Abstract
For the panel: A discourse activist perspective on Organizational Storytelling
The paper conceptualizes counter-narratives from a ‘dialectical dialogical’ perspective (Gurevitch, 2001) and discusses its potential as performative in (re)shaping organizations and in (re)constituting organizational subjectivities.
The paper discusses a combination of Bambergs (2006) take on small stories with an emphasis on how subjects co-create stories and identities in situ together with Boje’s triad storytelling frame-work composed by discursive narrative, counter-narratives, living stories and ante-narrative (Boje, 2016a, 2016b). These perspectives are useful in order to enrich our understanding of the concept counter-narrative: “the counter-narratives only make sense in relation to something else, that they are countering. The very name identifies it as an oppositional category, in tension with an-other category” (Andrews, 2004, according to Frandsen, Kuhn, & Lundholt, 2016).
We discuss the role of small stories and counter-narrative in transforming organizations. We fur-ther discuss its potential as counter-discursive resources for ‘reflexively undoing’ (Riach et. al, 2016, drawing on Judith Butler) the fixed narrative categorizations of the organizational lifeworld and subjectivities.
To address the transformational performativity of dialectical discursive storytelling, we follow Tsoukas’ poetic praxeology (2017) according to which practitioners are viewed as agents not only embedded in and shaped by organizational storytelling practices but also as active re-constituents through experience, (self-)reflexivity, and sensemaking. The paper suggests further research of the potential of dialectical discursive storytelling as a performative research practice apt for or-ganizational cultural transformation through ‘reflexivity in action’ (Cunliffe & Coupland, 2011; Cunliffe, 2003) and Butler’s‘reflexive undoing’.
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Boje, D. M. (2016a). Dialectical Storytelling: Transitioning University into Respecting Hawk Rights to Reproduce and Have their Family in a Posthumanist World.
Boje, D. M. (2016b). The Dialectic Storytelling of the Standing Conference for Management and Organization Inquiry (sc’MOI ) as it Dismembers and Re-members. Tamara Journal of Critical Organisation Inquiry, 14(1), 53.
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Frandsen, S., Kuhn, T., & Lundholt, M. W. (2016). Counter-narratives and organization. Counter-Narratives and Organization. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315681214
Gurevitch, Z. (2001). Dialectical dialogue: the struggle for speech, repressive silence, and the shift to multiplicity. The British Journal of Sociology, 52(52), 87–104. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071310020023046
Riach, K., Rumens, N., & Tyler, M. (2016). Towards a Butlerian methodology: Undoing organizational performativity through anti-narrative research. Human Relations, 0(0 (20 may 2016)), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716632050
Tsoukas, H. (2017). Don’t simplify, complexify: from disjunctive to conjunctive theorizing in organization and management studies. Journal of Management Studies, 54(2), 132–153. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12219
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
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Publikationsdato | 4 jun. 2018 |
Status | Udgivet - 4 jun. 2018 |
Begivenhed | NORDISCO : 5th Nordic Interdisciplinary Conference on Discourse and Interaction - Århus Universitet, Århus, Danmark Varighed: 21 nov. 2018 → 23 nov. 2018 http://conferences.au.dk/nordisco2018/ |
Konference
Konference | NORDISCO |
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Lokation | Århus Universitet |
Land/Område | Danmark |
By | Århus |
Periode | 21/11/2018 → 23/11/2018 |
Internetadresse |