Liberation Through Narrativity: A Case of Organization Reconstruction Through Strategic Storytelling

Abstract

This paper examines the ebb and flow of organizational power and control during an organizational change where a CEO mobilized narratives to liberate his company from top-down control. The emergent conceptual model makes sense of what appears to be discursive disorder – a cacophony of change narratives. Its contribution is twofold. Firstly, by identifying three ‘narratives in the making’ – the initial, counter and corrective narratives, it elaborates the meso-level narrative mechanisms at the heart of discursive struggles during change and extends Boje’s (2010) triad of narrativity. Secondly, it confirms the utility of the ‘organizational becoming’ and CCO perspectives of organizing for understanding change.

Workers' Rites: Ritual Mediations and the Tensions of New Management

“…Although literature on liberated enterprises remains small and mostly appears in French contexts (e.g., Arnaud et al, 2016; Landivar and Trouvé, 2017), several aspects align liberated enterprises with the new management ideology (see Picard and Islam, 2020). First, liberated enterprises suppress formal procedures and controls such as time clocks, but also make deep cuts into middle management and radically restructure organizational hierarchies (Gilbert et al, 2014).…”

Framing Liberation Management as the Bundling of Practices: An Adoption Process with a Two-Fold Coherence

“…Information transparency refers to employees' ability to obtain the strategic and operational information they need to do their work (Arnaud et al, 2016;Hamel & Breen, 2007).…”

‘Free to Do What I Want’? Exploring the ambivalent effects of liberating leadership

“…Drawing upon a mix of leadership theories as well as positive psychology, liberating leadership also draws on empirical cases such as Gore, Oticon, FAVI, Semco, Harley Davidson, Smoke Cellars, Chronoflex and Quad Graphics, seen as innovative, ‘plural’ (Salovaara & Bathurst, 2016, p. 2) and ‘radical’ (Getz, 2009, p. 34) organizations. More recently, a small, emerging literature has examined the theoretical, historical roots and practical implications of liberated companies and leadership, primarily in the francophone literature (Arnaud et al, 2016; Demailly, 2011; the special issue edited by Landivar & Trouvé, 2017). Born from applied literature but drawing transversally across management and psychology research, liberating leadership is an embryonic and hybrid leadership approach that makes large claims about its transformative potential.…”

“…Third, liberating leaders must maintain a culture of self-direction and self-management, stimulating employees to ‘emotionally own the vision’ (Getz, 2009, p. 41). While success criteria are defined by the leader (Holtz, 2017), employees are incited to identify with the narrative of liberation (Arnaud et al., 2016).…”

“…Baldry et al, 2007). Yet we know little about the individual and collective mechanisms triggered by the suppression of authority figures, a theme largely absent from current accounts of liberating leadership (Getz, 2009(Getz, , 2011Getz & Carney, 2009) and by observers of ongoing experiments (Arnaud, Mills, & Legrand, 2016;Demailly, 2011;Landivar & Trouvé, 2017).…”