Antenarrative Embodiment Contributions to Language Performance in International Business

We contribute by identifying the conceptual and methodological ‘blind spots’ persistent in language-sensitive research in International Business and Management. We will address the conceptual and methodological blind spots in limiting IB to language by looking at antenarrative, defined as what is embodied communicatively before narrative. The aim of the paper is to generate insights into the processes of M&A becoming- the mechanisms underlying the arrival of acquisition outcomes. These insights will be generated using an ante narrative fore-caring enquiry into the M&A process. We propose to bring antenarrativity into language-sensitive research. Antenarrative has gained increased attention in top journals, including Human Relations, Journal of International Business Studies, and Organization Science. Antenarratives are fragmented, nonlinear stories which have not yet been petrified into narratives, but rather pieces of organizational discourse which can help to confirm a line of reasoning. By exploring antenarratives of key events of the pre and post-acquisition phases, this research will facilitate a better understanding of how the past, present and future collide in strategic practices in the storytelling organization. We assume the linguistic turn has gone too far in dismissing sociomateriality, and the prelinguistic, prenarrative, and prediscursive processes of communicative action. Empirically, the unexplored research is to study embodiment ontologically because our embodiment has Being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1962). It is important to study embodiment because there is more to sensemaking than the empirics of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. There are embodied attunements that stem from there being no separation between human body [and] world (Anton, 2001). It is important for IB to study embodiment, the lack of separation, and the non-duality human [and] world.