Tensions Beneath the Surface Hoshin Kanri as a Tool for Strategic Conflict Regulation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4396/20250605Keywords:
conflict, organisations, cooperative principle, leadershipAbstract
This paper investigates Hoshin Kanri, a planning, implementation, and control method aimed at translating organisational goals into actionable plans through a streamlined and cooperative approach. Conflict is assumed to be a threat to organisational stability, arising from misalignments in objectives, values, and motivations within the organisation and between its members and the organisation itself. The hypothesis posits that Hoshin Kanri implicitly adopts the cooperative principle as a persuasive strategy to channel conflict while keeping it latent, yet leadership practices and workflow digitalisation contribute to its violation. Accordingly, the application of conversational implicatures to Hoshin Kanri will be examined. Specifically: (1) the rule-based system of conduct it generates (deontology); (2) the intersubjective space it articulates (negotiation); and (3) the leadership approach it structures (procedural). For this purpose, a methodological framework combining semiotics with pragmatics and social systems theory will be applied, allowing the analysis of corporate communication as a space of interaction and manipulation aimed at constructing shared meaning. The empirical analysis is grounded in a corpus a corpus compiled through the participant observation of operational practices in two multinational companies headquartered in the EU. The main findings suggest that applying the cooperative principle to Hoshin Kanri leads to a syntax of non-impoliteness aimed at reinforcing the system’s self-referentiality and ultimately impacting the organisation’s ability to autonomously develop proactive responses to contingency.
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