Table 1. Narratives, Temporality, and... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1.

Narratives, Temporality, and Commitment to Grand Challenges in Fluid Forms of Organizing.

	Universal Narratives	Situated Narratives	Bridging Narratives
Type	Grand stories that describe and reflect a grand challenge and its widespread impact	Stories that describe and reflect actors’ lived experiences with the grand challenge, as well as their specific local initiatives	Stories that span universal and situated narratives
Temporal horizon	Distant future: A centrally-defined, large-scale future target	Present and near future: The here-and-now carries the present forward into the future	Multi-temporality: Connections between present and near future as well as the distant future
Temporal direction	“Coming upon us”: Backward, from the distant future into the present	“Us moving forward”: Forward, from the present into the future	“Moving toward what’s coming upon us”: Both forward and backward
Contribution to commitment	Articulate a universal call to act that is difficult to ignore	Create a collective sense of change being under way by demonstrating distributed local efforts	Give meaning to local initiatives by embedding them in broader campaigns for tackling the grand challenge
Potential challenges	Detachment of distant future from the experienced present	Bringing together the present and near future with the distant future	Sustaining commitment by continually connecting temporalities

	Universal Narratives	Situated Narratives	Bridging Narratives
Type	Grand stories that describe and reflect a grand challenge and its widespread impact	Stories that describe and reflect actors’ lived experiences with the grand challenge, as well as their specific local initiatives	Stories that span universal and situated narratives
Temporal horizon	Distant future: A centrally-defined, large-scale future target	Present and near future: The here-and-now carries the present forward into the future	Multi-temporality: Connections between present and near future as well as the distant future
Temporal direction	“Coming upon us”: Backward, from the distant future into the present	“Us moving forward”: Forward, from the present into the future	“Moving toward what’s coming upon us”: Both forward and backward
Contribution to commitment	Articulate a universal call to act that is difficult to ignore	Create a collective sense of change being under way by demonstrating distributed local efforts	Give meaning to local initiatives by embedding them in broader campaigns for tackling the grand challenge
Potential challenges	Detachment of distant future from the experienced present	Bringing together the present and near future with the distant future	Sustaining commitment by continually connecting temporalities