Telling tales at work: narrative insight into managers’ actions

Abstract

Narrative is discussed as a way of making sense of the world of work. Qualitative research in organisations often falls short of discovering the ethnographic or agent‐centred meanings and assumptions which underlie action. It is argued that eliciting and analysing managerial narratives helps researchers identify the implicit reasoning and assumptive knowledge that underlies decisions and actions. It also allows respondents to provide narrative representations of how they see the past, present and future in their work and attain a fuller degree of coherent understanding. Research like this can shed valuable light on both the tacit and explicit knowledge in the organisation.