Employee Profile

Mark Brown

Teaching Professor - Department of Communication and Culture

Image of Mark Brown

Biography

First degree: Master's in Chemical Engineering 1978 - 1982, Imperial College, London. Intention was to go into the oil industry - worked for Mobil Oil in vacations. 1983 - accepted a job in sales division with IBM (UK). Five years at IBM, then sales manager roles in smaller IT companies in London. I met my Norwegian wife-to-be in late 1990, we were married in 1991 and I moved to Oslo the same year.

Change of career from business to teaching. 1994 to 1997 I completed the Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English at the University of Oslo while working part-time as a teacher. First full-time position in tertiary education was at the Norwegian Police Academy (Politihøgskolen) 1998 - 2000, then the BI Norwegian Business School, first temporary then permanent from 2004. I was given three years leave of absence from BI in order to take a temporary three-year research position in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo between 2005 and 2008. My PhD thesis has the title Managing Nature - Business as Usual: Patterns of wording and patterns of meaning in corporate environmental discourse. I defended it successfully in June 2008 and returned to my position at BI.

Research areas
Research interests combine language with business and the environment. My Master's thesis in 1997 was on the Kentucky farmer and poet: Wendell Berry, and explores his interpretation of the central American idea of self reliance as a function of a life within the constraints of community. In my PhD thesis I compared patterns in the wording of texts produced by (a) 'green' business corporations in Britain and (b) British-based environmental NGOs. The differences in patterning in the language point, I argue, to differences in the way in which the natural landscape is conceptualised by these two different communities of practice.

Teaching areas

I teach on the two Bachelor-level communication courses in English at BI: SPÅ 2901 Intercultural Communication in English - Business Cultures and Ethical Dilemmas and SPÅ 2902 Intercultural Communication in English - Negotiations and Presentations.

Publications

Alm, Kristian & Brown, Richard Mark (2020)

John Rawls' concept of the reasonable: A study of stakeholder action and reaction between British Petroleum and the victims of the oil spill in the gulf of Mexico

Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04474-9 - Full text in research archive

In his political philosophy, John Rawls has a normative notion of reasonable behaviour expected of citizens in a pluralist society. We interpret the various strands of this idea and introduce them to the discourse on stakeholder dialogue in order to address two shortcomings in the latter. The first shortcoming is an unnoticed, artificial separation of words from actions which neglects the communicative power of action. Second, in its proposed new role of the firm, the discourse of political CSR appeared to offer a promising synthesis of deliberation and action. However, the discourse has been criticized for its shortcoming in failing to provide a regulatory environment for corporation—stakeholder dialogue. Through our interpretation of Rawls’ notion of reasonableness in citizens, the article makes two important theoretical contributions to the debate on stakeholder dialogue. First, we transfer Rawls’ injunction in insisting that dialogues between business corporations and their weaker stakeholders must be understood as consisting of both verbal exchanges and actions. Second, we propose that the coercive power of government ought to provide a necessary context for stakeholder dialogue, and that by doing so, it can provide a way forward for the discourse of political CSR. We illustrate the usefulness of this contribution from Rawls in an analysis of BP’s behaviour towards thousands of victims following the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010.

Alm, Kristian; Brown, Richard Mark & Røyseng, Sigrid (2016)

Kommunikasjon og ytringsfrihet i organisasjoner

Brown, Richard Mark & Alm, Kristian (2016)

Tillit til sannheten. En utfordring for BBC.

, s. 275- 304.

Brown, Richard Mark (2015)

Managing nature-business as usual: Resource extraction companies and their representations of natural landscapes

7(12) , s. 15900- 15922. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su71215791

In moving society towards more sustainable forms of consumption and production, social learning must play an important role. Making the assumption that it occurs as a consequence of changes in understanding, this article presents a methodology for mapping meanings in sustainability communication texts. The methodology uses techniques from corpus linguistics and framing theory. Two large databases of text were constructed by copying material down from the websites of two different groups of social actors: (i) environmental NGOs and (ii) British green business, and saving it as .txt files. The findings on individual words show that the NGOs and business use them very differently. Focusing on words expressing concern for the natural environment, it is proposed that the two actors also conceptualize their concern differently. Green business‘s cognitive system of concern has two well-developed frames; good intentions and risk management. However, three frames—concern for the natural environment, perception of the damage, and responsibility, are light on detail. In contrast, within the NGOs‘ system of concern, the frames of concern for the natural environment, perception of the damage and responsibility, contain words making detailed representations.

Brown, Richard Mark (2013)

A Methodology for Mapping Meanings in Text-Based Sustainability Communication

5(6) , s. 2457- 2479. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su5062457

In moving society towards more sustainable forms of consumption and production, social learning must play an important role. Making the assumption that it occurs as a consequence of changes in understanding, this article presents a methodology for mapping meanings in sustainability communication texts. The methodology uses techniques from corpus linguistics and framing theory. Two large databases of text were constructed by copying material down from the websites of two different groups of social actors: (i) environmental NGOs and (ii) British green business, and saving it as .txt files. The findings on individual words show that the NGOs and business use them very differently. Focusing on words expressing concern for the natural environment, it is proposed that the two actors also conceptualize their concern differently. Green business’s cognitive system of concern has two well-developed frames; good intentions and risk management. However, three frames—concern for the natural environment, perception of the damage, and responsibility, are light on detail. In contrast, within the NGOs’ system of concern, the frames of concern for the natural environment, perception of the damage and responsibility, contain words making detailed representations

Brown, Richard Mark (2013)

From Classroom to Digital Arena in Seeking Higherlevel Learning: Student Experience

9(1)

Brown, Richard Mark & Luccarelli, Mark (2012)

Oslo's Ullevål Garden City : an experiment in urbanism and landscape design

, s. 81- 115.

Brown, Richard Mark (2012)

Speaking up for the Natural Landscape: a Rhetorical Dilemma

2(2) , s. 96- 111. Doi: https://doi.org/10.5539/jms.v2n2p96

This article presents textual evidence which shows some of the ways in which green business corporations and environmental NGOs represent the natural landscape and their relationship with it. It reviews the origin and development of stakeholder dialogue and questions to what extent such dialogue can contribute to a process of corporate change. It shows how the corporations use different language to represent nature than the NGOs and provides evidence suggesting that the green corporations understand their relationship with the natural landscape differently. NGOs that wish to speak up for the natural landscape, face a rhetorical dilemma which has an important implication for their practice. Either they can enter into a stakeholder dialogue with business and risk becoming a party to the exploitive management of nature, or they can refrain from entering into a dialogue and risk becoming marginalised.

Brown, Mark (2010)

A Linguistic Interpretation of Welford's Hijack Hypothesis

17(2) , s. 81- 95. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.233

Brown, Richard Mark (2007)

Wendell Berry's Farmer: Balancing 'the Natural' with 'the Cultural'

39(2) , s. 14- 28.

Brown, Richard Mark (2018)

Støtte til studenter med sosialangst - erfaringer fra et BI prosjekt

[Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark & Alm, Kristian (2017)

John Rawls' concept of the reasonable - a key to Stakeholder Dialogue. British Petroleum's compensation for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark & Kamsvåg, Ratna Elisabet (2016)

Hvordan blir ytringsfrihet hemmet av organisasjoner?

[Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark & Alm, Kristian (2016)

Stakeholder Dialogue and Rawls' Reasonable Disagreement

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2016)

Temavideoer for å oppnå dypdelæring i interkulturell og etisk bevissthet

[Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2015)

Learning Lab Pilot Programme 2014-2015: Work Package 1 (Mark Brown and Siân Griffith) - Report of Steering Group on the Audio Slides Project

[Report Research].

Brown, Richard Mark (2015)

The organization as whistle-blower: safeguarding organizational freedom of expression in order to safeguard society's freedom of expression

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2015)

"Business - nature relations: from nature incorporated to Nature Inc"

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2014)

Learning Lag Pilot Programme 2014-2015: Work Package 1 - Repåort of Steering Committee on the Audio Slides Project

[Report Research].

Brown, Richard Mark (2014)

Managing Nature – Business as Usual?

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2011)

Patterns of Wording to Patterns of Meaning?

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2011)

Not a Hijacking of the Discourse - rather an Appropriation of its Language

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark & Groth, Brian Ibbotson (2010)

Language and Meaning

[Professional Article]. (1)

Luccarelli, Mark & Brown, Mark (2010)

Ullevål Hageby and the English garden city: reflections on a designed landscape

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2009)

Re-voicing the landscape: from nature incorporated to Nature Inc

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2008)

Not a Hijacking of the Discourse - rather an Appropriation of its Language by a New Discourse Community

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2008)

Kamp om grønne ord

[Professional Article]. (1) , s. 35- 35.

Brown, Richard Mark (2008)

Miljøsaken er også et humanistisk anliggende

[Professional Article]. (2) , s. 18- 19.

Brown, Richard Mark (2008)

Green Business in Britain means a Managed Nature

[Professional Article]. 3(3) , s. 14- 15.

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

Area Studies and Language

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

Language as a way to ideas?

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

Wendell Berry's Farmer: Balancing 'the Natural' with 'the Cultural'?

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

Characterising, Contextualising and Conceptualising 'the Natural'

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

The 'Aboutness' of Corpora

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

Chapter four: The practical difficulties of designing and constructing corpora

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2006)

Contextualisation of 'the Natural'

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2005)

Corpora Design and Tools

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2005)

Trying to bridge the divide between language and culture - current problems

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2005)

The Potential of Corpus Linguistics for Culture Studies

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2005)

Culture Studies and Corpus Linguistics - different types of science

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2005)

Building Specialised Copora: some practical considerations

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2004)

The Corporate Social Responsibility of Green Business

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Brown, Richard Mark (2003)

Green Business in Britain: a Cultural Evolution?

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Academic Degrees
Year Academic Department Degree
2008 University of Oslo Ph.D.
1997 University of Oslo Master Cand. Philol.
1995 University of Oslo Bachelor
1982 Imperial College, University of London Master
Work Experience
Year Employer Job Title
2024 - Present BI Norwegian business school Docent
2008 - 2024 BI Norwegian Business School Associate Professor
2005 - 2008 University of Oslo PhD Candidate
2004 - 2004 BI Norwegian Business School Senior Lecturer
2001 - 2003 BI Norwegian Business School Lecturer
1998 - 2000 Norwegian Police University College Lecturer
1991 - 1997 Assorted language schools Free-lance teacher
1990 - 1991 Touchstone Computers Sales Manager
1989 - 1990 Ram Computer Group New Business Sales Manager
1983 - 1988 IBM (UK) Ltd Key Account Sales Representative