238 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    238 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Counter-Narratives and Organization brings the concept of "counter-narrative" into an organizational context, illuminating these complex elements of communication as intrinsic yet largely unexplored aspect of organizational storytelling. Departing from dialogical, emergent and processual perspectives on "organization," the individual chapters focus on the character of counter-narratives, along with their performative aspects, by addressing questions such as:

    • how do some narratives gain dominance over others?
    • how do narratives intersect, relate and reinforce each other
    • how are organizational members and external stakeholders engaged in the telling and re-telling of the organization?

    The empirical case studies provide much needed insights on the function of counter-narratives for individuals, professionals and organizations in navigating, challenging, negotiating and replacing established dominant narratives about "who we are," "what we believe," "what we do" as a collective. The book has an interdisciplinary scope, drawing together ideas from both storytelling in organization studies, the communicative constitution of organization (CCO) from organizational communication, and traditional narratology from humanities. Counter-Narratives and Organization reflects an ambition to spark readers’ imagination, recognition, and discussion of organization and counter-narratives, offering a route to bring this important concept to the center of our understandings of organization.

    Part 1: Counter-Narratives and Constitutive Stakeholder Communication

    1. Communicatively Constituting the Unfolding of Organization through Counter-Narrative

    Timothy Kuhn

    2. Counter-Narratives and Organizational Crisis: How LEGO Bricks Became a Slippery Business

    Marianne Wolff Lundholt

    3. Countering the ‘Natural’ Organizational Self on Social Media

    Trine Susanne Johansen

    4. "Speaking Through the Other": Countering Counter-Narratives through Stakeholders’ Stories

    Astrid Jensen, Cindie Aaen Maagaard and Rasmus Kjærgaard Rasmussen

    Part 2: Counter-Narratives in Changes of Identity and Practices

    5. Organizational Identity Negotiations through Dominant and Counter-Narratives

    Didde Humle and Sanne Frandsen

    6. Fractal Change Management and Counter-Narrative in Cross-Cultural Change

    Marita Svane, Erika Gergerich and David M. Boje

    7. Designer or Entrepreneur? Counter-Narratives in the Professions

    Birgitte Norlyk

    8. Re-Thinking Counter-Narratives in Studies of Organizational Texts and Practices

    Rasmus Kjærgaard Rasmussen

    Part 3: Counter-Narratives and Narrative Ecologies of Organizations

    9. The Fate of Counter-Narratives: In Fiction and in Actual Organizations

    Barbara Czarniawska

    10. Narrative Ecologies and the Role of Counter-Narratives: The Case of Nostalgic Stories and Conspiracy Theories

    Yannis Gabriel

    Biography

    Sanne Frandsen is a Post Doc in the Department of Business Administration at Lund University, Sweden.

    Timothy Kuhn is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA.

    Marianne Wolff Lundholt is an Associate Professor at the Department of Design and Communication at the University of Southern Denmark, Denmark.

    "This book brings new insight to the emergent, negotiated practice of organizational narrative, with clear implications for the conditions that create and sustain the vitality of the organization as a storytelling system."Benjamin D. Golant, Newcastle University Business School, UK