Specialists as Heroes: Narratives in Job Advertisements for Knowledge-Intensive Organizations

Anne Bouchet

Cindie Maagaard

Birgitte Norlyk

University of Southern Denmark

Introduction

"At Pfizer, your new ideas and inspired thinking will push the boundaries and help to deliver the next generation of life saving and enhancing drugs. Impacting upon a global business and improving the lives of millions, including your own, you'll influence one of the industry's most extensive product pipelines at the largest biomedical research facility in Europe." (Pfizer advertisement, figure 3, below)

"Heroes wanted" could be a current common headline of international job advertisements for specialists and technical professionals. In a shift from traditional job advertising discourse, knowledge-intensive organizations in the fields of medicine, chemistry and energy increasingly downplay the former strongly technical and rational focus of their advertisements in favor of a representation of the specialist as the modern hero who may change the world. As we argue in the present article, this shift is enabled by the use of a narrative framework that stages specialists as central to the organization's work of saving lives or the climate, or of realizing exceptionally innovative visions.

This development appears in advertisements for international pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, Roche, Genentech and Merck, for international technological companies such as the Danish-based Radiometer (medical technology), Haldor Topsøe (catalysts), and Maersk (program for Technology and Science), and energy providers such as the French Electricité de France (EDF) and the Danish DONG (Danish oil and natural gas). In all of these, the potential applicant is offered a hero-centered storyline into which he or she can step as the protagonist. This constitutes a strong appeal to the reader's desire for a sense of identity based on the hero's exceptionality, quest and ethical commitment.

Method

Data

The data for our analysis consists of four advertisements that are illustrative of the development outlined above. They were selected from a corpus of 78 American, English, French and Danish job advertisements from professional journals and national newspapers from 2006 - 2010. The first selection criterion was the use of storytelling elements supplemented by visual appeals through the use of images, color and layout that distinguished them from standard text-dominated advertisements with few visual elements other than a logo or bullet points.

To narrow down the corpus, a second selection was made according to advertisers: knowledge-intensive organizations within the fields of environmental engineering and medical research in France, the UK, and Denmark. Within these advertisements, the depiction of heroic employees emerged as a common theme. This selection forms the basis of our textual analysis.

Figures 1 and 2 are French advertisements by EDF (Electricité de France), specifically targeting young graduates from prestigious French engineering colleges and universities (Ingénieurs Grandes Ecoles et Universités). Figure 3 is for positions in the UK with Pfizer, a US-based and leading company in pharmaceutics, and figure 4 is presented by Danish-based DONG energy, a major producer of various sources of energy in Northern Europe. These examples come from specialist or technical journals in 2007 and 2008. The French EDF advertisements were also published in the newspaper Le Monde.

Textual analysis

We examine the appeal of the hero in job advertisements in light of a conceptual framework involving identity, narrative, genre and discourse. First, we review the use of narrative strategies for filling a need for a coherent sense of self, as formulated seminally by Bruner and Ricoeur, as well as heroic genres as a source of hero models according to Frye and Miller. Next, we outline trends in genre as discussed in Bhatia  and Swales, and in strategies within professional discourse in Couture, Gunnarsson, Perkins and Winsor. Within this framework, we subject the examples to a reading of the advertisements' verbal and visual representations in order to discuss the shift in professional discourse from the traditional logos-based discourse of classical job advertisements from knowledge-intensive organizations to the pathos-based and emotional appeals which characterize the hero-based narrative. As we will show, the figure of the hero offers an identifiable but flexible narrative model for identity that promises personal fulfillment through the individual's relations within the organization and with the world beyond it.

Be your own hero

The use of the hero figure can be seen in part as a response to changing communication needs both outside and within organizations, in recognition of the importance of creating strong organizational culture as a means to establish feelings of organizational uniqueness (Deal and Kennedy; Peters and Waterman). From the perspective of management, metaphors, stories and discourse practices may be used strategically to constitute approved frames of interpretation and to influence organizational members' perception of organizational life and values (Deetz; Morgan). Similarly, there is a recognition of the strong link and necessary coherence between organizational identity - what members of organizations perceive as their own and the organization's values, vision and mission - and corporate identity - the organization's identity, or brand, communicated to stakeholders outside the organization (Cornelissen; Hatch, Schultz and Larsen).

The strategy of using narrative in advertisements also proceeds from an understanding that identity is constructed actively by subjects. As former collectively defined understandings of roles and identity disintegrate, individuals are no longer primarily oriented by common, predetermined logics. Formerly, individuals relied on preordained or inherited roles and status to make sense of their lives (Nisbet, Perrin and Page). Today, however, roles and statuses are more diffuse, and identity results to a higher degree from structures and narratives pieced together by individuals themselves (Bouchet; Taylor). They must be able to engage actively in the construction of roles, at any moment navigating from one "reality" to another, mobilizing themselves in sense-making actions. Individuals become entrepreneurs of their own lives, inventing and reinventing identity by means of actions and choices. Consequently, it becomes essential for organizations to provide an attractive narrative framework of identity and purpose within which the individual can construct and reconstruct his or her personal narrative.

Narrative and self

Narrative patterns and operations provide ways to make sense of life's myriad elements, for seeing life as meaningful. Stories, as Ricoeur writes, are a means of creating an interpretation of life, to avoid the meaninglessness of a life unexamined (20). Life is, he writes, "in quest of narrative" (20). Individuals seek "concordance," or harmony, among the countless components of existence. Through narratives, logical connections and cohesion emerge among the many disparate actions, impressions and events that occur over time. Emplotment, as Ricoeur writes, enables the subject to gather and organize life's many elements, which enables an interpretation and understanding of them (21).

The ability to narrate is an activity closely associated with subjecthood itself, according to Bruner, who asserts that "indicators of selfhood" (157 - 159) are also typically considered to be components of well-wrought narratives (160). These indicators include "[a]gency"; "[c]ommitment [...] to an intended or actual line of action"; "[r]esource[s]", whether material or personal, which enable the agent to pursue his commitment; "[s]ocial reference" which provide the agent with specific culturally based codexes to help him carry out the value-related "[e]valuation" of actions and endeavors; and finally, indicators related to the experience of emotion and the analysis of one's inner and outer life (157 - 58; Bruner's italics). Generally speaking, indicators of selfhood point to a human being capable of intentional action, feelings, and reflection, and the ability - or at least the attempt - to make sense of one's self. Conversely, narrative entails an intentional subject who, situated within an environment, confronts some form of conflict or challenge. Thus Bruner speculates, "[c]ould it be then, that what we recognize as Self (in ourselves or in others) is what is convertible to some version of narrative?" (161).

The model for narrative presented by Bruner is based on culturally transmitted genres from which we choose in processes both of narration and of interpretation. But precisely because narrative genres are mutable, and selves are constructed - not fixed or essential - innovation, in life, as in literature, is possible. In telling stories, individuals vacillate between tradition and innovation, using their own lived experience to modify existing narrative models (Ricoeur). Those models come to us through culture, which as Bruner asserts, "prescribes its own genres for self-construction, ways in which we may legitimately conceive of ourselves and others. [...] These cultural genres even implicate the ways in which we may deviate from them - the deviant rebel, dreamer, seducer" (156).

The above conception of narrative points to the use of narrative models for the construction of a life story - or a part of one - retrospectively, through sense-making and interpretation. In the present job advertisements, however, engineers and scientists are implicitly invited to construct one prospectively, based on representations of self as types of "hero". This entails mobilizing one's textual and cultural knowledge of heroic characters and the heroic quest that links the individual to the world and characters around him.

The hero narrative is one recognizable pattern for conceiving oneself and for constructing one's identity. The pattern is, on the one hand, stable, always centering around the hero's exceptionality, quest and ethical commitment. On the other hand, the enduring structure accommodates different types of individuals, who fulfill their quests in unique ways in different settings. The narrative framework thus offers meaningful coherence and structure in ever-changing contexts, while allowing for individual deviations.

The flexibility of the hero figure is due to its long history of various forms that have varied according to culture, mode of representation and teller, but whose origin can be traced through two main literary genres: the epic and its successor, the chivalric, or medieval, romance (Frye, Anatomy; Miller). While these are characterized differently in terms of origin, age, mode of telling and protagonists' commitments, it can be said generally that in both genres, plot serves as a means to reveal, and develop, the hero's exceptionality and ethical commitment (Frye, Secular; Fuchs). That is, both genres have typically depicted the specifics of the hero's nature by means of the type of either epic journey or chivalric quest on which he or she embarks. Quests can differ greatly with regard to final object, or goal, as well as the types of opponents and helpers (whether human, animal or supernatural) that surround the hero.

Despite revisions and variations in the stories, identifiable features that have defined the genres persist: the hero is exceptional, typically, superior to others in physical and/or moral strength and driven to reach a goal. The epic journey, or heroic quest, which leads to the goal, becomes a means to prove character through the taking of risks and demonstrations of strength, morality and noble intentions. The hero defeats opponents, overcomes obstacles and accomplishes set feats (Frye Anatomy, Secular; Fuchs).

The very adaptability of epic and romance genres, the fact that they lend themselves to revisions in response to changing cultures - including those in organizations - has ensured their endurance as genres.^[1] Similarly, the malleability of the figure of the hero, including his or her relevance to our own time, ensures the character's endurance and our ability to know one when we see one, as knowledge of archetypal representations helps us interpret individual ones.

According to Miller, "the word 'hero' projects to us a kind of spurious solidity, so that we use it, and hear it used, as if it actually refers to a single cognitive meaning" (1). Yet Miller goes on to sketch several present-day connotations: the person who intervenes in a crisis "in an extraordinary fashion, acting outside, above or in disregard to normal patterns of behavior, especially putting his or her life at risk," the military person who risks his or her life, or the role model that embodies "a cluster of admirable and perhaps imitable characteristics" (2). In organizations, the hero figure can be manifested, for example, in managers or specialists, and in stories about them. Regardless of form, or precisely because form is open to variation, "our images of heroism and the hero are inescapably ours, as we form our intelligible thoughtworld" (2).

Genre and discourse in traditional and modern job advertisements

In organizational contexts, the adaptability of the hero figure is evident in job advertisements for specialists and experts that tell stories of them as modern heroes. Most strikingly, the advertisements reflect the need for a synthesis of professional and personal fulfillment. From a genre perspective in which fixed communicative purpose and identifiable structural moves serve as the overall criteria for defining different types of genres (Bhatia, Analyzing, Genres in Conflict; Swales), the job advertisements of the present study constitute examples of hybrid genres with multiple communicative purposes. While the main purpose of the job ad genre concerns getting the right (wo)man for the job, the job ads analyzed here represent a hybrid genre with the additional strategic purpose of branding the organization by means of emotional appeals (Gobé; Wattanasuwan) and by communicating organizational identity and values - "who we are and what we stand for," (Hatch and Schultz) - to internal and external stakeholders.

The job ads analyzed in this study illustrate the strategic use of narratives and heroes in the fusion of organizational identity and individual aspirations. Specialists do not consider themselves to be minor, invisible players in the organization they work for but require organizational recognition, professional acknowledgement and emotional fulfillment in their professional lives (Norlyk).

In job advertisements targeted at specialists, discourse and persuasive strategies have been adapted to suit the narrative framework of the heroic quest. Traditionally, engineering discourse is highly coded and logos-based (Perkins; Winsor, "Owning," Writing Power) and signals authenticity and credibility - even to readers who are unable to decode this coded specialist discourse (Scollon).  As a rhetorical strategy, ethos, logos and professional identity are embedded in specific lexical and grammatical choices that members of professional communities, e.g. engineering and finance, intuitively recognize and trust (Couture; Gunnarsson).

Traditional job advertisements targeted at specialists (for an example, see figure 5) stress the importance of technical competences and knowledge of the specific business area or the activities of the organization; the discourse of these advertisements is logos-based and matter-of-fact. Traditional job advertisements for specialists do not rely on narrative structures, pathos appeals or hero protagonists in their recruiting strategies; the role of the specialist as a unique individual with hero potential is not an issue. What counts is what you know - not who you are.

As illustrated in the present study, job advertisements for specialists illustrate a transformation in which the inclusion of narrative elements and hero protagonists plays an important part. The presentation of the specialist as a hero employs a pathos-based rhetorical strategy which center-stages the individual as reflected in self- conscious statements such as "I make a difference" (figure 4).  And to accentuate the importance of the specialist hero, for instance,  job advertisements 1, 2 and 3 present the professional hero in settings that explicitly suggest the influence of the hero-specialist on the global environment and on other people's quality of life.

Advertising heroism: Exceptionality, quest and ethics

All four advertisements portray a single individual protagonist as a salient visual element, which signifies the value placed on the individual as a unique contributor to the organization. While figure 4 depicts the individual alone, figures 1, 2, and 3 unite man, nature and technology, placing the hero within a larger context  to illustrate his potential influence on the world. Thus figure 1 foregrounds a young woman who regards a power station from afar, while figure 2 presents a young man of color looking at the construction site of a power plant. In figure 3, both gender and ethnic origin are open to interpretation, in the silhouetted figure on a mountain bike caught in a dramatic sunlit mountainscape. Seen together, the advertisements portray a diverse group of heroes in which the role of the hero is not automatically assigned to the traditional WASP, but can also be ascribed to women and people of different ethnic origins, i.e., those who often hit the glass ceiling in organizations.

In visual and verbal signs, the advertisements depict the three conditions which distinguish the hero and the hero narrative: the hero's exceptionality, the hero's quest and hero's ethical commitment. These three elements constitute a framework for personal and professional identities, as illustrated in Table 1 below and discussed in the detail in the following.

Table 1

Advertising Hero Themes in Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4

Advertisement	EDF (France) Figs. 1 and 2	Pfizer (USA-UK) Fig. 3	DONG (Denmark) Fig. 4
Exceptionality	Choice of action over wishful thinking "One can wish for energy solutions for the future and also decide to produce them," "One can dream about a world with less CO2 and also decide to conceive it"	1. Personal qualities: a. Intellectual superiority: "expert knowledge" b. Innovative vision: "inspired thinking," "new ideas" 2. Extraordinary scope of work: "push[ing] the boundaries" of medicine within "a global business [...] improving the lives of millions"	1. Primus inter pares: the exceptional one, the narrating "I," Project Developer Anders Nordstrøm, team coordinator, among many exceptional team members with a diversity of talents: "[we] develop it all ourselves. That is unique." 2. Extraordinary scope of work: project traverses national boundaries, from Scandinavia to the USA
Quest	Design of solutions to protect the environment and improve lives: "join[ing] the European leader" in producing the "energy of tomorrow" or conceiving "a world with less CO2"; "progress" means environmental improvement	Biomedical innovation: "the design and validation of robust plate-based screens," making "decisions about whether to progress new technologies," or "bringing new testing technologies to Pfizer"	Separation and capture of CO2 from chimney smoke at power plants and transporting it safely for storage through a pipeline
Ethical commitment	Obligation to act, to choose "excellence" rather than wish and dream; the use of one's professional skills for the environment, and for "the well-being of everyone"	Use of intellect and vision to "[improve] the lives of millions of people"	Motivation as a "mission" to "make a difference" and do "something concrete about the climate problem"

Exceptionality

Exceptionality is a powerful theme in all four advertisements. In the Pfizer advertisement (figure 3), it is conveyed in two ways: first, in the characteristics of the potential employee which connote intellectual superiority coupled with the capacity for truly innovative, forward-reaching vision. Secondly, as a consequence, exceptionality is expressed in the potentially extraordinary reach and consequences of the hero's work. Accordingly, the applicant is ascribed qualities such as "inspired thinking" and "expert knowledge" which generate "new ideas" that "push the boundaries" of medicine within "a global business [...] improving the lives of millions." The scope of possibilities suggested here thus stretches the imagination of the prospective employee and suggests limitless possibility for self and others.

Exceptionality is likewise reflected in the impact of the specialist's work on the environment, in the advertisement from DONG. Here, we are presented with descriptions of innovative CO₂ capture projects whose environmental consequences traverse national borders, from Scandinavia to the USA. A connection between this broad scope and the individual employee is suggested by means of a striking close up of Project Developer Anders Nordstrøm. Anders Nordstrøm, on whom the success of the CO₂ capture projects depends, forms the focus of the text, visually and verbally. In this first encounter with DONG, the reader meets Anders, the specialist and hero-figure, not an anonymous organization. Anders describes his projects, Anders narrates and provides the personal voice of the ad. The ad begins with first-person descriptions of his education as engineer and his position in the department for CO₂ strategy and carbon capture and storage. Then the account shifts to the first-person-plural "we," as Anders explains the work of his team: "We evaluate the balance between increased  use of coal-fired, wind and biomass power, and make sure that the necessary projects are implemented. We are also  responsible for establishing CO₂ capture facilities at our power stations."

Exceptionality is thus conveyed at two levels: the team and the individual. The team in which Anders works has, we are told, the necessary diversity of talents to "develop it all ourselves. That is unique." At the individual level, Anders's key role as "coordinator" sets him apart, implies hero status and stages him in a framework of primus inter pares, i.e., one special player among many exceptional ones who by virtue of their work actually "do something concrete about the environment, rather than just talking about it."

The French EDF advertisements (figures 1 and 2) strike a similar note, as both advertisements stress the importance of action over words. Wishful thinking about improving the environment is not enough - heroes act: "One can wish for energy solutions for the future and also decide to produce them." Men and women who decide to work for EDF have chosen action and "excellence," which is to work for "the well-being of everyone" and a better future for the environment. This decision to act distinguishes the hero from the more passive general reading public alluded to with the pronoun "on" (one) in the headline.

The quest

The second decisive characteristic of the hero is his or her response to the call of a quest: an existential journey with tasks to accomplish and obstacles to overcome. The medieval knight slayed the dragon; the modern hero uses knowledge, skills and talent to battle illness or fight global warming. Each of the advertisements provides an implicit model of the heroic quest through concrete descriptions of technical work which demands both expertise and passionate personal involvement.

In the French advertisements (figures 1 and 2), the quest requires the hero to find energy solutions which protect the environment and improve lives, as he or she "join[s] the European leader" in producing the "energy of tomorrow" or conceiving "a world with less CO₂."  In the Danish advertisement (figure 4), the task consists of separating and capturing CO₂ from chimney smoke at power plants and transporting it safely for storage through a pipeline. For Pfizer (figure 3), the employee's quest lies in biomedical innovation: "the design and validation of robust plate-based screens," making "decisions about whether to progress to new technologies," or "bringing new testing technologies to Pfizer." The heroes depicted improve others' quality of life or make the world a better, safer place.

Ethical commitment

The third characteristic of the hero is a strong ethical commitment, which in all the advertisements is a motivating and driving force for work. For EDF, it is the obligation to act and to use one's professional skills for the environment. For Pfizer, it means "improving the lives of millions of people." For the Danish DONG, ethical commitment means being "driven by a mission" to "make a difference" and do "something concrete about the climate problem."

Each advertisement suggests a hero with a conscience, and ethical considerations play a central part in the construction of the hero's personal and professional identity. In these organizational hero-stories, experts and specialists are staged as young and powerful characters in pathos-based stories of how to make the world a better place for humankind. To be seen as "making a difference" is a powerful part of professional and personal self-fulfillment, as exemplified in the advertisements.

The ethical aspect is developed in accordance with a relational model for identity, with identity emerging through the individual's interaction with others. Although the advertisements address the individual's unique talents and ambitions, this uniqueness is realized in relation to one's co-workers and the general public. While it may seem a paradox that individual achievement depends on relations with others, this is consistent with the notion of identity as a construct. While individuals today may have freedom to invent themselves, that freedom is not unlimited, as it strongly depends on a set of social, organizational, professional and individual contexts. These contexts provide the stages on which ethical commitment is acted out, tested, and proved.

Hero, organization and world

The advertisements for specialist heroes depict self-realization as the creation of a bond between the individual, the organization and the world. For instance, the Pfizer advertisement (figure 3) creates a link to those in need of the expertise of medical science, as the advertisement tells the applicant that "you [... will be] impacting upon a global business and improving the lives of millions, including your own." The DONG advertisement (figure 4) connects the applicant with the organization and fellow employees by stressing the opportunities to engage in "dialogue" and to work in a culture where "people can talk about things."

In all the examples, it is the organization that constitutes the necessary link between the employee and the world. Without the organization the hero cannot fulfill the quest or realize his vision. The scientist in the DONG advertisement has deliberately chosen an organization that "has the strength and the will to complete concrete tasks." Similarly, advertisements from EDF stress the fact that joining the organization enables the specialist to transform dreams into concrete action by producing less CO₂. The advertisements thus translate a set of organizational, professional and personal values into a brief story of concrete practice, suggesting that the quest for purpose and self-realization is fulfillable.

Conclusion

As they incorporate recognizable visual and verbal depictions of heroes, the job advertisements utilize the human desire to make sense, and create coherence, out of life's flux of experiences and offerings, by holding out narrative models for prospective identity-making. The communicative strategy of offering a story into which the applicant can write him- or herself is not only a break with traditional genres of engineering discourse, but also an acknowledgement by corporations that organizational identity is flexible and can be shaped by stories, of which the hero narrative is one. It is also this mutability that allows for the narrative process of self-creation. At the same time, the narrative model offered in the advertisements rejects scepticism towards science, technology and progress, by asserting that science, and the company that uses it, is a means to change the lives of individuals for the better. They are based on assumptions that the world is, after all, improvable and that an exceptional employee can make a difference.

Furthermore, while the advertisements' direct appeals to applicants convey the value companies place on the individual - talents, ambitions and all - they also depict achievement as a bond between the individual, the organization and the world. Through the narrative framework of hero stories, the advertisements appeal to the identity and aspirations of the specialist and create organizational scenarios in which professional and personal quests can be fulfilled. In writing him- or herself into the story of the hero, then, the individual specialist utilizes a narrative model as a tool for creating coherence, and finding meaning, in professional and personal life in organizational and social contexts.

Figure 1. Advertisement from Electricité de France

Figure 2. Advertisement from Electricité de France.

Figure 3. Advertisement from Pfizer.

Figure 4. Advertisement from DONG.

Figure 5. Traditional Job Advertisement (Oxagen)

Works Cited