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To provide a concise briefing on the use of storytelling as a business tool in organizations.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds his own impartial comments and places the argument in context.

Denning became converted to the effectiveness of storytelling as a business tool after witnessing its goals achieved in practice. He warns, however, against a “one size fits all” approach, recommending instead adopting different styles in different situations and asking if the intention is, for instance, to spur action or to transfer knowledge. Gold and Holman's study is a thorough, and consequently lengthy, consideration of an experientially based personal development module on a management diploma that was redesigned according to social constructionist ideas about learning and managerial activity. Parkin's article gives an intriguing insight into how offering information and instruction in the form of a story enables the brain to make us feel more relaxed, as opposed to feeling threatened by change with a consequent decline in the capacity for creative thinking.

Provides plenty of useful guidance to human‐resource and training specialists considering the introduction of storytelling in their organizations.

Provides some useful information on the use of storytelling as a business tool in organizations.

Since its introduction by Anthony Giddens in the early 1980s, the use of the concept of “agency” as a way to accommodate an irreducible element of voluntarism into sociological explanations has grown exponentially in the literature. In this chapter, we examine the most prominent theoretical justifications for adopting the notion of “agency” as an integral part of such explanations. We distinguish three broad sets of justifications: the meaningfulness/intentionality of social action, the need for “agency” to explain change in social structures, and the link between agency, social accountability, and human dignity. We find that none of these provides a convincing rationale for the analytical utility of agency. This raises the question of what work it actually does perform in the sociological literature.

Argues that public services modernization is dependent on a major shift of gender cultures in communities and in senior management and policy making. Highlights the need for transformational as opposed to transactional leadership, focusing on the critical roles of transforming managers and the gender cultures they work within. Concludes that gender balance is a euphemism for actually what is required, which is the transformation of both traditional male and female indentities.