Engaging Narrative Theory to Disrupt and Reimagine Organizing Processes

Narratives organize actions in time and space, develop characters and their motives, and ascertain causality by plotting otherwise disconnected events (Bruner, 1991). The process of storytelling reflects the narrative impulse, allowing individuals to account for misfortune and attribute agency to self and others. Narratives, then, function as “equipment for living,” symbolic resources used by individuals to size up circumstances and envision otherwise (Burke, 1973). As noted by Mumby (1987), storytelling is the coin and currency of organizational life. Organizing would be impossible if not for individuals’ capacities to order and represent experience in narrative form. In turn, organizational and institutional narratives articulate possibilities and preferences that social actors invoke in relational interactions. This forum highlights the work of scholars who are engaging narrative theory to disrupt and reimagine organizing processes.

In this forum, contributors reflect on their experiences with narratively inspired engaged scholarship, broadly understood as scholar and practitioner collaborations that develop actionable knowledge in response to practical problems. The growth of engaged scholarship in the academy is evidenced by publications of handbooks on the subject (e.g., Fitzgerald, Burack, & Seifer, 2010) and templates for reenvisioning promotion and tenure processes (e.g., Seifer, 2008). The forum was developed as part of the 2016 Aspen Conference on Engaging Communication and features scholarship that draws on the vocabulary of narrative theory and the practice of storytelling to understand and address organizational challenges. “To meet current and ever shifting problems people continually need new and better ways to attend to, talk about, and respond in the world,” argued Deetz (2008). “All communities can have an impoverished language for talking about human interaction and making decisions in times of fundamental and rapid change” (p. 289). Collectively, essays illustrate how scholars and community partners can leverage narrative theory and practice to shake up habitual ways of organizing and envision more fulfilling and just social orders. In doing so, authors realize the potential of cogenerative theorizing that enriches the language of both scholarly and everyday lifeworlds (see calls by Deetz, 2008; Dempsey & Barge, 2014; Putnam & Dempsey, 2015).

When creating the forum, I invited authors whose work is shaping organizational communication practices on the frontlines while they pursue theoretically provocative questions, such as, How can organizational structures be conceived of as narrative threads or fragments of broader discursive forms that shape and are shaped by material conditions? What is the role of narrative message design in organizations’ issues management and crisis communication? How do counternarratives function for public advocacy organizations? How can photo-voice and video-voice as research methods enable individuals to more richly narrate their experiences as affected by organizational practices? Contributors have been answering these questions in our journals even as their work engages professional and lay audiences. Authors draw on a diverse array of inquiry practices (e.g., experimental designs, creative analytic methods) and forms of representation (e.g., photography exhibits, community web resources, documentary films) in working with practitioners across organizational and professional sectors. I am inspired by their imaginative efforts and hope readers will be too.