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1 – 10 of 42
Book part
Publication date: 6 June 2019

Marita Svane

The focus of this chapter is quantum dialectical storytelling and its contribution to generate anticipatory knowledge of the future through the intra-play between the…

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is quantum dialectical storytelling and its contribution to generate anticipatory knowledge of the future through the intra-play between the ante-narrative and the anti-narrative. The theoretical framework on quantum dialectical storytelling is based upon Boje’s triad storytelling framework interfused with Hegelian dialectics and Baradian diffraction. Through the inspiration of Judith Butler’s performative theory, Riach, Rumens, and Tyler (2016) introduce the concept of the anti-narrative as a critical reflexive methodology. By drawing on Hegel’s work on the dialectical phenomenology of critical reflexive self-consciousness, a dialectical pre-reflexive and reflexive framework emerges as intra-weaving modes of being-in-the-world toward future.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Management and Organization Inquiry
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-552-8

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 November 2014

Trine Susanne Johansen

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…

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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?

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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.

Originality/value

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

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 9 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

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Article
Publication date: 20 April 2012

Caroline Allbon

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between embodiment and the experience of self, body, and work as mutual organisational relationships by focusing on the…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between embodiment and the experience of self, body, and work as mutual organisational relationships by focusing on the author's bodily experiences as a nurse, mother, educator and researcher living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The use of an autoethnographic framework contributes to work on embodiment and experience supporting the development of a self‐reflexive praxis of human action. It specially focuses on life experiences that become my stories as autoethnographic representations depicting the difficulties and challenges of living and working with chronic illness. It proposes the use of stories, specifically ante‐narratives, to highlight how making the invisible aspects of chronic illness visible; and contributes to work on organisational learning whereby knowledge drawn from the body can serve as a prospective sense‐making activity to help answer: Where is all this change and complexity heading? The paper aims to expand the domain of narrative paradigm that is normally found in the literature relevant to sociology, ethnography, and critical management studies, by gently extending the boundaries of understanding how to learn and respond as ways of inquiry.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses Ellis's research approach of autoethnography as a means to enhance the representational uniqueness and reflexivity in qualitative research. A personal story capturing lived experiences of living and working with chronic illness is used to illustrate how stories, specifically ante‐narrative, can provide access to bodily knowledge and glimpses into what Van Maanen calls the ethnographer's own taken‐for‐granted understandings of social world under scrutiny. My stories become the data that are the autoethnographic accounts, which include rigorous critical reflection and review through an autoethnographic lens, and, importantly reflexively shape the author's analysis of social and cultural practices of my being and becoming in the world.

Findings

The paper provides insights about how personal change is brought about as result of a confirmed diagnosis of MS. It suggests that storytelling contributes to the transformational process to learning about new routines in the management of MS, outlining how and why the development of leadership is important throughout the story‐telling process.

Research limitations/implications

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to seek further ways of developing the methodological art of how to tell good stories.

Practical implications

The paper includes implications for the development of organisational learning activities, whereby qualitative researchers, particularly those undertaking autoethnographic studies, can seek to enhance the reflexivity of their own work, and for managing the dynamic balance between stability and change as being central to individual wellness.

Originality/value

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the benefits of living life as inquiry, as methodological process can enable and help clarify important issues about human development, growth and potential, both personally and for the caring professions. The value of this autoethnographic inquiry is that it provides an ongoing continual process of original inquiry, reflection, and action learning.

Article
Publication date: 29 August 2008

David Vickers

The aim is to analyse managerial behaviour using narrative analysis to identify stories that are often ignored, silenced or missed by the hegemonic managerialist narrative.

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Abstract

Purpose

The aim is to analyse managerial behaviour using narrative analysis to identify stories that are often ignored, silenced or missed by the hegemonic managerialist narrative.

Design/methodology/approach

An ethnographic narrative based on an 18 month period of participant observation where the author was a manager in a business unit acquired by another company for $1 billion.

Findings

Strategy can be diverted or altered by managers lower down the organization in a counter strategy process. This is consistent with Dalton where managers lower down the organization adapt and change strategy to make it work in practice.

Research limitations/implications

Participant observation and ethnomethodological narrative analysis have the potential to go beyond the hegemonic managerialist literature and identify a much more complex picture. However, such research is always open to criticism as being from the author's “own perspective” and appearing to claim “omnipresence.” Other stories have been given voice but it is never possible to say that all stories have been recovered from the silencing processes of the organization.

Practical implications

A clearer understanding of how management operates counter strategies within an organization in practice. This enables organizations to reconsider how they engage managers beyond the hegemonic narrative.

Originality/value

This paper aims to provide an insight into management behaviour beyond the usual treatment of managers as an amorphous mass as is common in most of the hegemonic managerialist narrative. When managers are told the narratives in this paper they can recount their own similar stories yet these are rarely told.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 December 2018

Wanda Tisby-Cousar

In this chapter, Sande Leadership will be introduced as an approach to getting leaders beyond the dominant narrative to a balance between authentic-self and stakeholder needs…

Abstract

In this chapter, Sande Leadership will be introduced as an approach to getting leaders beyond the dominant narrative to a balance between authentic-self and stakeholder needs. Gender roles, ethics, norms and values, and political skills have become dominant narratives for various industries and their leadership addressed by the Sande Leadership model.

The model is an area of opportunity that addresses management social sustainability. Leadership development in management education will be the focus in the classroom, and leadership professional development will be the focus in organizations. In both industries, policy development for sustainable practice will be explored in the development of business scorecards used to measure sustainable practice in organizations.

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Quantum Storytelling Consulting
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-671-0

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 November 2018

Fiona Hurd, Suzette Dyer and Mary Fitzpatrick

Although the process of fieldwork is often characterised by disorder, the requirement to adhere to a tightly defined methodology and produce timely research outputs often leads…

Abstract

Purpose

Although the process of fieldwork is often characterised by disorder, the requirement to adhere to a tightly defined methodology and produce timely research outputs often leads the authors to present the findings as though the research has been the product of a linear process. The purpose of this paper is to unmask this paradox, by documenting the disorder and development of a research project 15 years (so far) in duration.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach used in this paper is one of auto-ethnographic reflection, drawing on aspects of Boje’s living story approach, incorporating not only the “linear” narrative of the research process, but also fragments of ante-narrative, themes running above and below the dominant. Within the study, the authors are reflecting on, a range of qualitative methods, including interview, focus groups, memory-work, and living story (ante-narrative) methods, which are employed within a critical management research methodology.

Findings

The authors’ experiences show that although “messiness” may be an inherent part of qualitative research, it is this very disorder, and the consequent opportunities for time and space, that allows the research, and the researcher, “time to breathe”. This reflexivity allows for methodological development and refinement, and ultimately rigorous and participative research, which also honours the participants. The authors argue that although this approach may not align with the current need for prolific (and rapid) publication, in allowing the disorder to “be” in the research, and allowing the time to reassess theoretical and methodological lenses, the resultant stories may be more authentic – both the stories gathered from participants and the stories of research.

Originality/value

The paper highlights the intertwining of stories of participants and stories from research, which is a significant addition to understandings of the “messiness” of qualitative research. This paper adds to the growing call for the inclusion of “chaos” and authenticity in qualitative research, acknowledging and valuing the humanity of the researcher, and giving voice to the paradox between the time to methodologically develop, and the requirement for timely research.

Details

Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1746-5648

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 March 2017

Fiona Hurd and Suzette Dyer

Communities of work are a phenomenon closely associated with government social and industrial policy, and can be tracked in contemporary examples globally alongside industrial…

Abstract

Purpose

Communities of work are a phenomenon closely associated with government social and industrial policy, and can be tracked in contemporary examples globally alongside industrial development. The purpose of this paper is to explore community identity within a town which was previously single industry, but has since experienced workforce reduction and to a large degree, industry withdrawal.

Design/methodology/approach

Using an inductive approach, the researchers interviewed 32 participants who had resided (past or present) within the instrumental case study town. A thematic analytical framework, drawing on the work of Boje (2007) was employed.

Findings

A significant theme to emerge from the participants was the public assertion of social cohesion and belonging. However, what was interesting, was that beneath this unified exterior, lay accounts of multiple forms of demarcation. Drawing on Benedict Anderson’s (1983) notion of the imagined community, and Bauman’s (2001) identity in globalisation, this contradiction is conceptualised as boundary-making moments of identification and disidentification.

Research limitations/implications

This research is specific to the New Zealand context, although holds many points of interest for the wider international audience. The research provides a broad example of the layering of the collective and individual levels of identity.

Social implications

This research provides a voice to the wider individual, community and societal implications of managerial practices entwined with political decisions. This research encourages managers and educators in our business schools to seek to understand the relationship between the political, corporate, community and individual realms.

Originality/value

This research makes a significant contribution to understandings of the interconnectedness of social policy, industry, and the lived experiences of individuals. Moreover, it contributes to the broader single industry town literature, which previously has focussed on stories of decline from a North American context.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 37 no. 1/2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 20 February 2007

Maurice Yolles

The nature of narrative is important, and with the development of awareness of knowledge processes, it becoming more important. In particular its notions can be enhanced by…

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Abstract

Purpose

The nature of narrative is important, and with the development of awareness of knowledge processes, it becoming more important. In particular its notions can be enhanced by examining it in terms of antenarrative. Ultimately the paper aims to explore the relationship between narrative and antenarrative.

Design/methodology/approach

The objectives of the paper are achieved by seating the notions of narrative and antenarrative into the models of knowledge cybernetics (in particular social viable systems – SVS and social cybernetics) to enable an exploration of the consequences of their interaction. If narrative and antenarrative are seen as together forming an autonomous system, then their relationship may be explored in terms of SVS. This is effectively a social geometry that enables complex conceptual relationships to be explored graphically.

Findings

While normally one might think that narrative and antenarrative are incommensurable, the theory explains how through enantiomer dynamics, patterns of narrative can be related to un‐patterned arbitrary antenarratives. Under the right circumstances narrative and antenarrative can form a joint alliance that enables the two forms to merge into a story. This means that a story is told in a way that enables narrative structures to be intermingled with antenarrative thereby forming a thematic story event that has potential to engage more dynamically with the listener.

Research limitations/implications

The paper is fundamentally theoretical, and a useful development would be to apply this to real case scenarios, thereby exploring quantitively the interconnection between narrative and antenarrative, and some of its implications.

Practical implications

It must be realised that there is a tacit knowledge dimension that connects the narrative/antenarrative situation with a story acquirer. The ability of the acquirer to recognise whether a situation has narrative or antenarrative is a function of that acquirer's own pattern of knowledge, and this embodies subjectivity. This is bound up within the notion of third cybernetics. The interconnectedness of narrative and antenarrative is relevant to actual processes of social communication, and demonstrates a parallel coexistence of modernist and postmodernist paradigms.

Originality/value

The paper applies a new theory, that of knowledge cybernetics, to a difficult conceptual area of study. While this results in the need to understand the conceptual basis of knowledge cybernetics, it does provide a frame of reference that enables relatively simple approaches in knowledge and knowledge processes to be graphically represented, thereby providing the potential for new insights. The value of the paper is that these graphical techniques are illustrated, and they would likely be useful to those who work in the knowledge or knowledge management field.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 20 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 6 June 2019

Abstract

Details

The Emerald Handbook of Management and Organization Inquiry
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78714-552-8

Article
Publication date: 29 August 2008

Yannick Fronda and Jean‐Luc Moriceau

A description of the managerial impact on change processes during a takeover with middle management in the telecom industry.

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Abstract

Purpose

A description of the managerial impact on change processes during a takeover with middle management in the telecom industry.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach is to use storytelling as a form of analysis of different positions within an organization, as described in a case study.

Findings

By not including the voice of the middle managers, higher management runs into problems in the implementation of change processes.

Research limitations/implications

By using narratives as a source for analysis, the paper does not try to gain objective insights into change processes.

Practical implications

Resistance to change can prove a safeguard against too optimistic change.

Originality/value

The paper shows that several layers of change that interact with one another as proof of the confrontation between grand narratives and ante‐narratives.

Details

Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 21 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0953-4814

Keywords

1 – 10 of 42