National champion under pressure: A discourse analysis of Gazprom’s identity, legitimacy and strategic adaptation to western economic statecraft, 2004–2025

Sanctions and economic statecraft create uncertainty and strategic constraints for MNEs. While prior research has examined macroeconomic effects and the adjustment of primarily non-targeted Western firms, how sanctioned firms publicly frame economic statecraft and navigate a prolonged constrained environment remains underexplored, particularly so for non-Western firms. To address this gap, this thesis uses a narrative-informed CDA to examine Gaz-prom’s organisational discourse as Russia’s state-owned gas export monopolist throughout the three phases of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict: pre-Crimea crisis (pre-2014), pre-invasion (2014–2022), and post-invasion (post-2022). We trace how the firm narrates its identity, Western sanctions, as well as Europe’s green transition and legitimises its strategic adaptation. Our main source of empirical data is the firm’s monthly corporate magazine, a source that remains methodologically underused in organisation studies. To trace the firm’s strategic behaviour, we use policy documents and newspaper articles. Our analysis indicates that the firm’s discursive treatment of Western economic statecraft functions as a strategic response itself: sanctions are portrayed as incoherent and self-undermining, and therefore ultimately manageable. Furthermore, shocks are integrated into the firm’s existing narrative to stabilise the organisation’s identity as a national champion. This identity embeds the firm within the state’s objectives, which have a significant influence on the firm’s strategy in the post-invasion period. Furthermore, narratives and strategic actions are largely aligned, although some temporal dissonance occurs, in which narratives precede actions. Taken together, our findings contribute to sanctions research by showing that target firms can engage in discursive resistance that stabilises the firm’s legitimacy and identity. It can be a plausible tool for manoeuvring in a constrained environment, especially when the operational room for bypassing sanctions is narrow. Furthermore, our thesis contributes to research on organisational identity by highlighting that legitimacy work for SOEs is not only performance-based but also grounded in politics. Lastly, this research demonstrates the value of employing corporate magazines as discursive artefacts for organisational studies.