My fields of interest are marketing&sales, organisational development and leadership. With a particular interest in managers’ ”everyday business” seen from rhetorical perspective. I typically ask questions as how, where and when do professionals argue for business purposes, what stories are needed to manage strategic change, and how do leaders cope with various communication challenges.
Publications
Nilsson, Tomas, 2019, How marketers argue for business – Exploring the rhetorical nature of industrial marketing work, Industrial Marketing Management, 80, 233-241.
Miles, Chris & Nilsson, Tomas, 2018, Marketing (as) rhetoric: an introduction, Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 15-16, 1259-1271.
Brown, Stephen, Hackley, Chris, Hunt, Shelby D., Marsh, Charles, O’Shaughnessy, Nicholas, Phillips, Barbara J., Tonks, David, Miles, Chris & Nilsson, Tomas, 2018, Marketing (as) Rhetoric: paradigms, provocations, and perspectives, Journal of Marketing Management, 34, 15-16, 1336-1378.
Nilsson, Tomas, 2015, Rhetorical business – A study of marketing work in the spirit of contradiction, Doctoral dissertation, Lund University
Nilsson, Tomas, 2010, The reluctant rhetorician: senior managers as rhetoricians in a strategic change context, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 23, 2, 137-144.
Nilsson, Tomas, 2006, Marketing and classical rhetoric, in Lagrosen, S., and Svensson, G., (ed) Marketing – broadening the horizons, Studentlitteratur
Co-editor
2017-2018: Co-editor of Special Issue Marketing (as) Rhetoric, Journal of Marketing Management. http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/bes/rjmm-marketing-as-rhetoric)
Conferences
2018: ACSCOS/SCOS Conference (Australasian Caucus (ACSCOS) and Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism (SCOS)) Theme: Wabi-sabi (侘寂) Imperfection, incompleteness and impermanence in organizational life. Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. Presented A Crack in the Sales Meeting: A Sophist(ic) Wabi-sabi Approach to (and appreciation of) Imperfect Managerial Work
2017: First International Symposium on Marketing (as) Rhetoric, Bournemouth University, UK. Presented Marketing professionals and their controversial work
2016: BAI2016 International Conference on Business and Information, Nagoya Congress Center, Nagoya, Japan. Presented Doing business in-between – a rhetorical analysis of managerial work in a marketing context
2012: The 4th Tokyo Conference on Argumentation: The Role of Argumentation in Society, Sophia University Junior College Division, Kanagawa, Japan. Presented Arguing for business – the use of prosopopoeia in everyday marketing work.
2011: Fourth International Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research (RNMR), ESADE, Barcelona, Spanien. Presented The rhetorical situation in everyday marketing work.
2009: EURAM 2009, Liverpool, UK. Presented Marketing practitioners in service organizations; as rhetoricians “in service”.
2009: Third Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research (RNMR), ESADE, Barcelona, Spanien. Presented The reluctant rhetorician – a study of rhetorical strategies in change management.