Research on the comparison of uses of rhetoric of public and private sector managers

Abstract

The differences and similarities between public and private sector organizations and managers comprise a subject that has preoccupied scholars for a long time. However, despite the relatively long history of this subject, it is rather interesting that, to the best of our knowledge, there is no empirical study that thoroughly compares the managers of these sectors in terms of their rhetoric, which is accepted by many management scholars as one of the most important managerial skills. Thus, in this paper, a comparison is made within the Turkish context of the rhetoric used by public and private sector managers during the legitimization process of the management technique “Total Quality Management (TQM).” The data set includes a total of 647 text segments from 238 interviews with managers and articles written by 209 managers. After a rhetorical and statistical analysis, the findings of mixed methods research show that there is no statistically significant difference between the rhetorical legitimization of managers in these two sectors.