Brendan K O'Rourke

Technological University Dublin - City Campus | TU Dublin · School of Marketing

This paper argues that the state’s capacity to tax corporations in order to fund itself is reaching crisis proportions. Following decades of trade liberalization, deregulation, and globalization, large multinational companies have been able to take advantage of tax competition between states in order to avoid taxation and offset their obligations....

Annual budgets are key to constituting and governing imagined futures. This paper examines how the signifier ‘future’ is constructed within the Irish budget speeches delivered by finance ministers to parliament between 1970 and 2015. To investigate the discourses of these budget speeches, we employ post-structural discourse theory operationalised t...

This volume constitutes the Irish element in the ever-expanding International Library of Policy Analysis series, edited by Michael Howlett and Iris Geva-May and published by Policy Press. It provides unique insights into the state of policy analysis in Ireland. It draws together contributions from some of the leading policy analysis experts, both a...

Given the centrality of corporations in distribution of income and wealth studies, discursive constructions of corporate taxation are essential to understanding the production of inequality. The focus of this study is an interview with Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook on the Irish state broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann’s (RTÉ) flagship news pro...

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has lasted over half a century, with both sides enduring military and political turmoil. This paper explores how Twitter is being used as a medium to portray identities in the conflict. We examine the tweets contained in the @IDFspokesperson and @ISMPalestine Twitter accounts between late 2015 and early 201...

Irish ‘successes’ with liberal and postliberal austerity are marginal and marginalising. Such austerity measures are margalising by favouring Ireland’s elite and further alienating those without power. Furthermore, neoliberal austerity means Ireland lags behind core economies and becomes more peripheral. Irish austerity policies are marginal in the...

This paper draws on longitudinal research based on discourse data collected at 63 meetings in a single organization, over an 18 months period. The research conceptualized meetings collectively as organizational systemic process (Duffy, 2016) and addressed the research question – “How do organizational meetings collectively contribute to the constit...

The limitations of meetings research to date is summed up by Schwartzman (2015) in the penultimate chapter of Allen, Lehmann-Willenbrock, and Rogelberg (2015): The idea that there are any aspects of meeting functioning that (1) cannot be attributed to individuals, (2) are not actually subject to individual control, and (3) may not have been intend...

The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of governing elites, and their countervailing potential for the creation of a more egalitarian, or meritocratic, society, has been an enduring subject of concern, debate and research. Many of these debates are made all the more difficult by our inability to directly compare elit...

This paper is about who influences economic policy makers in Ireland. Ireland’s economy is of interest as it was not only part of the infamous PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain - whose economies were central in the Euro crisis of 2009 - ) but Ireland is also seen as the poster child of the neoliberal prescription of austerity adopte...

In this update we will discuss briefly the context of the Irish economic crisis from 2008, and what took place during the crisis. We will focus upon the cuts implemented by the government and the ending of social partnership. We will see how extreme measures were taken to rescue private banks at the public’s expense, what the Americans’ call social...

A call for papers on economics and language usuage

Few would doubt that economists have taken a prominent role as experts on policy issues [Maesse, J. 2015. Economic experts: A discursive political economy of economics. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 10, no.3: 279–305] and some contend that no other social science discipline has gained such prominence [Fourcade, M., E. Ollion, and Y. Algan. 20...

This paper explores change in the development of enterprise policy strategy in the Republic of Ireland from 2004 to 2014. It asks the following questions; in what manner has enterprise policy strategy changed over the course of more than a decade and given the severe impact of the financial crisis in 2008 how, if at all, has this change been affect...

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT) developed by Hogan and Doyle (2007) a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy in the mid 1980s, a time when the country went through one of its worst economic crises. Did the policy changes ushered in by the Telesis Report of 1982 con...

Employing the critical juncture theory, a discursive institutionalist approach, this article examines the nature of changes to Irish industrial policy and to Mexican macroeconomic policy in the early 1980s. Were these significant changes, or were they continuations of previously established policy pathways? The critical juncture theory consists of...

The contributors investigate policy paradigms and their ability to explain the policy process – actors, ideas, discourses and strategies employed – to provide readers with a better understanding of public policy and its dynamics. Drawing together leading researchers in the field, this edited collection offers a unique insight into a selection of po...

This chapter examines the changes to Irish industrial policy during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, a period which saw the country transition from the poorest country in Western Europe to the prosperity of the Celtic Tiger. Did the changes in industrial policy, ushered in by the Telesis Report of 1982 and the Culliton Report of 1992, constitute...

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT) developed by Hogan and Doyle (2007) a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy in the mid-1980s, a time when the country went through one of its worst economic crises. Did the policy changes ushered in by the Telesis Report of 1982 con...

Employing the critical juncture theory (CJT), a discursive institutionalist approach, this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy, and Mexican macroeconomic policy, during early the 1980s, a time when both countries went through economic crises. Did these policy changes constitute transformations to failing policies, or...

The role, formation, production and reproduction of elites in business, politics and a range of other areas, has become of increasing public concern in recent years. The role of higher education systems in the formation and reproduction of elites and higher education systems’ countervailing potential for the creation of a more egalitarian, or merit...

Treating meetings collectively as a unit of analysis enables a holistic view of their theoretical foundations, their practical operation, and potential contribution to organizations. We draw on concepts from systems and process thinking, sensemaking and sensegiving, and organizational collective mind to inform a systemic conceptualization of organi...

Irish ‘successes’ with austerity are marginal and marginalising. They are marginal in the sense of being from a small, open and unusual economy on the edge of Europe and the Anglo-American mainstream. Austerity’s contributions to Ireland’s successes, while well-celebrated, are also marginal. Irish tales of austerity are marginalising as the ‘succes...

We address how enterprise is related to, another important discourse, strategy. From a discourse analysis of the talk of small firm owner-managers, emerges a view of strategy and enterprise as a single, integrated entity, bound together by some commonalities but more importantly by paired opposites reminiscent of ideological dilemmas (Billig, Condo...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide a method of gaining transdisciplinary insight by focusing on keywords in the language we use. The language of economics dominates discourse about the economy. Analyzing this discourse from a great variety of perspectives has blossomed but promises much more. The study of the keyword “entrepreneur”...

Paper Title Too Much and Too Little: Enterprise Discourse and Industrial Policy in Ireland. Aim of the Paper The aim of the paper is to show how enterprise in Ireland has made little difference to industrial policy at one level, but is extraordinarily dominant, in a specific discursive form, at a more general policy level. Background Literature Wor...

Strategy workshops are frequently used by executive management to formulate strategy but are underresearched and underreported in the academic literature. This study uses a form of discourse analysis to identify a dialogic pattern of talk in an executive management strategy workshop. The group’s dialogue in the workshop discourse displayed an empha...

Employing a discursive institutionalist approach in the form of the critical juncture theory (CJT), this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy in the mid 1980s, a time when the country went through one of its worst economic crises. Did these policy changes, ushered in by the Telesis Report of 1982, constitute a tran...

Elites and their formation have become a matter of increasing public concern and research interest in recent years. The lessons from such research can be made more generalisable if a measure of elite formation could be developed that is comparable across different elite formation systems, whether they differ by elite, time or country. But, the natu...

Elites and their formation have become of increasing public concern and research interest in recent years. The lessons from such research can be made more generalizable if a measure of elite formation could be developed that is comparable across countries. But, the nature of elite formation renders this a complex task. Nevertheless, in this paper,...

We examine how the discourse in three radio interviews, between 2008 and 2010, with the then Irish Minister for Finance, constructed state support, including a banking guarantee, to private sector banks in Ireland. These interviews provide insights into the kind of neoliberal discourse that was prevalent in Ireland during what is referred to as the...

Elites and their formation have become of increasing public concern and research interest in recent years. The lessons from such research can be made more generalizable if a measure of elite formation could be developed that is comparable across countries. But, the nature of elite formation renders this a complex task. Nevertheless, in this paper,...

Discourses of creativity tempt us with promises of treasures from terra incognito (Cox, 2005). Creativity is central to the enterprise culture of our age and there is a dark side to such temptations (O'Rourke, 2010;Osborne, 2003; Rehn & De Cock, 2009). Creativity’s role in the enterprise culture may mean that like other aspects of enterprise cultur...

! The recent economic crisis has created a heightened interest in economics and greater demand for economics experts. The media has played an important role in meeting this demand as mediated expertise is relied upon to understand the complex relation-ships within society (Albaek, Christiansen and Togeby 2003; Beck 1992; Boyce 2006; Giddens 1990)....

Employing a discursive institutionalist approach in the form of the critical juncture theory (CJT), this paper examines the nature of the changes to Irish industrial policy in the mid 1980s, a time when the country went through one of its worst economic crises. Did these policy changes, ushered in by the Telesis Report of 1982, constitute a transfo...

O’Rourke, B. K. (2013). Book Review: Ekström, M., & Patrona, M. (Eds.). (2011). Talking Politics in Broadcast Media: Cross-cultural perspectives on political interviewing, journalism and accountability (Vol. 42). Amsterdam: John Benjamin. Jourrnal of Language and Politics, 12(4), 652-654.

m each other (Dittrich et al., 2011). Adopting a systematized view of meetings, and seeing them as locations of organizational sensemaking (Schwartzman, 1989), this paper considers meetings collectively as a process of sensemaking within the organization. Sensemaking is viewed as both a retrospective action and also as a prehensive process. Pre...

In this article we look at how young men consume coverage of prostitution in Irish newspapers. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, because the media, and newspapers in particular, seem to be an important source of information for people (Meade, 2008). This is especially true in the case of prostitution, as the only contact the citiz...

In this article we look at how young men consume coverage of prostitution in Irish newspapers. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, because the media, and newspapers in particular, seem to be an important source of information for people (Meade, 2008). This is especially true in the case of prostitution, as the only contact the citiz...

At the center of the current political economy crisis in Europe are the geographically and economically peripheral PIG (Portugal, Ireland and Greece) countries (Totaro, 2010). In particular, Ireland, heralded as a triumph of the market during its Celtic Tiger (1987-2007) boom (see, Powell 2003), was a state where neo-liberal discourse dominated (Ph...

There was much on openness and fighting white-collar crime in the parties’ manifestos – but where are they in the programme for government.

The unethical behaviour that helped create the economic and banking crisis has caught the attention of some parties.

The 2007 international economic crisis may have begun in capitalism’s heartland with credit default swops and sub-prime mortages, nevertheless some of its most dramatic manifestations have been at the edge. In Europe, the peripheral economies of Iceland, Greece and Ireland have manifested crises that have shaken Europe to the core, and generated cr...

In this introductory chapter, we will put the book and its aims in context and provide the reader with a guide to the wide-ranging, diverse and thought-provoking contributions contained between its covers. In order to do so, this chapter is structured as follows. The first section looks at the context within which this book finds itself and which m...

Irish Business and Society is a contemporary exploration of the wide-ranging debates surrounding the relationships between business and society in 21st century Ireland, providing a context in which to question and inform our perspectives on both. The book consists of diverse and thought-provoking contributions from leading business researchers, eco...

Ireland is an economy, society and culture at the edge. It is at the edge of Europe and at the edge of both USA/UK and more mainland European or EU variants of capitalism. More recently it has been at the edge of economic crisis. Yet enterprise discourse is still central in Ireland. Enterprise discourse in Ireland is influenced by global and Europe...

This chapter presents a discussion on the nature of qualitative research. In it, a number of contributors to the book sit down for a general roundtable discussion on qualitative methodologies. Here they express their thinking in relation to a range of questions on qualitative methodologies put to them by the moderator, one of the editors of the vol...

The field of discourse analysis (DA) is vast, varied and contested with traditions ranging from conversational analysis (Sacks, 1995, [1964-1972]), to more Foucauldian inspired approaches (e.g. Kendall & Wickham, 1999), to critical discourse approaches (Van Dijk, 2001; Fairclough, 2003). This diversity means that this overview is necessarily select...

This thesis adds to the literature on strategy and enterprise discourses by analysing how they are used in interviews with small-firm owner-managers. The literature describes features of strategy and enterprise discourses and their shaping by historical developments. There is much work on the operation of these two discourses at societal and large-...

Among the various approaches that have developed from FOUCAULT's work is an Anglophone discourse analysis that has attempted to combine FOUCAULTian insights with the techniques of Conversation Analysis. An important current methodological issue in this discourse analytical approach is its theoretical preference for "naturally occurring" rather than...

Over the last three decades the discourses of strategy and enterprise have developed significantly in the context of large corporate organizations and increasingly within and for the public sector. The discourses of strategy and enterprise have developed in relationship with each other and are generative of various attributes and dilemmas for the i...

This paper presents research into individuals’ pragmatic evaluations of ‘lived’ ideological dilemmas, in the discursive construction of their identities as volunteers. It contends that rather than maintaining particular political or religious ‘intellectual’ ideologies, as resources to discursively construct the identity of volunteer, individuals pr...

This paper has drawn on the expertise and reasoning literature most especially the work of Voss et al. (1983, 1989) and of Lehman, Lempert, and Nisbett (1988) and on writings about the nature of economics discipline in general and on its role in management in particular (e.g., O’Rourke, 1998). Though theoretical in nature this work is more empirica...

Economics, especially neo-classical economics, represents a considerable portion of the contents of educational courses in business. The evolution of economics has been such that dialogue between economists and other specialists in the business school has become increasingly difficult. Indeed even within economics specialists can be unaware of what...

Many students of economics consider it an unrealistic subject. But as Brendan O'Rourke, of the Accountancy & Business College, Dublin, points out, its capacity to analyse complex problems lies in its capacity to make abstractions.

This thesis adds to the literature on strategy and enterprise discourses by analysing how they are used in interviews with small-firm owner-managers. The literature describes features of strategy and enterprise discourses and their shaping by historical developments. There is much work on the operation of these two discourses at societal and large-...