Abstract
This chapter positions the narrative approach as consolidated practice in the field of organizational studies, and explores and expands its potential to detect the interpretations that practitioners make of the realities in which they live, thus to grasp their cultural, social, personal, practical features. The use of ad hoc narratives as an art-based method is discussed as a way to foster reflexivity and learning from experience. Narratives are presented with illustrative examples from two different healthcare fields as a means for detecting material and symbolic dimensions, the weaving of roles, objects, critical incidents, shifting points, routine in use, which can be elaborated on, developing negotiation and relational processes. The distinctive feature of this approach is the relational texture that develops around a narrative and reflexive space, which is a basic condition in our proposal of art-based intervention.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adler, N. J. (2006). The Arts & Leadership: Now That We Can Do Anything, What Will We Do? Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 486–499.
Alvesson, M. (2003). Beyond Neopositivists, Romantics, and Localists: A Reflexive Approach to Interviews in Organizational Research. The Academy of Management Review, 28(1), 13–33.
Alvesson, M. (2009). At Home Ethnography: Truggling with Closneness and Closure. In S. Ybema, D. Yanow, H. Wels, & F. H. Kamsteeg (Eds.), Organizational Ethnography: Studying the Complexity of Everyday Life (pp. 156–174). London: Sage.
Alvesson, M., & Robertson, M. (2016). Money Matters: Teflonic Identity Manoeuvring in the Investment Banking Sector. Organization Studies, 37(1), 7–34.
Antonacopoulou, E. P. (2014). The Experience of Learning in Space and Time. Prometheus, 32(1), 83–91.
Antonacopoulou, E. P., & Bento, R. (2016). Learning Leadership: A Call to Beauty. In J. Storey (Ed.), Leadership in Organizations: Current Issues and Key Trends (3rd ed., pp. 99–112). London: Routledge.
Argyris, C. (1993). Knowledge for Action: A Guide to Overcoming Barriers to Organizational Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc.
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Barthes R. (1966/1977). Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narratives. In S. Heath (Ed.), Image-Music-Text. Glasgow: William Collins.
Boje, D. M. (1995). Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A Postmodern Analysis of Disney as ‘Tamara-land’. Academy of Management Journal, 38(4), 997–1035.
Boje, D. M. (2001). Narrative Methods for Organizational & Communication Research. London: Sage.
Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual Minds, Possible Worlds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Harvard: Harvard College.
Cunliffe, A. L., & Easterby-Smith, M. (2004). From Reflection to Practical Reflexivity: Experiential Learning as Lived Experience. In M. Reynolds & R. Vince (Eds.), Organizing Reflection (pp. 30–46). Aldershot: Ashgate.
Cunliffe, A., & Eriksen, M. (2011). Relational Leadership. Human Relations, 64(11), 1425–1449.
Cunliffe, A., & Scaratti, G. (2017). Embedding Impact in Engaged Research: Developing Socially Useful Knowledge Through Dialogical Sensemaking. British Journal of Management, 28(1), 29–44.
Cunliffe, A. L., Luhman, J. T., & Boje, D. M. (2004). Narrative Temporality: Implications for Organizational Research. Organization Studies, 25, 261–286.
Czarniawska, B. (1997). Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Czarniawska, B. (2004). Narratives in Social Science Research. London: Sage.
Czarniawska, B. (2007). Shadowing: And Other Techniques for Doing Fieldwork in Modern Societies. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press.
Czarniawska, B., & Gagliardi, P. (2003). Narratives We Organize By. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Czarniawska, B., & Guillet de Monthoux, P. (1994). Good Novels, Better Management: Reading Realities in Fictions. Reading, UK: Harwood Academic Press.
Darso, L., & Wheatley, M. (2008). Interview with Margaret Wheatley-7 September 2008. Journal of Management & Organization, 14(5), 482–485.
Derrida, J. (1992). The Other Headings. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Dunne, J. (2005). An Intricate Fabric: Understanding the Rationality of Practice. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 13(3), 367–389.
Ellis, C. (2004). The Ethnographic I: A Methodological Novel about Autoethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
Engeström, Y. (2015). Learning by Expanding: An Activity-Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gabriel, Y. (2000). Storytelling in Organizations, Facts, Fictions, and Fantasies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Geertz, C. (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Gherardi, S. (2000). Presentazione. In B. Czarniawska (1997). Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity. It. Tr., VII–XVI.
Gorli, M., Nicolini, D., & Scaratti, G. (2015). Reflexivity in Practice: Tools and Conditions for Developing Organizational Authorship. Human Relations, 68(8), 1347–1375.
Green, B. (2009). Understanding and Researching Professional Practice. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Hahn, T., Preuss, L., Pinkse, J., & Figge, F. (2014). Cognitive Frames in Corporate Sustainability: Managerial Sensemaking with Paradoxical and Business Case Frames (Report). Academy of Management Review, 39(4), 463–487. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2012.0341.
Hatch, M. J. (1996). The Role of Researcher: An Analysis of Narrative Position in Organization Theory. Journal of Management Inquiry, 5(4), 359–374.
Heldal, F. (2015). Managerial Control Versus Professional Autonomy in Organizational Change: Tearing Down the Walls and Fighting Fire with Fire. Journal of Change Management, 15(3), 188–209.
Ivaldi, S., & Scaratti, G. (in press). Narrative and Conversational Manifestation of Contradictions: Social Production of Knowledge for Expansive Learning. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A New Name for Old Ways of Thinking. New York, NY: Longmans, Greens and Co.
Kaneklin, C., & Scaratti, G. (1998). Formazione e narrazione. Costruzione di significato e processi di cambiamento personale e organizzativo. Milano: Cortina.
Kemmis, S. (2005). Knowing Practice: Searching for Saliences. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 13(3), 391–426.
Kemmis, S., & Smith, T. (Eds.). (2008). Enabling Praxis: Challenges for Education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Kerr, C., & Darso, L. (2008). Case Study: Art and Business for European Identity: Illustrating Meaningful Evolutions in Business Through Classical Masterpieces of Music. Journal of Management & Organization, 14(5), 588–592.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development (Vol. 1). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Lewis, M. (2000). Exploring Paradox: Toward a More Comprehensive Guide. The Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 760–776. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2000.3707712.
Luscher, L. S., & Lewis, M. W. (2008). Organizational Change and Managerial Sensemaking: Working Through Paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51(2), 221–240.
Mintzberg, H. (2001). The Yin and the Yang of Managing. Organizational Dynamics, 29(4), 306–312.
Mortari, L. (2003). Apprendere dall’esperienza. Il pensare riflessivo nella formazione. Roma: Carocci.
Polkingorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, A. E. (2005). Writing: A Method of Inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed., pp. 959–996). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication.
Ripamonti, S., Galuppo, L., Gorli, M., Scaratti, G., & Cunliffe, A. L. (2016). Pushing Action-Research Towards Reflexive Practice. Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(1), 55–68.
Rorty, R. (1980). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Sarbin, T. E. (1986). Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct. Connecticut: Praeger Westport.
Scaratti, G. (2014). Narrazione. In D. Lipari & S. Pastore (Eds.), Nuove parole della formazione (pp. 269–277). Palinsesto: Roma.
Scaratti, G. (2017). Apprendere dall’esperienza. In F. Bochicchio & P. C. Rivoltella (Eds.), L’agire organizzativo (pp. 237–264). La Scuola: Brescia.
Scaratti, G., & Ivaldi, S. (2015). Manager on the Ground. A Practice Based Approach for Developing Management Education: Lesson from Complex and Innovative Organizations. Applied Psychology Bulletin, LXIII(272), 42–57.
Schön, D. A. (1991). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Routledge.
Schütz, A. (1973). Collective Paper I: The Problem of Social Reality. The Hauge: Martin Nijhoff.
Shotter, J. (1993). Conversational Realities: Constructing Life Through Language. London: Sage.
Smith, K., & Berg, D. (1987). Paradoxes of Group Life. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.
Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a Theory of Paradox: A Dynamic Equilibrium Model of Organizing. The Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 381–403. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2011.59330958.
Sykes, C., & Treleaven, L. (2009). Critical Action Research and Organizational Ethnography. In S. Ybema, D. Yanow, H. Wels, & F. H. Kamsteeg (Eds.), Organizational Ethnography: Studying the Complexity of Everyday Life (pp. 215–230). London: Sage.
Taylor, S. S., & Hansen, H. (2005). Finding form: Looking at the Field of Organizational Aesthetics. Journal of Management Studies, 42(6), 1211–1231.
Taylor, S. S., & Ladkin, D. (2009). Understanding Arts-Based Methods in Managerial Development. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8(1), 55–69.
Van Der Byl, C., & Slawinski, N. (2015). Embracing Tensions in Corporate Sustainability: A Review of Research from Win-Wins and Trade-Offs to Paradoxes and Beyond. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Yanow, D., & Tsoukas, H. (2009). What is Reflection-In-Action? A Phenomenological Account. Journal of Management Studies, 46(8), 1339–1364.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Scaratti, G., Gorli, M., Heldal, F. (2019). Using Narratives and Portraits to Foster Reflexivity and Learning from Experience in Healthcare Organizations in Italy and Norway. In: Antonacopoulou, E., Taylor, S. (eds) Sensuous Learning for Practical Judgment in Professional Practice. Palgrave Studies in Business, Arts and Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99049-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99049-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99048-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99049-1
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)