1st Edition
Stories, Visions and Values in Voluntary Organisations
Christina Schwabenland's book is based on extensive research into stories told by people working in voluntary organizations in the UK and in India. With a view to social change, the author employs hermeneutic methods to explore how stories create and sustain meaning and how storytelling contributes to the making and remaking of our social world. Specific topics addressed in the book include the role of storytelling in starting a new organization, managing hope and despair, empowering participatory leadership, and stimulating creativity and innovation. The book will be of interest to theorists and practitioners interested in the role of storytelling in organizational analysis, the role of organizations in achieving social change, the growing centrality of the voluntary sector in public policy, and the intersection between the corporate, public and voluntary sectors.
Biography
Christina Schwabenland is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Professional Development at London Metropolitan University, UK, and teaches courses on managing diversity and cross cultural management. Previously she worked for 25 years in the voluntary sector, including 13 years as the Chief Executive of the Elfrida Society. She holds an MA and PhD from the University of East London for research into voluntary organizations in the UK and in India.
'This beautifully written and brilliantly researched book will appeal to three groups of scholars - those interested in voluntary organizations, in postcolonial studies and in stories and storytelling. The author demonstrates the remarkable power of stories in organizations and their ability to turn into driving forces for action. She opens numerous windows and offers rare insights into the heart of voluntary organizations.' Yiannis Gabriel, Royal Holloway University of London, UK '...a useful addition to the comity of scarce literature on the civil society organizations. It will serve as a handy reference for researchers, scholars, academics and students, besides giving valuable insights to public policy makers to develop a framework of public policy for voluntary organizations.' Vision - The Journal of Business Perspective 'Schwabenland challenges us to engage with the stories of the people in the organizations we are researching and to use their stories as vehicles to explore the different ways in which people imagine the social world and from this create new opportunities to re-imagine their own contexts...Schwabenland's book makes a significant and timely contribution because she offers a way of understanding the connections between the vision and values of voluntary organizations and new ways of imagining and effecting social change.' Organization Studies
