**5. Research methods**

The empirical material for our exemplary analysis consists of observations made in a local CSSP for social change in Denmark, the focus being on a partnership-wide meeting organized by the partnership to initiate a dialogue with employees and other stakeholders about the development and the implementation of a model for CSR in the private company [56]. In this article, the focus is on the partnershipwide meeting, in particular how the meeting is organized. A central quote is used to illustrate the "extreme", systemic change potential of the selected case [57].

For the purpose of our research, we used extensive observations throughout a two-year period in the social partnership established between the private company and a public partner [4 seminars, 25 steering group meetings, 11 background meetings, 6 group "sparring" meetings, 6 evaluation meetings and 3–4 meetings in the different working groups from 2000 until 2002]. The observational work was combined with interviews, of which two were in-depth interviews with the partnership management from which the above-mentioned quote is taken. In this article, the focus is on the partnership-wide dialogues conducted over the two-year period. We have used a note-taking technique (note-taking, coding, categorization) and subsequently analyzed our data by use of dialogue analysis in order to extract central concepts [cf. our framework for analysis] and thereby enrich our understanding of partnership-wide dialogues as a particular mode of strategic change communication. In this article, empirical material from our case study has been selected purposely as an example to best support our argument.

• School of Communication Studies, Faculty of Design & Creative Technologies, AUT University, Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1142, New Zealand. Received 2 October 2010, Revised 14 September 2011, Accepted 14 September 2011, Available online 6 October 2011
