The Accomplishment of Authority Through Presentification: How Authority Is Distributed Among and Negotiated by Organizational Members

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2009; 23; 5 originally publishedManagement Communication QuarterlyChantal Benoit-Barné and François Cooren

MembersAuthority Is Distributed Among and Negotiated by Organizational The Accomplishment of Authority Through Presentification: How

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The Accomplishment of Authority Through PresentificationHow Authority Is Distributed Among and Negotiated by Organizational MembersChantal Benoit-BarnéFrançois CoorenUniversité de Montréal

The complex distribution and negotiation of authority in real time is a key issue for today’s organizations. The authors investigate how the negotiations that sustain authority at work actually unfold by analyzing the ways of talk-ing and acting through which organizational members establish their author-ity. They argue that authority is achieved through presentification—that is, by making sources of authority present in interaction. On the basis of an empirical analysis of a naturally occurring interaction between a medical coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières and technicians of a hospital sup-ported by her organization, the authors identify key communicative practices involved in achieving authority and discuss their implications for scholars’ understanding of what being in authority at work means.

Keywords: authority; organizing; presentification; interaction

Authority is a multifaceted concept grounded in different bodies of schol-arly literature. In particular, scholars interested in collective action have

extensively investigated this concept. Authority is a key principle of political organization, manifest in the writings of political thinkers such as Aristotle,

Authors’ Note: This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410-2005-1244) and the Fonds québécois pour la recherche en sciences sociales (111889). The authors would like to thank Boris H. J. M. Brummans, James Taylor, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights. The careful editorial guidance of James Barker also greatly contributed to the development of this article. Finally, the authors wish to thank the representatives of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), especially Jean-Sébastien and Chantal, for providing them with access to their organization.

Management Communication Quarterly

Volume 23 Number 1August 2009 5-31

© 2009 The Author(s)10.1177/0893318909335414


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6 Management Communication Quarterly

Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Arendt. It can also be found in the writings of modern sociologists (Sennett, 1980; Weber, 1922/1968), in management theory (Boström, 2006; Casey, 2004; Fayol, 1916/1949; Gilman, 1982; Hoogenboom & Ossewaarde, 2005; Kahn & Kram, 1994), and in rhetorical theory (Farrell, 1993; J. M. Murphy, 2000). Authority, it seems, is a funda-mental feature of our human capacity to act in concert, whether with regard to the basis of government, the establishment of social bonds, the process of organizing, or the sustenance of communal life through rhetoric.

In organization studies, authority is primarily linked to organizational stability. It is generally conceived as a legitimate form of power able to create a sense of integration, predictability, and order (Kahn & Kram, 1994; Weber, 1922/1968). Authority differs from other acts of influence in that it is perceived to be in agreement with more or less established organizational roles, rules, practices, and beliefs. As such, it is an act of influence per-ceived to be “right” because it is in concordance with existing and accepted organizational structures.

Although hierarchical organizations have traditionally been described as sites of rational, legal authority wherein authority primarily derives from position (Weber, 1922/1968), many scholars have argued that, in contem-porary organizations, more collaborative work environments defy such a narrow understanding of the nature and role of authority (Hirschhorn, 1990; Hoogenboom & Ossewaarde, 2005; Kahn & Kram, 1994). In particular, Kahn and Kram (1994) maintain that authority at work should be consid-ered as distributed among organizational members, negotiated between superiors and subordinates, and distributed between coworkers. In line with this idea, our main objective in this article is to describe how the negotia-tion through which authority at work is accomplished actually unfolds and to show how authority can both emerge in work interactions and endure beyond the local interactions of organization members.

Our interest in authority stems from its importance for understanding the constitutive quality of communication in collectivities (Cooren, 2000; Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004; Putnam & Nicotera, 2009; Taylor & Van Every, 2000). More specifically, our interest in authority grows out of wanting to investigate how and why certain types of agents appear to count more than others in work interactions. Our commitment to investigate the organizing properties of communication entails the meticulous analysis of naturally occurring interactions to explain how organizational realities emerge and are sustained. Thus, we (a) describe the communicative practices through which organizational members accomplish authority while doing their work and (b) explain how authority at work is durable in the sense that it



Benoit-Barné, Cooren / Accomplishment of Authority 7

both precedes and endures beyond organizational members’ local interac-tions. In doing so, we advance a view of authority as an effect of presence, and we emphasize the significance of presentification for the accomplish-ment of authority, in other words, the importance of those communicative practices through which organizational members make many different things and beings (competencies, ideas, collectives, individuals, etc.) present as sources of authority in their work interaction.

By investigating authority from a communicative perspective, we develop a means for addressing the criticisms often leveled at micro-level analysis of organizational interactions that they downplay fundamental issues of power. In particular, we explain how sources of authority that could be treated as static and unchangeable, such as status or an ability to lead, play a significant role in work interactions. We also show that author-ity does not strictly originate from an agent who presents himself or herself as a priori in authority. Authority can also be acquired during an interac-tional move. By understanding how authority can be acquired in interac-tion, practitioners can become better prepared to deal with the various sources of authority that constitute any collective.

In the next section, we review the relevant literature on authority and develop the theoretical perspective that informs our work. Then we empir-ically identify ways in which authority is locally achieved through presen-tification by relying on the close analysis of a naturally occurring interaction. We believe it is in the actual give and take of collective action that we can best observe, describe, and understand the practices sustaining the accom-plishment of authority. The excerpt analyzed is taken from fieldwork com-pleted in October and November 2005 with the renowned humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We conclude by discuss-ing the implications of our work for the micro-level analysis of organiza-tional interactions, for our understanding of how workers establish their authority, and, finally, for practitioners involved in the day-to-day negotia-tions that sustain authority in collaborative work environments.

Toward an Understanding of Authority as an Effect of Presence

What being in authority means and, most important for us in this arti-cle, how those involved in collective action achieve authority remain largely uncertain. So far, the accomplishment of authority has been mostly




investigated theoretically or philosophically by relying on hypothetical or paradigmatic cases. For Richard Sennett (1980), for example, authority is well demonstrated in the conducting of an orchestra:

The image of an authority which sticks most in my mind comes from watch-ing the conductor Pierre Monteux rehearse an orchestra over a period of some weeks. Monteux, as anyone who saw him in concert knows, was no charismatic showman. His baton movements were restricted within a box he imagined in front of him, a box about eighteen inches wide and a foot high. The audience saw little of the stickwork going on inside that box, but the orchestra was intensively aware of it. A movement of an inch upward was the sign of a crescendo; a movement of ten inches indicated a massive outpour-ing of sound. (p. 16)

So, according to Sennett, a conductor waving his or her baton exemplifies authority as “someone who has strength and uses it to guide others through disciplining them, changing how they act by reference to a higher stand-ard” (p. 17). Sennett’s view thus underlines the fact that the exercise of authority implicates three discrete yet interrelated entities, namely, an agent capable of acting for a collective in the name of existing structures (norms, standards, etc.).

Many other views of authority include these three elements: an agent acting for a collective, an individual or collective who somewhat consents to being guided, and an organized milieu that can sustain their interaction. Yet they differ in the significance they ascribe to each of the elements, resulting in at least three distinct ways of conceptualizing the nature and role of authority in organizations. First, some scholars argue that authority originates in hierarchal structures. This view of authority as hierarchy means that power is vested in persons by virtue of their office (see Crozier & Friedberg, 1980; Weber, 1922/1968). Authority resides in organizational structures and is delegated to someone because of his or her ascribed posi-tion within that structure. This view of authority is associated with notions such as a line of authority, a chain of command, and statutory authority (Fayol, 1916/1949) as well as with legal or rational authority (Weber, 1922/1968). In the organizational literature, studies of work group meet-ings have particularly informed our understanding of the enactment of rela-tions of authority based on hierarchies as well as their consequences (Hong & Engeström, 2004; Stohl & Schell, 1991).

Second, authority is often viewed as the characteristic of an agent. For instance, it is seen as a trait (e.g., charisma) that predisposes someone to take charge or is seen as an acquired and demonstrated ability to take




charge (i.e., ethos). In both cases, the agent is the key source of authority. For example, Fairhurst (2007) examined how Rudolf Giuliani provided—or “authored”—various sources of emotional support to New Yorkers, espe-cially through narratives, during the events of 9/11. Irons (1998) also sup-ported this view when he described the narrative authority of speakers involved in technical writing. In rhetorical studies, the link between ethos and authority suggests that authority as a feature of the agent emerges in rhetoric. It is “an interpretation that is the product of speaker-audience interaction” (Hauser, 1986, p. 93), a form of “grounded entitlement” (Farrell, 1993, p. 290), and a local requirement to establish one’s character (J. M. Murphy, 2000, p. 580). This understanding of authority as emergent in speech moves the discussion from a question of where authority resides to a question of how it is achieved.

Third, some see authority in relation to the idea of consent. In this case, its emergence is related to how a collective will react to a person in author-ity. The musicians rather than the conductor, for instance, generate authority. This point of view was developed by scholars such as Barnard (1938) and is also manifest in Sigmund Freud’s work (see Sennett, 1980). In line with this, and based on the idea that organizations are “political sites where we might expect opposition, subversion, and struggle” (Fleming & Spicer, 2008, p. 301), critical approaches to organization studies have convincingly demonstrated the many different ways in which organizational members can react to manifestations of authority at work, by either maintaining or dis-rupting the status quo. Critical scholars call our attention to the fact that power (and, by implication, authority) is distributed, although in asymmetri-cal ways, among organizational members, especially by focusing on issues of resistance and struggle (e.g., see the Management Communication Quarterly special issue on power and resistance, February 2008).

This overview of the literature suggests that there are two key tensions in scholarly work on authority. First, authority is defined as a given by virtue of some trait or position within an organization, or it is defined as a local (sometimes rhetorical) achievement that entails the consent of those represented. In both cases, authority is related to a particular source of authority (whether preexisting or emergent), such as status, ability to lead, or obedient response to a person in control, raising questions about how these key characteristics and events play such a significant role in work relations. Second, authority is seen as being embodied in organizational members and/or structures, or it is seen as being distributed; the sources of authority are multiple and in interaction, possibly shifting over time and space. In our view, these tensions in the literature on authority emphasize




that local and dislocal aspects of interaction are inherently linked in the accomplishment of authority. Authority, it seems, exists between entitle-ment and negotiation, between already being entitled to act for X because of a recognized characteristic and being allowed to act by X through the emergence of one or several sources of authority in a given interaction. If we can say that an agent locally accomplishes his or her authority, we must also acknowledge that he or she does so by mobilizing, through presentifi-cation, a plethora of “things” and “beings” that are not physically present to make a difference in the situation in which he or she is involved.

The Accomplishment of Authority Through Presentification

The concept of presentification is informed by the growing literature on the organizing property of communication (Cooren, 2000; Cooren, Taylor, & Van Every, 2006; Fairhurst & Putnam, 2004; Taylor & Van Every, 2000). A primary commitment of this theoretical perspective is to illustrate the dislocal character of any organizational interaction (Cooren & Fairhurst, 2009; Sillince, 2007) by investigating the discursive and interactive prac-tices by which various things and beings are made present in an ongoing interaction. Following Gumbrecht (2004) and Cooren (2006; Cooren, Brummans, & Charrieras, 2008), we rely on the term presentification to signify those ways of speaking and acting that are involved in making present things and beings that, although not physically present, can influ-ence the unfolding of a situation. In other words, making something or someone present dislocate any interaction, allowing the transportation in time and space of different agents (collective and individual, human and nonhuman) in a given interaction. For instance, one can speak of disloca-tion through presentification when a worker says to another, “This is our policy!” to tell or remind her interlocutor that something has to be done. There is indeed dislocation to the extent that something such as an organi-zational policy is made present at this very moment to make a difference in the way the sequence unfolds.

Paralleling Derrida’s (1974, 1982) reflection on “presencing” and “hauntology,” one could therefore contend that interactions are always “spectral”; they mobilize agents that can be considered both present and absent, that is, ghostal. For instance, someone’s status can make a differ-ence in an interaction (e.g., by providing a reason for complying with his or her directives), but its mode of being is spectral to the extent that it is




neither completely present nor entirely absent in a given situation. It can be mobilized and made present—or presentified—explicitly in a discussion (“I am your boss, remember this!”) or acknowledged a priori by the inter-locutors, but this presence is always an effect (of an interactional move, of the contracts that define the various statuses within the organization, of the interlocutor’s a priori knowledge, etc.).1 From this point of view, any inter-action is “haunted” by a plethora of agents whose presence and absence are performed and create certain effects.

To reflect on the achievement of authority as an effect of presence, we rely on another key commitment of this perspective, namely, an accounting for both human and nonhuman forms of agency in the process of organizing (Cooren, 2004; Fairhurst, 2007; Robichaud, 2006; Taylor & Van Every, 2000). The challenge consists of never leaving the terra firma of interaction while extending what we mean by interaction to include forms of agency that are not accounted for in traditional analysis of organizational interac-tion. For instance, although conversation analysts are primarily interested in talk in interaction, that is, persons speaking to each other in institutional or noninstitutional contexts (Bargiela-Chiappini & Harris, 1997; Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997), studying organizational processes implies that we also acknowledge the active role that texts, technologies, and even architectural elements play in the enactment of this process (Cooren, 2006). Although speaking in terms of collective, material, or textual agency can, at first sight, seem nonsensical (McPhee, 2004; McPhee & Seibold, 1999), several empirical illustrations have shown the analytical power of this perspective, which positions communication and interaction at the forefront of the study of organizations (Cooren et al., 2006; Fairhurst, 2007).

From this perspective, the organizational world, like the social world, is constituted by humans, documents, statuses, policies, machines, architec-tural elements, and so on and cannot be reduced to how people orient to each other or to specific things in interactional contexts. Action, then, is shared with other entities, whether human, textual, collective, or “artifac-tual” (Cooren, 2004; Fairhurst, 2007; Latour, 1994). This means that the participants (or researchers) can always question who or even what is act-ing in a specific context (Sillince, 2007), which precisely leads us to the question of what is made present or absent in a particular situation: “The Company X tells me to insert Piece A in Piece B,” “The experts who wrote these directions tell me to insert Piece A in Piece B,” “These instructions tell me to insert Piece A in Piece B.” We can say that it is the company, the experts, or the instructions that are leading us to perform specific tasks in a certain sequence, even if this company and its experts are apparently absent




from this situation. Depending on what kind of agent the interactants decide to focus on in the chain of agencies (the company, the experts, the instruc-tions), effects of presence and absence will be produced.

Investigating the Accomplishment of Authority

The theoretical perspective introduced so far has four key analytical implications for our investigation of how organizational members accom-plish authority. First, our understanding of authority is inherently related to the question of agency, that is, the capacity to make a difference (Giddens, 1984).2 It is conceived as a key dimension of an agent’s capacity to influ-ence the unfolding of an event. As pointed out by Taylor and Van Every (2000), author and authority have the same Latin root, auctor, which means that ascribing authority usually entails identifying who or what is acting or authoring something at a specific moment. Although the term agency is analytically used to account for all the differences that an agent can make in a given situation, the term authority allows us to explicate how a differ-ence is realized by an agent in situ. That is, authority calls attention to the agent(s) that appear(s) to count, so to speak, by emphasizing what allows this agent to make a difference in a given situation. Note that this is differ-ent from saying that authority at work is related to someone’s capacity to influence the outcome of an event. By describing the accomplishment of authority in terms of outcome, we risk downplaying the significance of the negotiation that sustains it and the creative ways in which workers can actu-ally acquire authority in their everyday interactions.

Second, and in connection with the previous point, we posit that the ques-tion of authority is related to the classical distinction between agent and principal and rely on this distinction to explain the realization of authority as an effect of presence (Taylor & Cooren, 1997). Here, we are not using the terms as defined by agency theory, that is, as a contractual relationship between two parties. As Taylor and Van Every (2000) remind us, one way to use the term agent consists of pointing out that the latter acts for a principal, that is, that when he, she, or it performs an action X, it is also the principal he, she, or it represents that should be considered as performing X. In other words, “principals” and “agents” are here mutually defined: Someone or something is a principal because he, she, or it is made present by an agent who or that acts on his, her, or its behalf. Conversely, someone or something is an agent because he, she, or it acts on behalf of someone or something else—called the principal—who or that is therefore made present.3




The relation between agent and principal calls attention to the fact that a worker is not only acting for his or her organization during work interac-tions; he or she is acting with his or her organization through presentifica-tion, in the sense that he or she makes the organization present by acting on its behalf. For instance, when two corporate lawyers communicate during a formal meeting, it is not only these two lawyers who are speaking to each other but also the two companies they are supposed to re-present, that is, make present. Note that this is not a metaphorical or metonymical way of speaking to the extent that no substitution is involved; in terms of agency, both the lawyers and the companies are “speaking” to each other. The law-yers speak on behalf or in the name of their respective companies because they have been authorized to do so (e.g., by two CEOs, who themselves are supposed to represent or act in the name of their respective organizations), and it is by speaking on behalf of their companies that they can accomplish a form of authority that allows them to influence the way the interaction unfolds. Thus, analytically speaking, the notion of principal allows us to account for the fact that what might assist both agents in making a differ-ence in this situation is that they are capable of making present their respec-tive organizations. The notion implies that the organizations on behalf of which they are speaking are both key sources of authority (in that they exist outside and prior to the interaction) and significant resources for the local achievement of their authority (in that it is by making them present in the interaction that the lawyers establish their respective authority).

However, speaking on behalf of their organization is not the only resource available to them for accomplishing authority: One lawyer could be older than the other, and she could make this experience count in the situation by mentioning it (“Look, I have been in the business for 35 years and . . .”). Similarly, the other lawyer could mention that he is coming from a better law school than his counterpart, which might lend some weight to what he has to say. Thus, there are multiple sources of authority as well as multiple practices for presentifying them. Studying how authority is accomplished therefore requires that we pay attention to the ways principal(s) become source(s) of authority and to the ways they are made present by agent(s) in a given interaction.

The above example also reveals the third implication of our theoretical perspective on authority: Authority is both distributed in the sense that it is shared between agent(s) and principal(s) and collectively achieved in the sense that agent(s) and principal(s) partake in its emergence. Indeed, for an Agent X to speak or act on behalf of a Principal Y means that X is allowed to be the author of specific actions that will constitute a commitment for Y. However,




when an Agent X speaks or acts on behalf of a Principal Y, X also shares his or her authorship with Y. In this sense, authority is distributed between agent and principal; it does not reside in the agent or in the principal (here, the organization he, she, or it is representing) but it emerges in the combination of the two. Of course, one could say that the fact that X is a mere agent ultimately means that he, she, or it is not the one who or that should be seen as doing anything: He, she, or it could be considered a simple intermediary that does not really count. What apparently counts is the source of authority, that is, the principal. After all, when diplomats meet with each other, we usually do not say that Mr. X met with Mrs. Z but that, for instance, France met with Canada. But this is only one possible manifestation of authority, one in which an agent so forcefully represents his or her principal that the distinction between the two has seemingly vanished. The fact that the agent can become the principal, so to speak, must be perceived as a particular achievement of authority, not as a sign that the role of the agent is secondary in this achievement.

The fourth and final implication of our theoretical perspective for inves-tigating authority consists of acknowledging the role of various agents (col-lective, material, textual, etc.) in the achievement of authority. Recognizing collective, material, and textual agency precisely amounts to acknowledging such effects of presence where a collective or something is positioned as incarnating or embodying the voice of an organization, a group, a person, a principle, an expertise that gives him, her, or it authority.

In summary, we fulfill our main objective of describing the communicative practices by which authority is locally achieved and can endure beyond the local by relying on the close analysis of a naturally occurring interaction to (a) describe how and what allows an agent to make a key difference in the situation under study, (b) explain how principals become sources of author-ity, as they are made present by this agent, while (c) recognizing the role of various sources of agency (collective, material, textual, etc.) in the process. In doing so, we provide empirical support for our claim that authority as an effect of presence is distributed and collectively achieved in the sense that we show that it is shared between agent(s) and principal(s).

Achieving Authority in MSF

Background to the Study

In the remainder of the article, we identify key communicative practices involved in achieving authority by investigating an interaction that was




videotaped during fieldwork conducted in the northeastern region of the DRC from October 22 to November 4, 2005. During this period, several activities carried out by different representatives of MSF were recorded to understand the character of their work and the challenges they face during their humanitarian interventions. Created in 1971, MSF received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1999 and is internationally renowned for providing emer-gency medical assistance to populations in danger in more than 70 coun-tries around the world. In 2006, its budget was 458 million euros, and it had more than 6,000 volunteers. What makes this organization unique is that it provides medical assistance wherever needed (MSF’s interventions in Afghanistan during the 1980s founded their reputation). In addition, the organization also publicly denounces any infringement on the human rights of the people it helps (see the MSF mission statement).

The fieldwork especially focused on the logistical activities that enable the work of physicians and nurses, something that is not without problems given the often harrowing circumstances in which interventions take place. The regional coordinator agreed to be “shadowed” during these 10 days and never hesitated to respond to our questions. He also helped us gain access to various aspects of MSF’s interventions in this region. A video camera was used to record most of the activities carried out by this regional coor-dinator as well as by some of his employees or associates. Although video recording has its limitations in terms of obtrusiveness and framing (see Lindlof & Taylor, 2002), it is a way to collect very rich data that allow a certain form (though recognizably limited) of falsifiability (Popper, 1959) given the accessibility of the recordings to whoever wants to analyze them. Although field notes were used to reflect on what was happening during the fieldwork, the use of the camera allowed us to literally transport a very rich aspect of what was actually experienced during this stay in Congo.

Presentation of the Data

During the fieldwork, Cooren followed the regional coordinator of the MSF mission located in this region, which led him to travel 300 miles to three different operations that the coordinator was visiting at that time. During these visits, he sometimes had the opportunity to leave the regional coordinator to follow another person when he was invited to do so. This is what happened in the excerpt we now analyze. Carole, the medical coordina-tor of all MSF operations taking place in the DRC, introduced Cooren to the different units of one of the hospitals MSF supports. We selected this excerpt for analysis because Carole is manifestly in authority in this interaction, and,




as such, the excerpt is likely to provide us with empirical manifestations of the discursive and interactional practices by which her authority is achieved. In this videotaped interaction, Cooren follows her throughout the visit with his video camera. In this sequence, they are about to enter the sterilization room. Two technicians, working in this unit, welcome them. The transcript was translated from French into English.4

Technician 1 WelcomeCarole Thank you. Good morningTechnician 1 Good morning (3.0) ((Carole arrives at the entrance of the sterilization chamber))Technician 1 Good morning Carole Are you okay? ((shaking hands))Technician 1 Yes yesCarole Good morningResearcher Good morning ((shaking hands))Technician 1 Good morningResearcher Good morning ((shaking hands))Technician 2 Good morningCarole This, in fact, this is the uh decontamination/ sterilization room. So all the materials that were used at the block and then sometimes the materials of the rooms because they are making bandages (0.5) They bring these here, everything that is soiled and this is where we clean them and sterilize them. After that, it’s ready to go back to the services.Researcher Okay. ((Carole and the researcher enter the sterilization room))Carole Everything is fine? ((speaking to the technicians))Technician 1 Yeah (3.0)Carole ((speaking to the researcher)) Okay. So, in fact, people arrive with their soiled materials and they put it there ((showing the counter to the researcher))Researcher OkayTechnician 3 Good morning=Carole =Good morning, maman. Everything okay?=Technician 3 Everything okayCarole They drop it there and (0.5) once it is dropped off, they go away. So there are people who stay here, who work here, they take this material and they dip it into the chlorine.Researcher The chlorine, Okay

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Carole They dip it into the chlorine solution and it stays there for fifteen minutes.Researcher Fifteen minutes okay.Carole So, in fact, it is to neutralize all the germs hu that are likely to infect people. So once it is sure that it has been rinsed and soaked, then one can remove them. Now the point is to clean them ((showing me the sink)), so with the other solution uh… there?Researcher OkayCarole We often use Omo. They put the Omo in the water. They remove it there and put it there. They brush it pliers by pliers so it is very clean. And after they go rinse it. And this is where they normally dry itResearcher OkayCarole Once they have done that, they dry it there and after they prepare them for the sterilization.Researcher For the autoclave, isn’t it?=Carole =Yes (1.0)Carole And this is what we use, in fact, we have-Researcher And the autoclave, how is it heated?Carole It is taking place outside. Researcher Oh okay.Carole So we’ll show you.Researcher Okay okay (1.0)Carole So (0.5) XXXResearcher XXXCarole When we arrive in the morning, everything is disordered. They haven’t straightened things out. (1.0)Carole They prepare their boxes and all of that. (0.5) After they are going to do the sterilization. (1.0)Technician 1 In any case, maman, we thank you for the note ((showing it on the wall)). It has- it has been honored. (1.0)Carole Oh yes, I see. It is even written thereTechnician 1 Yes ih ihCarole I understood. Yeah it’s- it’s goodTechnician 1 Because the aprons, if [we remove themCarole [Hu huTechnician 1 XXX

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Carole It’s going to come about slowly, papaTechnician 1 It’s wearing downCarole I agree, but this is going to come about slowly (3.0)Technician 1 If you- If you are going to speak for us also because we are working in risky conditions (2.0)Carole Pardon?Technician 1 You are going to speak for us also because we are working in risky conditions here. (For the- for the bonus issue).Carole For- for the bonus?=Technician 1 =YeahCarole For me the bonus problems, I am-Technician ((Laughing))Carole Each time, I pass by there are bonus problems, but the bonuses, they have already been given, Papa, no?Technician 1 We don’t know=Carole =No?=Technician 1 We, in our service, it is risky, it’s-Carole Everywhere, papa, there are risks. And the surgeon who who-Technician 1 There is the surgery block and we who work in risky conditionsCarole It’s only there but in pediatric there is no risk? In pediatric also, we give injections to children, so you can also get stung, it’s not risky, papa?Technician 1 ((laughing)) Carole Everywhere there are risks hu?Technician 1 Ha ha ha ha XXX I see the others, that’s why ICarole ((Laughing)) Okay. ((exiting the room)). We are thereTechnician 1 Here it is, Here these are the lungs XXX this is the block’s lungsResearcher The block’s lungCarole And the heart, where is it?Researcher Ah ah ah

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Analysis: The Communicative Practices by Which Workers Accomplish Authority

This sequence is interesting in many respects, but, for the purpose of our analysis, we focus on how presentification takes place and how this allows interactants to accomplish authority. In particular, we describe how many different agents (texts, human beings, collectives) participate in this




accomplishment. We also see that authority is not a stable trait belonging to one agent. Although, at specific moments and through specific means, authority appears to reside in one agent, this embodiment is never absolute and permanent because the source of authority can shift from one agent to another, even in a brief interaction like this.

How the Medical Coordinator Achieves Authority

As pointed out by Taylor and Van Every (2000), accomplishing author-ity implies authoring the organizational text (we already saw that author and authority have the same Latin root, i.e., auctor); that is, it says what the organization is or wants, which amounts to speaking on its behalf in its name. Throughout the beginning of the sequence, we see how Carole influ-ences the way the situation unfolds by speaking about what the technicians are doing to sterilize the soiled instruments brought to them by people from other services (Lines 14-62). We first note that by telling the researcher how this unit functions, she is positioning herself as a person who is implic-itly authorized to speak about these specific processes. Only she appears to be allowed to speak about what the service is and how it looks; the techni-cians remain silent when she voices her comments.

She further enacts her authority by allowing herself to speak negatively about the unit without being questioned by her employees. Indeed, Carole does not hesitate to comment, in Lines 64 to 65, on the relative messiness of the service. As she says, “When we arrive in the morning, everything is disordered. They haven’t straightened things out.” This comment poten-tially functions as a face-threatening act (Brown & Levinson, 1987) to the extent that the technicians, who are responsible for the unit, are implicitly positioned as being responsible for this problem. Carole’s authority is thus reinforced to the extent that she allows herself to speak negatively about the service without being questioned by the representatives of this service. Signs of respect for Carole (and the researcher) are also communicated nonverbally by the technicians listening carefully and standing relatively still until Carole has finished her explanation. Through their nonverbal signs (the way they reverently shake hands at the beginning of the sequence, their relatively immobile position from Line 32 to Line 68, and their lack of intervention or interruption while she speaks—at times negatively—about their own service), they appear to confirm that Carole embodies a form of authority in this situation.5 Hence, we see how Carole’s ability to speak in a certain way and the technicians’ compliance reinforce each other and both partake in the accomplishment of organizational authority.6




This authority is, however, derived not only from Carole’s capacity to speak for the technicians in this scene or the technicians’ compliance alone but also from the organization she is representing and speaking for. It is not only Carole as an individual who is walking throughout the service; it is also MSF, the humanitarian organization that supports the hospital and pays its employees. This is most obvious when Carole describes the decontami-nation and sterilization room and the work of its employees by shifting several times from they to we. She says, for instance, “All the materials that were used at the block . . . we clean them and sterilize them” (Lines 15-18), but relies on they to describe the specific work of the technicians (“They dip it into the chlorine”; Line 34). This shift between we and they occurs even in the same sentence, such as in, “We often use Omo. They put the Omo in the water” (Line 45). In this case, we see that Carole speaks not only in the name of her employees (she explains what their work and responsibilities consist of) but also in name of MSF (when she switches to the pronoun we to explain what is typically done on these premises). Although we previously said that she did not hesitate to speak negatively about their work, we can easily go upstream in the “chain of agencies” and identify what authorizes or allows her to speak in this way, that is, her sta-tus or position as the MSF medical coordinator for the DRC. In terms of agency, we could say that the technicians are orienting not only to Carole as a simple person walking around in their working environment but also to her status as one of the key representatives of MSF in their country, a status that she is implicitly making present (“presentifying”) in this interac-tion. In other words, it is both this status and how Carole is enacting it that seem to make one of the key differences in this situation. It is, ceteris pari-bus, what might make them display such signs of deference, securing their compliance and allowing Carole to establish her authority.

In this particular moment of the interaction, we clearly see that authority is collectively achieved. As Barnard (1938) would say, authority can first be related to how the technicians reacted to Carole’s presence on their premises. If we focus on their particular reactions (the fact that they stand still, that they remain silent, etc.), we could say that they are the ones who, in a way, generated or, more precisely, presentified her authority. But this is, of course, just one small part of the puzzle because one way we accounted for what happened was to focus on Carole’s agency when she did not hesitate to speak negatively about the sterilization unit, something that other persons in a position of formal authority would not have necessarily done. At this point, authority seems to reside in her as a person who seems to display a sort of “natural authority.” In this instance, authority can be perceived as a feature of the agent (i.e., her charisma) that predisposes her




to be in charge (i.e., her ethos). But again, this is just another part of the puzzle, as we saw that another source of authority also resides in her formal organizational position and status, that is, in her legal or rational authority (Weber, 1922/1968).

As we see, sources of authority are multiple and can be identified in the persons who must submit to it (it is because they know who Carole is that they display markers of deference), in the persons who are supposed to incarnate it (Carole’s “natural authority”), and in what is represented or incarnated in this situation (an organization such as MSF or a status). It is through these combined effects of presence that the joint accomplishment of authority can be understood.

The Role of Nonhumans in the Achievement of Authority

So far we have focused only on Carole’s authority, but we could also concentrate on other forms of authority that influence the way this situation unfolds. Consider the following part of the excerpt: As the researchers and Carole are about to leave the unit, the chief technician (Technician 1) finally dares to address Carole, but notice that it is to thank her for a note that she recently sent to all the units. As he shows us, the note has been posted on the wall and, as he says, “honored” (Lines 70-71). The following note stated (the passages in bold were written in red ink in the original),

Steps for the Sterilization of Instruments

Right after its use, the soiled materials must be placed in a dry plastic container with a lid. They must stay there the least time possible to prevent the drying out of the organic substances that otherwise are very difficult to remove.

To avoid the proliferation of germs, one should not dip the soiled material into non-chlorine water immediately after its use.

It is imperative to wear a mask, a hat, glasses of protection, and an apron for all the operations described above.

This note illustrates not only how rules are typically communicated in this organization but also how this type of communication plays a key role in the accomplishment of authority. For instance, we see that all the obliga-tions mentioned in this text are expressed in terms of a state of affairs and of modalities rather than in terms of action: “The soiled material must be placed . . .” “It must stay . . .” “One should not dip,” “It is imperative to. . . .” Everybody understands that these directives are coming from different sources of authority (Carole, of course, but also MSF, which is ultimately abiding by the rules of the World Health Organization [WHO]),




but phrasing the rules this way precisely amounts to insisting on the employees’ responsibilities while leaving the question of the sources of these obligations open.

By way of this phrasing, Carole reminds all the employees of their obli-gations, yet without having to position herself or her own organization as being the originators of these rules. She might be the author of this docu-ment, but she is supposed to be re-presenting or presentifying some form of authority (her organization, the WHO, the government of the DRC, the medical body, common sense?), which is not explicitly identified here. By leaving this question open, everything happens as though many different sources of authority could therefore be made present in this very room.

We also see how the chief technician (Technician 1) orients himself (and others) to this note. As he says, “In any case, maman, we thank you for the note. [showing it on the wall] It has—it has been honored” (Lines 70-71).7 This turn of talk is interesting because it illustrates how a text can act as an agent (see Cooren, 2004). It is because the note literally tells the employees to adopt some specific behaviors that it can be said to be ultimately honored. Of course, we might say that the note is a simple tool or intermediary that Carole uses to communicate some directives. However, this instrumentality does not exhaust the characteristics of this specific document to the extent that it can precisely be oriented as an agent speaking on behalf of a principal.

But notice also how the first part of the chief technician’s turn of talk orients to Carole as the initiator of this text. This note can indeed display some agency and be honored to the extent that everybody understands that it is Carole’s note, that is, directives that ultimately come from MSF and other forms of authority that Carole might re-present, make present, or presentify (e.g., because she is a physician, she might re-present the medi-cal institution and its protocols in terms of sterilization). As mentioned earlier, agency and authority are things that are always shared, and it is precisely because they are shared that some agents (textual, nonhuman, human) end up being more powerful and authoritative than others. Through this note, which the chief technician implicitly orients as an agent, many effects of presence are at stake to the extent that it is also to Carole, MSF, and possibly other forms of authorities that people end up orienting.

How the Technician Creates the Possibility for a Shift in Authority

Now we examine what the chief technician does in this whole sequence. As we saw, he thanks Carole for the note and specifies that the note was




honored. Carole then acknowledges the note on the wall (Line 73) and implicitly congratulates the technician (“Yeah, it’s—it’s good” (Line 75)). This exchange is interesting because it illustrates what is usually at stake in organizational settings. Although conversation analysts initially highlighted the role of adjacency pairs in mundane conversations (see Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974), organizational sequences are typically organized in triads, not in pairs: X asks Y to do Z Y performs Z for X X rewards or thanks Y for doing Z (see Weick, 1979, and his concept of double inter-act; also see Cooren & Fairhurst, 2004; Fairhurst, 2007; Fairhurst & Cooren, 2004). As we see in this example, the chief technician thanks Carole for communicating this directive, which positions her as having done them a favor. By sending this note to all the hospital services, she is indeed reaffirming the role and importance of the sterilization room and its employees. Thanking Carole thus amounts to closing this specific sequence and implying that when Carole wrote this note, she wrote it for them, for their benefit. This shows how the organizational world is constituted through triadic relationships.

But sequentiality (and triadicity) does not, of course, end here. Carole implicitly congratulates the technicians (Line 75), which is a way to close another sequence: She sent directives to the employees of the hospital the employees honored this directive she now thanks them for doing so. But thanking does not seem enough for the chief technician, as he brings up the question of their aprons, which are, according to him, “wearing down” (Line 80). This is a key moment of transition because it shows how authority shifts from Carole and MSF to the technicians. The chief techni-cian addresses this topic right after mentioning that Carole’s directive has been honored. Some kind of debt appears to be at stake: I scratched your back. Now it is time for you to scratch mine. We honored your directive. What are you going to do about our working conditions?

How does the chief technician know he is authorized to speak in the name of their working conditions at this specific moment? Many interpreta-tions could of course be given, but it is noteworthy that it is only after hav-ing implicitly spoken of Carole’s debt that such a move seems possible. In other words, he would be authorized to speak of this problem because Carole appears to owe them something. This means that his authority stems from the imbalance that is implicitly oriented to by the chief technician. He is speaking not only in his name, in name of his coworkers (he is entitled to do so because he is the chief technician), but also especially in the name of an imbalance that he managed to carefully construct just before daring to put this topic on the floor. In terms of agency, everything happens as




though it were this imbalance that authorized him to speak at this very moment. If he allows himself to speak up at this instant, it is because he is not alone in speaking: Through his intervention, it is not only his coworkers who speak but also a certain form of justice or fairness in the name of which he dares to speak.

Although Carole answers his request by implicitly asking him to be patient (“It’s going to come about slowly”; Lines 79 and 81), the chief tech-nician then makes another attempt by bringing up what he presents as the risky conditions in which they are working, which is another way to rein-force the question of imbalance, fairness, and justice: Not only does Carole owe them something, but they work in very poor conditions, which adds to the necessity and authority to speak. Note here how he positions Carole as a spokesperson, a representative of their interests vis-à-vis her organization, MSF (“If you are going to speak for us also because we are working in risky conditions”; Lines 83-84). Carole apparently does not understand why she would have to speak on their behalf, which prompts her to say, “Pardon,” and thereby invites the chief technician to repeat or explain his question. This is exactly what he does in the next turn, adding the question regarding bonuses, which is almost whispered to mark the potential offensiveness of his request and his deference to her. Because we honored your directives, he seems to say, why don’t you, in return, speak on our behalf, so that we can get a bonus for the risky conditions we are working in.

We then see how Carole is quick at calling into question the reasonable character of the request (and therefore his authority to speak up) by present-ing the case of other services in the hospital, which are, according to her, also working in risky conditions. Here, we again see how presentification takes place and how it allows Carole to reaffirm her authority: Carole brings the situation of these other services to the floor to counter the chief technician’s request. Notice also how her response essentially consists of presenting the conditions in which other services are working so as to let these facts speak “for themselves” and, subsequently, to let the chief techni-cian draw his own conclusions. Similar to what happened previously, she is by this very fact reaffirming her authority: Telling the technicians how the hospital services function is another way to make the organizational reality present to them. To have authority here consists of being recognized as being allowed to say what exists beyond the here and now of the interaction and how things should be. As a whole, this sequence therefore shows the creative ways through which organizational members enact and resist authority and how a manager can or must react to the local achievements of authority of his or her employees to reaffirm his or her influence.




Conclusion

As our analysis indicates, authority is an effect of presence, and it does not strictly originate from an agent in authority (as Carole obviously is in this sequence). Both superior(s) and subordinate(s) coproduce authority in their interactions with each other. Authority is distributed among agents and collectively achieved in the sense that “things” such as MSF, principles (fairness), signs (the directives), and the technicians themselves all partake in its accomplishment. Through the notion of presentification, we demon-strated how entities that were not physically present were actually able to influence the unfolding of the interaction and discussed their role in the achievement of authority at work.

Many communicative practices of presentification have been made explicit in our analysis. We saw that Carole made her status present by tell-ing what the organization is or wants and by speaking negatively about the unit in front of the technicians. She also made MSF present by shifting from we to they when describing the work of the technicians as well as by writing a note about how things should be done in their unit. In turn, we saw how this note sustains its own effects of presence. It conveyed the technicians’ obligations and, by leaving open the question of these obliga-tions’ sources, many different sources of authority (Carole, MSF, the WHO, the government of the DRC, the medical institution, common sense, etc.) could be made present by Carole and the technicians. In particular, when the chief technician oriented to the note as an agent (“In any case, maman, we thank you for the note. [showing it on the wall] It has—it has been honored.”), he reinforced Carole’s authority by identifying her as the initia-tor of this note. However, we saw that this analysis offered only a partial view of authority because this move allowed him to create an imbalance in talk (a debt) that authorized him to ask for better working conditions. Through the chief technician’s intervention, it was not only his coworkers and their working conditions that were made present but also a certain form of justice or fairness that allowed him to dare to speak.

In sum, our analysis allows us to identify three distinct practices that enable the emergence and durability of authority in organizational interac-tions: (a) Authority is linked to an agent’s capacity to speak for or in the name of someone or something (Carole is speaking for both MSF and the technicians; the chief technician is speaking for his colleagues but also implicitly in the name of fairness); (b) achieving authority involves the inscription of artifacts or texts to make the organization (here MSF) present in the ongoing interaction (Carole and, through her, MSF are relying on




directives to tell the technicians how the sterilization room should work; the chief technician is relying on the same directives, posted on the wall, to engage Carole, etc.); and (c) a shift of authority is made possible when a punctual imbalance between agents is created in talk (authority shifts from Carole to the chief technician when he declares the technicians’ commit-ment to existing rules and then asks for Carole’s help in improving their working conditions).

Our analysis has particularly emphasized the key place of texts and “things” such as principles in the achievement of authority. By claiming that these agents play a central role in the establishment of authority, we are not claiming that nonhumans work purely on their own because we demon-strated how human agents are involved in making them present and relevant for the here and now of the situation. Also, we are not reducing human agents to “judgmental dopes” (Garfinkel, 1967, p. 68). The technicians could have decided to disregard these directives, for instance, by deciding not to wear a mask or goggles. As we argued, the organizational world (and we could even say the world in general) is made up of many nonhuman agents that incarnate what a collective wants people to do. In other words, what we mean is that these directives, labels, principles, and so on (these textual agents) partici-pate in the process of presentification that creates the experience of “the world” as we know and experience it. In turn, they allow an organization such as MSF literally to participate in the local achievement of authority.

We have developed a view of authority as an effect of presence, and this allows researchers to examine organizational interactions in detail without downplaying the fact that organizations are political sites characterized by negotiations between various agents, each with its own source(s) of author-ity. By focusing on how several sources of authority are made present in a given interaction, we believe that we are able to free the analysis of interac-tions from its traditional “micro straightjacket,” so to speak, which is some-thing that several scholars have advocated (see Alvesson & Karreman, 2000; Sillince, 2007). Although critical scholars seem more and more inter-ested in empirically identifying effects of power in everyday interactions (e.g., see Deetz, Heath, & MacDonald, 2007; A. G. Murphy, 1998; Tracy, 2000), our view allows scholars to show how interactions are constantly dislocated through presentification by bringing to the floor sources of authority that might at first sight appear absent. As long as we remain in what Derrida (1974) denounces as “the metaphysics of presence,” we run the risk of maintaining the big divide between the detailed analysis of inter-actions and the study of power-related phenomena. Through this article, we have contributed to bridging this gap.




Finally, we see several important practical implications resulting from our analysis. A key implication of a distributed understanding of authority is that members, whether they are in authority on the basis of their position in an organization or not, must rely on each other to establish their author-ity and bring it to bear on work relations. Adopting our view of authority as an effect of presence better prepares scholars to examine the various con-figurations (agencement in French) and sources of authority that constitute a social collectivity. As long as the (in)famous dichotomy between action and structure is reproduced by social scientists and practitioners, structures appear immutable, static, unchangeable. However, if we start to think about the world we inhabit as literally being composed of many human and non-human agents, whose “agencing” is by definition in constant evolution, this static view becomes untenable. Of course, this does not mean that domina-tion disappears or that fluidity becomes the norm. However, once people orient to policies, statuses, charts, procedures, or protocols as agents that can make a difference in a given situation, their importance is always rela-tive and never absolute. By relative we mean that the mobilization or invo-cation of policies, statuses, and procedures, which constitute many potential and partial sources of authority, is always a matter of appropriation in a given interaction. As we all know, procedures can be bypassed, policies ignored, and statuses questioned. This shows that there is always room for the eventful character of life beyond the iterability that, in many respects, characterizes our social and organizational world. Note that accounting for the eventful character of the organizational world does not necessarily mean that eventfulness is a good thing. Eventfulness can be considered “good,” for instance, when people decide to bypass or disregard policies they find unfair or unethical. However, it can be considered “bad” when people ignore policies that could be mobilized to help minorities access higher positions in a company.

The view we have developed in this article forces us to see the possibility of constant reconfigurations, regardless of moral evaluation. As our analysis establishes, authority is a matter of presentification, which means that practi-tioners need to be constantly lying in wait for opportunities—as was the chief technician in the interaction presented here. They must also be able to recog-nize threats to what appears to be taken for granted—such as Carole’s response when she was quick to call into question the reasonable character of the chief technician’s request to reaffirm her influence. Conservatism (the reaffirmation of a given configuration) thus requires as much energy and work as reformism (the questioning of a configuration) because both activities imply the active and constant mobilization of various sources of authority.




Notes

1. Although Derrida uses the term presencing to refer to both an act of creation and an act of finding, we prefer the terms presentifying and presentification, as proposed by Gumbrecht (2004), given that they allow us to stress the performative nature of “making something present”—and keeping in mind that the suffix fication implies to make or to do.

2. We are aware that Giddens (1984) speaks only of human beings when he defines agency as the capacity to make a difference. As he writes,

Action depends upon the capability of the individual to “make a difference” to a pre-existing state of affairs or course of events. An agent ceases to be such if he or she loses the capability to “make a difference,” that is, to exercise some sort of power. (p. 14)

We argue that this capacity can be ascribed to many other types of agent, especially when we address the question of authority, which consists of a specific way of exerting power.

3. An agent and principal can certainly merge when one person speaks on his or her own behalf. In this case, the agent is his or her own principal.

4. Although we used conversation analytical conventions to transcribe these data, no back translation was done because we did not think our analyses would gain from literal translations per se. Back translation is especially interesting for cross-linguistic comparisons, which is not this article’s main objective.

5. It is noteworthy that the researcher’s presence might have also affected how Carole’s authority played out in this sequence. One can imagine that by following her with a camera, this researcher was implicitly adding to Carole’s aura and prestige and thereby to her authority. Although we do not think that this calls our analyses into question, it seems clear that the researcher’s (and camera’s) presence in some way affected how the situation unfolded.

6. In terms of ethnical and cultural background, it should be noted that Carole is a nonlocal whereas the technicians are locals. However, given that she comes from a country that borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it is hard to tell whether these differences had any bearing on how authority was achieved during these interactions.

7. Maman and papa (literally meaning mom and dad) are Congolese terms used to address one another. They can be considered signs of mutual recognition.

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Chantal Benoit-Barné (PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2003) is an assistant profes-sor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, Canada. Her current research focuses on the rhetorical practices of citizens and organizations involved in public deliberation about science and technology.

François Cooren (PhD, Université de Montréal, 1996) is a professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, Canada. His main research interests include the study of the organizing properties of communication, the analysis of interaction at work, and communication theory.

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The Accomplishment of Authority Through Presentification: How Authority Is Distributed Among and Negotiated by Organizational Members