...Jerzy Kociatkiewicz; Monika Kostera Purpose The purpose of this paper is to consider three types of stories: media, personal accounts and fiction, and look for plots depicting situations of fundamental shift in the framing and basic definitions of reality. The authors examine them from the point...

...Marja Flory and Eduard Bonet; Patrick Dawson; Christopher Sykes; Peter McLean; Michael Zanko; Heather Marciano Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the early stages of change and the way that stories can open up forms of collaborative dialogue and creative thinking among divergent...

...Wendelin M. Küpers Purpose The purpose of this paper is to describe how a phenomenological approach can help to understand embodied dimensions and compare different and shared qualities, functions and potential, as well as ambivalences and limitations of metaphors and stories in organisations...

...Stefanie C. Reissner Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate three patterns of stories employed by organisational actors to make sense of organisational change: stories of “the good old days”; stories of deception, taboo and silence; and stories of influence. Each pattern reflects one...

...Robert F. Dennehy Question: How do you solve a high‐tech problem? Answer: Use a low‐tech solution. These answers and questions provide the core of Stephen Denning’s book on story‐telling. His story begins over a brown bag lunch at the World Bank, when his manager asks...

... theory is used to explain the disparate results. © MCB UP Limited 2000 Organizational change Stories Chaos Disney Corporation is flirting not only with phenomenal complexity, but chaos by walking the razor’s edge between courting traditional family entertainment values and reaping...

...Steven S. Taylor Members of an organization that had undergone revolutionary, punctuated equilibrium type change were asked to tell the story of that change. Senior managers tended to make sense of the change as discontinuous, while individual contributors tended to make sense of the change...

...Toby Harfield; R.T. Hamilton Represents an experiment in style and methodology. Presents stories of managing decline in a rapidly deregulating environment. Collected data from managers in the New Zealand footwear manufacturing industry in face‐to‐face interviews with the intention of giving...

...William Van Buskirk; Dennis McGrath Research on organizational culture has provided much needed subtlety in understanding organizational events. However, it has a cognitive bias which leaves implicit the treatment of emotional phenomena. Organizational stories can provide a window on affect...

... take place. Four ways are described in which storytelling as part of formal training can contribute to more effective individual learning in organisations, which in turn may contribute to successful organisational change and performance. Management development Training Stories Organizational...

...Robert P. Gephart, Jr A conceptual framework or model of the sensemaking practices,cultural objects and “programmatically constructed entities”used to produce meaningful stories of succession and organisational change are presented. The framework is elaborated and tested through an expansion...

...David M. Boje A participant‐observation study of consulting in a large office supply firm of how consultants and organisational stakeholders perform stories to make sense of events and to enact change during their conversations is presented. A theory of organisation as a collective storytelling...

...Alan L. Wilkins; Michael P. Thompson Without the stories, or narratives that organisations construct,there could be no social negotiation or sense making. A problem is that the narratives are often “too straight”, too simplistic and self‐serving to be helpful representations of reality. Most...

...Michael Owen Jones Stories and customs at work may mirror the culture, be survivals from the past, or constitute a screen onto which fantasies are projected serving as safety valves, sanctioned expressions of “outlaw emotions”, or scapegoats. While some stories seem to challenge the culture...