Narrative enquiry: A way to get organizations (and the people in them) talking and acting differently

Abstract

This article imagines a `factional' client in the transport sector. It covers in some detail, in an annotated table, the individual parts of an intervention to enquire into (and catalyze change through the process of enquiring into) the technical, practical and cultural conditions surrounding records and filing in the client. It concludes by considering what might be narratively distinctive about the methods we have applied and, more generally, with a reflection on the issues facing the narrative enquirer. The article is part of an ongoing enquiry by Sparknow. In other essays and research papers, we will be considering knowledge work and the knowledge worker; negative space and its role in knowledge transfer; and the role of museums, libraries and archives in creating narrative coherence, past, present and future, in the 21st century organization. Throughout, we are holding in mind two questions: How can individual and collective relationships to the collections of the organization combat inertia and indifference? What role can collections, and the interaction of people with them, play in the organization as a living system of knowledge transfer?

Keywords

archive dérive document interface knowledge transfer event living system negotiated object narrative enquiry protocols records management story transport

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References

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The methodology note will be published later in 2008 as an appendix to the Sparknow report for the MLA London Knowledge Transfer Programme, an exploratory piece of work, designed to break new ground in understanding the current and potential relationships between museums, libraries and archives and business in London. Details can be obtained from MLA London at www.mlalondon.org.uk

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