Using narrative theory, this article explores strategic management as a form of fiction. After introducing several key narrative concepts, we discuss the challenges strategists have faced in making strategic discourse both credible and novel and consider how strategic narratives may change within the "virtual" organization of the future. We also provide a number of narrativist-oriented research questions and methodological suggestions.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/259329.pdf

Narrative Discourse, an Essay in Method.

Strategy Retold: Toward a Narrative View of Strategic Discourse

Narratives are increasingly subject to empirical study in a wide variety of disciplines. However, in public policy, narratives are thought of almost exclusively as a poststructural concept outside the realm of empirical study. In this paper, after reviewing the major literature on narratives, we argue that policy narratives can be studied using systematic empirical approaches and introduce a “Narrative Policy Framework” (NPF) for elaboration and empirical testing. The NPF defines narrative structure and narrative content. We then discuss narrative at the micro level of analysis and examine how narratives impact individual attitudes and hence aggregate public opinion. Similarly, we examine strategies for the studying of group and elite behavior using the NPF. We conclude with seven hypotheses for researchers interested in elaborating the framework.

/pdf/a-narrative-policy-framework-clear-enough-to-be-wrong-lk3lbpopiw.pdf

A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to Be Wrong?

Dimensions of situation model construction in narrative comprehension.

List of Illustrations. The Elements. Preface . The Scope and Aims of This Book. Storytelling Media and Modes of Narration. Acknowledgments . 1. Getting Started: A Thumbnail Sketch of the Approach Developed in This Book. Toward a Working Definition of Narrative. Profiles of Narrative. Narrative: Basic Elements. 2. Background and Context: Framing the Approach. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Narrative and Narrative Theory. Major Trends in Recent Scholarship on Narrative. 3. Back to the Elements: Narrative Occasions . Situating Stories. Sociolinguistic Approaches. Positioning Theory. The Narrative Communication Model. Conclusion. 4. Temporality, Particularity, and Narrative: An Excursion into the Theory of Text Types. From Contexts of Narration to Narrative as a Type of Text. Text Types and Categorization Processes. Narrative as a Text-Type Category: Descriptions vs. Stories vs. Explanations. Summing up: Text Types, Communicative Competence, and the Role of Stories in Science. 5. The Third Element: Or, How to Build a Storyworld . Narratives as Blueprints for Worldmaking. Narrative Ways of Worldmaking. Narrative Worlds: A Survey of Approaches. Configuring Narrative Worlds: The WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN Dimensions of Storyworlds. Worlds Disrupted: Narrativity and Noncanonical Events. 6. The Nexus of Narrative and Mind . The Consciousness Factor. Consciousness Across Narrative Genres. Experiencing Minds: What It's Like, Qualia, Raw Feels. Storied Minds: Narrative Foundations of Consciousness?. Appendix . Reproduction of Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927). Transcript of a Story Told during Face-to-Face Interaction: UFO or the Devil. Pages from Daniel's Clowes's Graphic Novel Ghost World (1997). Screenshots from Terry Zwigoff's Film Version of Ghost World (2001). Glossary . References. Index

/pdf/basic-elements-of-narrative-20tcb2kjzl.pdf

Basic elements of narrative

Complexity is not only a feature of the systems we study, it is also a matter of the way in which we organize our thinking about those systems. This second-order complexity invites consideration of the modes of thinking we use to theorize about complexity, and in this article we develop the idea of second-order complexity using Jerome Bruner’s contrast between logico-scientific and narrative modes of thinking. Using Bruner’s framework, we examine and critique dominant forms of thinking about organizational complexity that are rooted in the logico-scientific mode, and suggest alternatives based in the narrative mode. Our evidence for the value of doing this comes from the logic of complexity theory itself, which we claim indicates and supports the use of the narrative mode. The potential contribution of the narrative approach to developing second-order thinking about organizational complexity is demonstrated by taking a narrative approach to the matter of recursiveness. By extension, similar insights are i...

/pdf/complex-thinking-complex-practice-the-case-for-a-narrative-1e3cuuppau.pdf

Narrative Discourse, an Essay in Method.

Citations

Strategy Retold: Toward a Narrative View of Strategic Discourse

A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to Be Wrong?

Dimensions of situation model construction in narrative comprehension.

Basic elements of narrative

Complex Thinking, Complex Practice: The Case for a Narrative Approach to Organizational Complexity

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