A Critical Plot Twist: Changing Characters and Foreshadowing the Future of Organizational Storytelling

Abstract

This review explores the evolution of scholarly research about organizational storytelling over the past 40 years in a sample of 165 papers published between 1975 and 2015. The authors contend that organizational storytelling has established a conventional foothold beside the dominant, scientific narrative of organization studies. Meanwhile, the voice of critical storytelling in organizations has emerged, confirming (and extending) five organizational storytelling themes identified by Rhodes and Brown: sensemaking (and subverting); communicating (and manipulating); change, learning (and challenge); power (and dissent); and identity and identification (and alienation). This review reveals the growing influence of critical management studies, emphasizing the role stories play in disrupting conventional narratives, enriching understanding of present and future storytelling in organizations, and of organizations in general.

Spirituality, Symbolism and Storytelling in Twentyfirst-Century Organizations: Understanding and addressing the crisis of imagination

“…Due to technological developments and innovation, there is furthermore scope to delve deeper into social media storytelling and storytelling manipulation, particularly salient in the post-truth era. Questions are also raised as to the inclusivity of organizational storytelling research, about the voices of underrepresented identities such as disabled workers and LGBTQ+ (Beigi et al, 2019). Beigi et al (2019) also propose exploring the impact of storytelling at a more emotional level (organizational empathy), for instance via fictional storytelling and the relevance of classic stories and myths for contemporary, political sensitive, organizational circumstances.…”

“…Questions are also raised as to the inclusivity of organizational storytelling research, about the voices of underrepresented identities such as disabled workers and LGBTQ+ (Beigi et al, 2019). Beigi et al (2019) also propose exploring the impact of storytelling at a more emotional level (organizational empathy), for instance via fictional storytelling and the relevance of classic stories and myths for contemporary, political sensitive, organizational circumstances. Storytelling remains an important approach to explore how people make sense of their experiences, more so during times of upheaval and change.…”

“…Ethnographic research, subscribing to a historical and culturally sensitive perspective, has shown itself able to make explicit some of the more hidden aspects of organizations and organizing, including ambiguity, complexity, emotions and power, as well as to reveal the daily routines of organizational life (O’Doherty & Neyland, 2019; Ybema et al, 2009). Storytelling research demonstrates how organizations and organizational actors make sense of identities, enact change (power and politics), express resistance, nurture belonging, share ridicule, let off steam and reduce the equivocality of organizational life (Beigi, Callahan, & Michaelson, 2019; Dawson & Sykes, 2019; Rhodes & Brown, 2005; Van Hulst & Ybema, 2019). 10…”

“…Storytelling research demonstrates how organizations and organizational actors make sense of identities, enact change (power and politics), express resistance, nurture belonging, share ridicule, let off steam and reduce the equivocality of organizational life (Beigi, Callahan, & Michaelson, 2019;Dawson & Sykes, 2019;Rhodes & Brown, 2005;Van Hulst & Ybema, 2019). 10 Stories, notwithstanding some major differences in how these should be defined (see Beigi et al, 2019 andDawson &Sykes, 2019 for discussion about the differences between the two core storytelling approaches of Boje and Gabriel) open 'windows into the emotional, political and symbolic lives of organizations' (Gabriel, 2000, p. 2), marking organizations as storytelling systems and organization studies as a set of storytelling practices (Rhodes & Brown, 2005). Storytelling research has been able not only to offer a counter narrative to the overly positivistic narrative of management science (as pointed out by Rhodes & Brown, 2005), but also to infuse a more critical voice, juxtaposing sensemaking with subverting, communicating with manipulating, change and learning with challenging, power with dissent and identification with alienation (Beigi et al, 2019).…”

The Value of Doubt: Humanities-Based Literacy in Management Education

“…To (re-)introduce epistemological doubt into the economist narrative which still frames much of the contemporary understanding of management (cf. Krugman, 1998;Lovins, 2016;Pirson, 2020) narratological analysis in organization and management studies (Rhodes and Brown, 2005;Beigi et al 2019) is certainly an important tool to employ, seeing that the capacity for "storytelling" is part of the human condition (Gottschall, 2012). It is, though, but one of the areas of the humanitiesè…”