The Retail Company

Abstract

In the retail company, the managerial meetings of two departmental CofPs, the Technical Department and the Product Department, are examined. The third meeting is taken from a company-wide CofP, the Sales Group. All three meetings are chaired by an upper-middle management level employee. The Technical Department is run by a male manager. The Product Department and the Sales Group are run by the same female manager. As pointed out in Chapter 3, having the same person in charge of two CofPs provides the opportunity for comparisons to be made between how identities are enacted in different CofP meeting encounters. Furthermore, having two different departmental CofPs within the retail company enables comparisons to be made between them. This chapter will commence with an examination of the departmental CofP meetings. These encounters both have the primary function of planning for the department’s performance over the next week. The Chairs are direct superiors of all participants and are responsible for disseminating weekly information updates to middle/lower-middle managers. Chairs will report back on previous performances/issues concerning the department, and decisions will be taken to solve new tasks/problems. These meetings may also give the opportunity for lowerlevel managers to update their boss/colleagues on any new issues that may have arisen.