Acting and organizing

We illustrate the mechanisms by which speech acts structure organizational interactions. First, a comparison is established between what Greimas (1987) calls “narrative schemata” and what I propose to call “organizational schemata.” It is shown that both syntagmatic structures are organized into different phases that strictly correspond to specific speech acts (directives, commissives, accreditives, informatives, expressives). By illustrating how speech acts seem to be syntagmatically and hierarchically organized according to narrative forms, a first link between action and structure is proposed. Based on this result, a critical reinterpretation of some of Giddens’ ideas is presented, especially concerning the notion of duality of structure in its syntagmatic and paradigmatic dimensions.