Once upon a time the practice of storytelling was about collecting interesting stories about the past, and converting them into soundbite pitches. Now it is more about foretelling the ways the future is approaching the present, prompting a re-storying of the past. Storytelling has progressed and is about a diversity of voices, not just one teller of one past; it is how a group or organization of people negotiates the telling of history and the telling of what future is arriving in the present. With the changes in storytelling practices and theory there is a growing need to look at new and different methodologies. Within this exciting new book, David M. Boje develops new ways to ask questions in interviews and make observations of practice that are about storytelling the future. This, after all, is where management practice concentrates its storytelling, while much of the theory and method work is all about how the past might recur in the future. Storytelling Organizational Practices takes the reader on a journey: from looking at narratives of past experience through looking at living stories of emergence in the present to looking at how the future is arriving in ways that prompts a re-storying of the past.

"Boje does not reflect trends, he is among those who set them" - Hervé Corvellec, Department of Service Management, Lund University "How can I know what I think until I see what David Boje says? What he says about storytelling will forever change what we thought we knew about stories. With remarkable control over a complex argument, Boje recovers, re-punctuates, and re-animates a world of narrative and sensemaking that we have previously taken for granted!" - Karl E. Weick, Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology,Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan "Few people understand stories and storytelling as well as David Boje. It is a measure of Boje′s success as a theorist that the word story can never reclaim the innocence and simplicity it once enjoyed. Nor, with the benefit of his work, can organizations be viewed as spaces which occasionally or incidentally spawn stories. Boje′s eagerly awaited book forces us to question many of our assumptions about storytelling; it also demands that we revise several of our assumptions about what organizations are" - Yiannis Gabriel, The School of Management, Royal Holloway University of London "Our company is made up of lots of stories. We′ve found that ′stories′ get told and retold and become the fabric of an organization. ′Policies′ lay unread in the company handbook or training manual. David Boje taught me the value of stories in an organization. Stories are the ′oil′ that makes the gears work. How do you get your message heard in an organization with thousands of people? David Boje taught me the value of telling stories at Stew Leonard′s!" - Stew Leonard Jr., Stew Leonard Organization "David Boje is one of the world′s leading authorities on storytelling. His work has influenced a generation of organizational theorists and students. He not only provides new ways of understanding organizations but also provides fresh insights into the way in which stories function to provide meanings" - Heather Höpfl, University of Essex The idea of organizations using `storytelling′ to make sense of themselves and their environment has generated a lot of excitement. Written by the leading scholar in this field, David Boje explores how narrative and storytelling is an important part of an organization′s strategy, development and learning processes. With excellent examples from Nike, McDonald′s and Disney, readers are shown how the theory that underpins organizational storytelling connects with storytelling in everyday organizational life. David Boje′s theories and ideas in relation to the study of storytelling in organizations are highly influential and this book will be a `must have′ for any student or scholar interested in the area.

This workbook is an interactive guide for leaders and managers to help you tell compelling stories at work. The Organizational Storytelling Workbook offers: a critical engagement with academic debates on organizational storytelling; and a series of exercises designed to allow users to improve their capability as organizational storytellers. The text begins with a chapter which locates organizational storytelling within a critical account of organizational cultures. This book argues that managerial accounts of organizational culture offer a limited appreciation of the ways in which people think, feel and act and suggests storytelling as a means of redeeming our understanding of all matters cultural. Having secured this new appreciation of culture and storytelling the workbook develops a series of maxims and exercises designed to allow users: (a) to improve their storytelling practice; and (b) to reassess the cultural assumptions and priorities revealed through their practice. Enriched with interactive features to walk managers practically through the process of improving their storytelling skills, including practical exercises, contemplative questions, and space to respond creatively to the ideas in the book, this workbook is the perfect companion to any executive or postgraduate course in storytelling as well as a useful and enjoyable companion to any individual manager that wishes to improve their skills.

Since the early 2000s, storytelling as a means of managerial communication has been increasingly advocated, with a focus on the management practices of leadership, change and organizational culture. Most research on storytelling in management practice derives from practitioner experience, but little is known about the specific dynamics behind storytelling as a tool for managerial communication. This book derives from one of the first research studies into storytelling in management practice, which sought to evaluate the assumed, but not necessarily proven, effectiveness of storytelling as a management tool. Building on existing theories of narrative and storytelling in organizations, the book explores how managers use storytelling in their daily practice, revealing that it can be employed both, purposively - like a tool, and perceptively - spontaneously and intuitively. The book explains that storytelling has different functions in management practice at different levels of the organization, such as: Creating direction for the organization Translating strategic messages into operational ones and supporting the professional development of staff Shaping the organization’s social fabric through the sharing of personal stories Aided by a wealth of interviews and case studies, Storytelling in Management Practice reveals an analysis of the dynamic relationship between story, storyteller, audience and organizational context. As such, it will be useful for students and researchers working across a variety of sub-disciplines, including: leadership, organizational behaviour and business communication.

‘Organizational research methods’ (ORM) are making an ontological turn by studying the nature of Being, becoming, and the meaning of existence in the world. For example, without ontology, there is no ‘ground’ and no ‘theory’ in Grounded Theory (GT). This book explores ten ways to develop fourth wave GT that is grounded and theory. 1st wave GT commits inductive fallacy inference, 2nd wave GT bandaids it with positivistic content coding. 3rd wave GT turns to social constructivism, but this leaves out the materiality and ecology of existence. The first three waves do not address falsification or verification. There is another theme. Qualitative research methods is a discipline craft, not mere science or something that automated text analysis software can displace. Quantiative narrative analysis (QDA) is one more way to colonize and marginalize indigenous ways of knowing (IWOK). Without an ontological turn, its the death of storytelling predicted by Walter Benjamin and Gertrude Stein predicted. The good news is Western Empirical Science is beginning to listen to IWOK-Native Science experiential living story method of relations not only to other humans but to other animals, plants, to living air, water, and earth in living ecosystem of an enchanted world There is a gap in the qualitative research methodology practices and comprehensive advanced approaches causing a split between practice and theory. So called Grounded Theory (inductive positivism) . Organizational Research: Storytelling in Action is about how to conduct ten kinds of ontological Research Methods and conduct their interpretative analyses, for organization studies, in an ethically answerable way. It is aimed at people who want a more ‘advanced’ treatment than available in so-called Grounded Theory or automated narrative analysis books.

This book highlights storytelling as a concrete and viable method which can be used in various operational fields in organizations: from change management to project management and knowledge management, it presents employees’ stories on past projects and the diverse, essential aspects of corporate culture they reveal, in an easy-to-comprehend and entertaining fashion. These stories focus on specific but generic experiences which can be adapted and exploited by the reader to ultimately tap into hidden knowledge and increase transparency during daily routines in his or her own organization. Knowledge managers, coaches, and strategists alike will find a 'real-life' connection through these stories, helping them improve their own storytelling methods. The book also provides exhaustive information on the latest storytelling methods and strategies. ​The adaptations Thier has made to bring learning histories to corporate settings accelerates the capture, flow, and application of organizational knowledge that speeds up changes to improve operations! George Roth (Principal Research Associate at MIT Sloan School of Management, Boston, United States)

Storytelling can be a lifelong and life sustaining habit of mind, a personal inheritance that connects us to our communities. It can also serve as an organizational inheritance—a management tool that helps businesses to develop and thrive. For more than a decade, award-winning author Janis Forman has been helping executives to tell stories in service of their organizational objectives. In Storytelling in Business: The Authentic and Fluent Organization, she teaches readers everywhere how the craft of storytelling can help them to achieve their professional goals. Focusing on the role of storytelling at the enterprise level, this book provides a research-driven framework for engaging in organizational storytelling. Forman presents original cases from Chevron, FedEx, Phillips, and Schering-Plough. Organizations like those featured in the book can make use of storytelling for good purposes, such as making sense of their strategy, communicating it, and developing or strengthening culture and brand. These uses of storytelling generate positive consequences that can have a sustained and significant impact on an organization. While large firms employ teams of digital and communication professionals, there's much that any of us can extrapolate from their experience to create stories to further our own objectives. To show the reach of storytelling, Forman conducted 140 interviews with professionals ranging from CEOs in small and thriving firms, to corporate communication and digital media experts, to filmmakers—arguably the world experts in visual storytelling. She draws out specific lessons learned, and shows how to employ the road-tested strategies demonstrated by these leaders. Although this book focuses on storytelling in the context of business, Forman takes inspiration from narratives in literature and film, philosophical and social thought, and relevant concepts from a variety of other disciplines to instruct the reader on how to develop truly authentic and meaningful tales to drive success. A final chapter brings readers back to square one: the development of their own "signature story." This book is a pioneering work that guides us beyond the pressure and noise of daily organizational life to influence people in a sustained, powerful way. It teaches us to be fluent storytellers who succeed by mastering this vital skill.