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Situated in scholarship on narrative and antenarrative, the purpose of this paper is to develop central assumptions of an (ante)narrative approach to collective identity research and to reflexively address the methodological questions such an approach raises for producing and analysing (ante)stories. (Ante)stories include proper stories with chronology and plot as well as antestories which are fragmented and incomplete.

Based on a concrete research project exploring collective identity as narratively constructed in negotiation between organizational insiders and outsiders, emphasis is placed on elements related to the production and analysis of (ante)stories. Challenges of the applied (ante)narrative methodology are addressed focusing on three central questions: where do (ante)stories come from? Whose (ante)stories are told? And whose storied constructions of collective identity are explored?

The (ante)narrative methodology allows for a broad approach to producing and analysing (ante)stories. Consequently, it provides a rich understanding of the narrative practice of constructing collective identity. However, it also raises questions relating to the role of the researcher in the analytic process.

Implications include the necessity of developing analytic methods that take the fragmented, incoherent and dynamic nature of storytelling into account as well as reflect the researcher as a co-teller. Moreover, it is suggested that there is a need for developing a set of alternative evaluation criteria to accompany such methods.

To present and reflexively discuss (ante)narrative as a research methodology within collective identity research.

This chapter makes a case for a decolonial, intersectional approach to narrative criminology. It argues that in growing contexts of deepening inequalities, research approaches that humanise people on the margins and that explicitly centre questions of social justice are ever more urgent. This chapter explicates a decolonial, intersectional narrative analysis, working with the data generated in interviews with women sex workers on their experiences of violence outlining how a decolonial, intersectional, narrative analysis may be accomplished to analyse the intersections of power at material, representational and structural levels. The chapter illustrates the importance of an intersectional feminist lens for amplifying the complexity of women sex workers' experiences of gendered violence and for understanding the multiple forms of material, symbolic and institutionalised subordination they experience in increasingly unequal and oppressive contexts. It ends by considering the contributions decolonial, intersectional feminist work can offer narrative criminology, especially the emerging field of narrative victimology.

Organizations have been challenged to identify antecedents to improved employee adjustment to the work environment changes that arose in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic. This study aims to explore the effect of multilingualism on employee ability to adjust to workplace changes based on the concept that multilinguals have been found to switch between tasks more efficiently as compared to monolinguals.

Applying a sequential explanatory mixed methods research approach, quantitative performance evaluation data on 207 credit union employees is analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling to predict employee performance, and thematic analysis of qualitative data representing the adjustment narratives of six monolingual and six multilingual employees within the sample is conducted, corresponding to the period during which employees were adjusting to broad workplace changes after the onset of the global pandemic.

The results suggest greater predicted improvement in the performance of multilingual employees. Reliance on the task-switching ability associated with multilingualism is found to be the primary self-evaluative factor for successful change adjustment among multilingual employees.

In light of work performance benefits identified in this study, organizations may consider multilingualism as a characteristic preceding better adjustment to organizational change, and not simply as a skill applicable to tasks requiring language proficiency, suggesting practical implications for human resource and organizational management.

This is the first sequential explanatory study focusing on the task-switching ability of multilinguals as an antecedent to change adjustment evidenced by improved work performance within an organizational context.

To explore the digital landscape, narrowing to Instagram, as a cultural space to advance sociological understanding of elite athlete mother identity meanings and lives.

Relativist narrative inquiry is outlined as a theoretical and methodological approach to expand sociological research on motherhood and sport, by exploring big and small stories on social media sites. Elite athlete mother's mediated self-portrayals on Instagram are theorized as identity stories (re)created and made possible, by cultural narrative resources.

An example of big and small story research is outlined from a larger case study of elite athlete figure skating mothers' self-portrayals on Instagram as they negotiated motherhood, and a professional sport career. Thematic narrative analysis findings include a big story plot in the post-partum period: negotiating intensive mothering and career. Two small stories that fed into fluid meanings of this big story plot are also presented: holding the baby close and working mum/new mumtrepeneur. These findings show nuanced contradictions of contemporary motherhood meanings, within sportswomen's personal and public digital stories.

A big and small story approach grounded in narrative inquiry holds value to learn more about the contemporary digital landscape's shaping of the meanings of sportswomen's identities and lives. Future research is recommended using this approach on additional social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) to expand intertextual understanding of elite athlete mother identities in socio-cultural context, tapping into these underexplored naturalistic data resources.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the experience of human resource (HR) professionals in managing career development for older workers. It focuses on the influence of personal, social and organisational experiences of HR professionals on (1) their approach to career development of older workers and (2) their organisation's career development practices for older workers.

Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews with 14 HR professionals from large organisations with at least half of their workforce aged 45 and above. The transcripts were analysed thematically, with the coding process informed by Ricoeur's theory of interpretation.

Three main themes emerged within the HR professionals' narratives. They identified with (1) the protagonist mindset in career development stories, (2) the enabling enforcer of individualised career development practices and (3) the agent for change in career development practices.

This study shows that a narrative thematic analysis can be used to explore how the experiences of HR professionals can affect the design and implementation of career development strategies for this cohort of workers. Further, recruiting HR professionals with a protagonist mindset can generate organisational practices inclusive of older workers.

This study is one of the first to focus on the role of HR professionals in managing career development practices for older workers and the influence of supportive managers on their attitudes and actions with older workers.

A study of the narratives of community mental health nurses, with an emphasis on education and training, identified education as offering a ‘stepping stone’ out of a profession that struggles for recognition and status. This paper describes those narratives and the challenges facing healthcare organisations seeking to assimilate and retain the talent of those who have achieved academic success. The authors suggest that encouraging an expertise that integrates academic and practice skills might be achieved through more widespread appointment of clinical professorships.

Discussions of the use of computer‐assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) in social science research studies are still few and isolated. In fact, much of the literature takes an uncritical approach to CAQDAS programs based on unrealistic expectations of the software as a methodology in and of itself. This has significant implications for learning and teaching qualitative data analysis software and the way it is used in research. The study on which this article is based combined formal narrative analysis, thematic coding, and deconstruction techniques to analyse the data using a dedicated qualitative data analysis software NVivo. A discussion is given of how the qualitative analysis software was used in a social constructionist study, particularly outlining how it fitted with the methodological perspective adopted, and where, why and in what way rigour fitted with the underpinning epistemological position. Thus, this article illuminates how rigour can be integrated with relevance with the aid of the power and possibilities that qualitative research software possesses. In addition, an attempt is made to demonstrate how the use of CAQDAS enhances the validity of a qualitative project.

With increased globalization, technology advancements, and interconnectedness, greater alignment on values and leadership is needed. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role that personal values play in sustaining leadership during challenging times. The importance of values as a guidepost in an environment in constant change offers leaders a foundation for decision making.

Narrative inquiry and narrative interviews were used so leaders could share their stories of navigating challenging situations. One group interview was scheduled to share preliminary research findings with the research participants and receive their input. Both narrative analysis and thematic analysis were used.

Sustainable leadership included the ongoing pursuit of personal mastery, a values-based personal and professional support network, and expertise in leading self and other through the inevitable transitions that occur during change and challenge.

The above recommendations allow for leaders to sustain themselves and others while working in service of the common good.

This research offers practical guidance to public sector leaders who wish to sustain themselves amidst the inevitable challenges that they experience as part of their public sector leadership.

Leaders who adopt the above recommendations will be well positioned to support their leadership and to use values as guiding principles to release the hero in everyone around them.

This narrative study harvested the wisdom of the lived experience of leaders working in the public, health, and education sectors who have navigated challenges in their leadership. The findings offer valuable guidance to public sector leaders.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the understanding that can be gained about employees' use of voice as a response to organisational change using qualitative research and, in particular, narrative analysis. Narrative analysis of voice can provide insight into why voice is used and how voice differs from resistance.

This paper uses a constructivist approach to study the interpretations of participants and explores the qualitative research interview as a method of data collection that enables participants to report experiences of organisational change. Thematic narrative analysis explores inductive themes that are embedded within participants' stories.

Findings suggest that qualitative research approaches are useful in exploring individual interpretations of voice, such as the forms in which voice is used, reasons why voice is used, and participant reports of management reactions to voice. Findings from the narrative analysis suggests that voice may be confused with resistance in the workplace and is likely to lead to negative reactions from management, even though both the literature and participants differentiate between intentions of voice and resistance to change.

The paper calls for further research concerning employee intentions surrounding the use of voice as well as management perceptions of employees' use of voice.

Qualitative studies can explore differences between voice and resistance through unlocking voices of employees who are marginalised in management literature. Such studies also derive feedback from staff about the effects of change programmes, thus providing managers with information from which communication/participation strategies could be tailored to individual organisations.

In this paper, the authors offer a methodological discussion and examples of visual analysis processes. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate a data analysis method that the authors named layered textural analysis, which brought together images and texts in ways that changed existing and decontextualized understandings. The authors used layered textural analysis to interpret photo-narratives from a photo elicitation study about the development of intercultural sensitivity in US study abroad students.

Layered textural analysis, as carried out in this study, consisted of structural analysis of narratives present in interview text, visual analysis of the photos, and guiding questions related to the content and relationship of the photos and narratives.

Individual experiences, images, and texts reflect complex connections between matter and thought. The multilayered analysis led to complex understandings and representations of participants’ learning and interpretation of cultural differences, and allowed us to examine photo-narrative events and participants’ individual meaning-making processes.

Visual researchers rarely write about their processes of analysis in sufficient epistemological and methodological detail. Transparency about data analysis may inspire other scholars to experiment with data analysis approaches. The authors share layered textural analysis so that qualitative researchers can gain ideas for their own reflexive analytic techniques and to exemplify how multilayered analysis methods can change understandings of data and work against simplified knowledges.