ emotional commitment (rituals). Rituals are carriers of values, beliefs and aspirations that
actors can experience and feel, but not simply learn. The frame has to be emotionally embedded in
order to work (emotional embeddedness) in its institutional or organizational setting. It has to evoke
emotions that are in line with the institutional ethos. Emotional contagion can stop the frame from
being successful (if the framer is seen as discredited).
Concepts:
● Framing: the packaging and organization of information that can be powerful in order to
shape others’ understandings and behaviours.
● Frames: strategic rhetorical devices by which one actor seeks to define a situation for
another and influence their thinking and behaviors (a.k.a. filters). It is used to select certain
aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient.
● Resonance: A frame that is matching or aligning with the audience’s beliefs, values,
aspirations or ideas (however, there is no explicit definition for ‘resonance’). The author
describes resonance as ‘experienced personal connection with a frame’
○ Cognitive resonance: based on an appeal to audiences’ beliefs and understandings
■ Cognition: problem solving and planning, thinking
2
, ○ Emotional resonance: based on audiences’ feelings, passions and aspirations
■ Emotions: feeling, the passions and desires that are not reducible to the
pursuit of rational interests
Cognitive resonance Emotional resonance
Definition A perceived alignment of a A felt alignment of a frame
frame with understandings with the audience’s passions,
and beliefs that are central or desires, or aspirations
salient to a particular audience
Mechanism Familiarity Identification
Tool to enhance resonance Blending (of familiar and novel Rituals (performances that
elements) create an emotional state)
Challenges Empirical credibility (fit with Emotional embeddedness (fit
audiences’ life experiences) with institutional ethos)
Cultural credibility (fit with Emotional contagion (fit
societal cultural codes) between framer and frame)
Selected outcomes Honours and awards Corporate activism
New market categories Meaning in one’s life
Client engagements Sense of pride
Capital for new ventures Cohesion
Applications Competition for audience Overcome audience
attention indifference
Causal ambiguity of the object Offer emotional resolution to
of framing audience negative feelings
Future directions for further research: audience heterogeneity, the dark side of resonance &
resonance over time.
3
, B: Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, R. (2005). Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy.
This paper examines the role of rhetoric in legitimating profound institutional change. A big
accounting firm purchased a law firm in 1997 over a new organizational form; multidisciplinary
partnerships.
Three parts of the arguments in the article:
1. New organizational forms do not routinely emerge to fill latent resource opportunities, but
they have to acquire legitimacy
2. The criterion for legitimacy is encoded in institutional logics, legitimating an organizational
form that does not fit a prevailing logic involves modifying or displacing that logic in order to
establish new legitimacy criteria
3. This is achieved primarily through the use of rhetoric
Methods: In North America, there were strict boundaries between lawyers and accountants.
Conflicts used to occur in the mutual provision of tax services. The Big Five (large accounting firms)
started to expand their scope of service from traditional accounting to non-financial services. One of
the firms, Ernst & Young purchased a corporate law firm in Canada. They were challenging the
institutional logic’s prescriptions of appropriate organizational forms. Transcripts of testimony of
two commissions were investigated. 173 witnesses were interviewed by the investigating MDP
(multidisciplinary practices) commissions (law firms, consumer groups,, corporations, regulators and
other individuals). All 40 consumer groups supported MDPs, while government representatives all
opposed MDPs. Coding of the transcripts through open coding.
Concepts:
● Legitimacy: a cognitive process through which an entity becomes embedded in
taken-for-granted assumptions. It exists when ‘there is little question in the minds of actors
that it serves as a natural way to effect some kind of collective action’.
● Comprehensibility: how legitimacy is acquired in the early stages of organizational evolution
● Logic: the underlying assumptions, deeply held, often unexamined, which form a framework
within which reasoning takes place. Institutional logics refer to organizing principles that
shape ways of viewing and interpreting the world through role identities, strategic
behaviors, organizational forms and relationships between organizations. They prescribe
actors actions to make sense of their ambiguous world
● Institutional entrepreneurship: attempts to alter or replace an institutional logic
● Jolts: conditions that trigger institutional entrepreneurship
● Rhetoric: the art of persuasion
● MDPs: multidisciplinary practices (both law and accounting)
● Institutional vocabularies: structures of words, expressions and meaning used to articulate a
particular logic or means of interpreting reality
● 19th century archetype of professionalism: elite class of aristocratic gentlemen who pursued
professional occupations out of an interest in acquiring an esoteric body of knowledge
rather than for personal compensation
● Ontological rhetoric
● Historical rhetoric: linking to traditions in the past
4
Week 1: Rhetorical Content 2
A: Giorgi, S. (2017). The mind and heart of resonance: The role of cognition and emotions in
frame effectiveness. 2
B: Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, R. (2005). Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy. 4
C: Patriotta, G., Gond, J. P., & Schultz, F. (2011). Maintaining legitimacy: Controversies, orders of
worth, and public justifications. 7
D: Stam, D., Lord, R. G., Knippenberg, D. V., & Wisse, B. (2014). An image of who we might
become: Vision communication, possible selves, and vision pursuit. 13
Week 2: Rhetorical Arrangement 17
A: Green, S. E. (2004). A rhetorical theory of diffusion. 17
B: Solinger, O. N., Jansen, P. G., & Cornelissen, J. P. (2020). The emergence of moral leadership.
19
C: Seyranian, V., & Bligh, M. C. (2008). Presidential charismatic leadership: Exploring the rhetoric
of social change. 22
D: Sanders, J., & van Krieken, K. (2018). Exploring narrative structure and hero enactment in
brand stories. 24
Week 3: Rhetorical style 26
A: Sy, T., Horton, C., & Riggio, R. (2018). Charismatic leadership: Eliciting and channelling
follower emotions. 26
B: Antonakis, J., Fenley, M., & Liechti, S. (2011). Can charisma be taught? Tests of two
interventions. 31
C: Carton, A. M. (2018). “I’m not mopping the floors, I’m putting a man on the moon”: How
NASA leaders enhanced the meaningfulness of work by changing the meaning of work. 33
D: Naidoo, L. J., & Lord, R. G. (2008). Speech imagery and perceptions of charisma: The
mediating role of positive affect. 35
Week 4: Rhetorical delivery 37
A: Sharma, A., & Grant, D. (2011). Narrative, drama and charismatic leadership: The case of
Apple’s Steve Jobs. 37
B: Caspi, A., Bogler, R., & Tzuman, O. (2019). “Judging a Book by Its Cover”: The Dominance of
Delivery Over Content When Perceiving Charisma. 39
C: DeGroot, T., Aime, F., Johnson, S. G., & Kluemper, D. (2011). Does talking help walking the
walk? An examination of the effect of vocal attractiveness in leader effectiveness. 41
Hypothesis: 41
D: Clarke, J. S., Cornelissen, J. P., & Healey, M. P. (2019). Actions speak louder than words: How
figurative language and gesturing in entrepreneurial pitches influences investment judgments. 42
1
,Week 1: Rhetorical Content
A: Giorgi, S. (2017). The mind and heart of resonance: The role of cognition and emotions in frame
effectiveness.
This article focuses on how framing comes across to an audience. It gives a framework on resonance
and examines how framing can hinder or favour resonance. An audience can seem homogeneous
but still be significantly differing in understandings, experiences, feelings and beliefs. This impacts a
framing’s ability to appeal to the audience. An examination of an audience is needed to overcome
the idea of recipients as either ‘rejecting’ or accepting’ a frame. Legitimacy reflects audience
evaluations of social fitness, while resonance captures a more personal ‘vibration’ that audiences
experience at the cognitive or emotional level.
Cognitive resonance
The frame has to be known or close to the intended audience (familiarity), because it provides the
audience with the means for quickly understanding the value or application of the object or framing.
New meanings are being connected to existing ones (blending). The frame does have to correspond
with the audience’s life experience (empirical credibility) and cultural codes (cultural credibility) in
order for it to be partially embedded in the audience. Framers are competing for the audience’s
attention, e.g. resulting in financial benefits (more customers). Framing can be done in the right way
or the wrong way, according to the fit with the audience (e.g. the expectations and stereotypes of
the audience) (causal ambiguity).
Emotional resonance
Emotional resonance exists when the audience feels aligned. Identification is the experience of an
emotion or a set of emotions, that entangles a product or service with the audience’s identity
(identification). Rituals consist of dramatic cultural performances that not only impart and reproduce
beliefs and understandings, but also create a state of collective effervescence that stimulates
audiences’ emotional commitment (rituals). Rituals are carriers of values, beliefs and aspirations that
actors can experience and feel, but not simply learn. The frame has to be emotionally embedded in
order to work (emotional embeddedness) in its institutional or organizational setting. It has to evoke
emotions that are in line with the institutional ethos. Emotional contagion can stop the frame from
being successful (if the framer is seen as discredited).
Concepts:
● Framing: the packaging and organization of information that can be powerful in order to
shape others’ understandings and behaviours.
● Frames: strategic rhetorical devices by which one actor seeks to define a situation for
another and influence their thinking and behaviors (a.k.a. filters). It is used to select certain
aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient.
● Resonance: A frame that is matching or aligning with the audience’s beliefs, values,
aspirations or ideas (however, there is no explicit definition for ‘resonance’). The author
describes resonance as ‘experienced personal connection with a frame’
○ Cognitive resonance: based on an appeal to audiences’ beliefs and understandings
■ Cognition: problem solving and planning, thinking
2
, ○ Emotional resonance: based on audiences’ feelings, passions and aspirations
■ Emotions: feeling, the passions and desires that are not reducible to the
pursuit of rational interests
Cognitive resonance Emotional resonance
Definition A perceived alignment of a A felt alignment of a frame
frame with understandings with the audience’s passions,
and beliefs that are central or desires, or aspirations
salient to a particular audience
Mechanism Familiarity Identification
Tool to enhance resonance Blending (of familiar and novel Rituals (performances that
elements) create an emotional state)
Challenges Empirical credibility (fit with Emotional embeddedness (fit
audiences’ life experiences) with institutional ethos)
Cultural credibility (fit with Emotional contagion (fit
societal cultural codes) between framer and frame)
Selected outcomes Honours and awards Corporate activism
New market categories Meaning in one’s life
Client engagements Sense of pride
Capital for new ventures Cohesion
Applications Competition for audience Overcome audience
attention indifference
Causal ambiguity of the object Offer emotional resolution to
of framing audience negative feelings
Future directions for further research: audience heterogeneity, the dark side of resonance &
resonance over time.
3
, B: Suddaby, R., & Greenwood, R. (2005). Rhetorical strategies of legitimacy.
This paper examines the role of rhetoric in legitimating profound institutional change. A big
accounting firm purchased a law firm in 1997 over a new organizational form; multidisciplinary
partnerships.
Three parts of the arguments in the article:
1. New organizational forms do not routinely emerge to fill latent resource opportunities, but
they have to acquire legitimacy
2. The criterion for legitimacy is encoded in institutional logics, legitimating an organizational
form that does not fit a prevailing logic involves modifying or displacing that logic in order to
establish new legitimacy criteria
3. This is achieved primarily through the use of rhetoric
Methods: In North America, there were strict boundaries between lawyers and accountants.
Conflicts used to occur in the mutual provision of tax services. The Big Five (large accounting firms)
started to expand their scope of service from traditional accounting to non-financial services. One of
the firms, Ernst & Young purchased a corporate law firm in Canada. They were challenging the
institutional logic’s prescriptions of appropriate organizational forms. Transcripts of testimony of
two commissions were investigated. 173 witnesses were interviewed by the investigating MDP
(multidisciplinary practices) commissions (law firms, consumer groups,, corporations, regulators and
other individuals). All 40 consumer groups supported MDPs, while government representatives all
opposed MDPs. Coding of the transcripts through open coding.
Concepts:
● Legitimacy: a cognitive process through which an entity becomes embedded in
taken-for-granted assumptions. It exists when ‘there is little question in the minds of actors
that it serves as a natural way to effect some kind of collective action’.
● Comprehensibility: how legitimacy is acquired in the early stages of organizational evolution
● Logic: the underlying assumptions, deeply held, often unexamined, which form a framework
within which reasoning takes place. Institutional logics refer to organizing principles that
shape ways of viewing and interpreting the world through role identities, strategic
behaviors, organizational forms and relationships between organizations. They prescribe
actors actions to make sense of their ambiguous world
● Institutional entrepreneurship: attempts to alter or replace an institutional logic
● Jolts: conditions that trigger institutional entrepreneurship
● Rhetoric: the art of persuasion
● MDPs: multidisciplinary practices (both law and accounting)
● Institutional vocabularies: structures of words, expressions and meaning used to articulate a
particular logic or means of interpreting reality
● 19th century archetype of professionalism: elite class of aristocratic gentlemen who pursued
professional occupations out of an interest in acquiring an esoteric body of knowledge
rather than for personal compensation
● Ontological rhetoric
● Historical rhetoric: linking to traditions in the past
4
