Study title

Storytelling in management practice is of contemporary interest to organisational scholars, managers and management consultants. The underlying assumption is that storytelling is an effective means of management communication. While the role and purpose of spontaneously told organisational stories has been widely researched, the dynamics of purposive storytelling are less well understood. Particularly the implications of purposive storytelling on organisations and its limits in management practice required further examination. This research investigated the use of storytelling in management practice as well as its appropriateness and effectiveness in a comparative case-study design. The focus was on the production and consumption of stories in two UK service organisations (one of which used storytelling explicitly and one of which did not) to establish whether and how communication practice differs. The main data collection method of this qualitative, interpretive and inductive study was in-depth interviewing to examine managers’ storytelling motives and techniques as well as employees’ perceptions and reactions. This research provides a framework for understanding the use of storytelling in management practice and furthers the current knowledge base by revealing its dynamics and limits.