The concept of discourse has always been at the core of critical analysis in the field of discourse studies. To some extent this is explained by the connection between discourses, in a Foucauldian sense, and representations of, for instance, power relations, gender and social injustices – all in need of critical analysis. However, in research on organizational discourse, the object for critique can be the transformations of social actions within organizations rather than, for example, unequal representations (in texts). There is a well-established link between social actions and genres: genres are (or are at least part of) social actions. The overarching aim of this chapter is to discuss how genre-oriented analysis can complement other types of analysis in the broader field of critical discourse studies, and to offer critical understandings more directly related to social actions. The chapter gives an overview of two approaches to the critical analysis of genre: critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical genre analysis (CGA). From the perspective of methodology, the chapter responds to calls for a social and affordance-driven multimodal critical discourse studies by offering a number of qualitative concepts for analyzing the genre aspects of multimodal texts. Analytical examples come from interrelated genres such as “vision and values,” “core values” and “platforms and values” from state agencies and universities in, above all, Sweden and the United States. In the context of public authorities, these genres are to be considered as emerging genres, which allows for a specific type of critical inquiry: Which are the changing social actions that these genres are part of? Are they related to internal control or to external communication and market-oriented “branding” of the public authority?