Evidencing sensemaking: a speech act theory study of metaphors in organizational mission statements

This study explores how metaphors deployed in university mission statements demonstrate the sensemaking process of organizational reality. One hundred thirty-two mission statements collected across the University of North Carolina system comprise the textual source of analysis for this study. Austin and Searle's speech act theory is employed to intertextually identify metaphors, which are then analyzed in line with Weick's framework of...