Stories of Life in the Workplace ─ An Open Architecture for Organizational Narratology

Addressing both renowned theories and standard applications, Stories of Life in the Workplace explains how stories affect human practices and organizational life. Authors Larry Browning and George H. Morris explore how we experience, interpret, and personalize narrative stories in our everyday lives, and how these communicative acts impact our social aims and interactions. In pushing the boundaries of how we perceive narrative and organization, the authors include stories that are broadly applicable across all concepts and experiences.

With a perception of narrative and its organizational application, chapters focus on areas such as pedagogy, therapy, project management, strategic planning, public communication, and organizational culture. Readers will learn to:




differentiate and gain an in-depth understanding of perspectives from varying narrators;


recognize how stories are constructed and used in organizations, and modify the stories they tell;


view stories as a means to promote an open exchange of creativity.


By integrating a range of theories and practices, Browning and Morris write for an audience of narrative novices and scholars alike. With a distinctive approach and original insight, Stories of Life in the Workplace shows how individuality, developing culture, and the psychology of the self are constructed with language—and how the acceptance of one’s self is accomplished by reaffirming and rearranging one’s story.

Larry Browning is a Professor at the College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin and adjunct Professor of Management, Bodø Graduate School of Business at the University of Nordland, Norway. His studies include structures in organizations as evidenced by lists and stories, information-communication technology and narratives, cooperation and competition in organizations, and grounded theory as a research strategy.

G. H. Morris is a Professor at California State University San Marcos. He is a conversation analyst and communication theorist interested in how people align with each other in everyday talk, organizational discourse, and psychotherapy.

Chapter One: Narrative Appreciation
Chapter Two: An Open Architecture For Organizational Narratology
Chapter Three: Action, Motivation and Moral Outcome
Chapter Four: Sequence and Locale
Chapter Five: Character and Identity
Chapter Six: Interest And Memory
Chapter Seven: The Beauty of Narratives in the Workplace
Chapter Eight: Complexity and Control
Chapter Nine: Representing Narrative Realities