Merlyn Mittins, Russell Abratt and Peter Christie
The purpose of this paper is to determine how and to what extent corporate reputational elements are reflected in organizational storytelling in a telecommunications company. In…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine how and to what extent corporate reputational elements are reflected in organizational storytelling in a telecommunications company. In addition, it seeks to establish the importance of employees as part of reputation building.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a case approach, this paper examines storytelling in a branch of a well‐known South African telecommunications service provider, Nashua Mobile. The staff went through in‐depth interviews.
Findings
Many different stories were told about Nashua and other organisations to illustrate an idea or concept. There was a mixture of negative and positive, funny and serious stories that, although contrary, are the sum of the personality, culture, image or heritage of Nashua. The emphasis of the values that the stories revealed determined the more important cultural beliefs. This does have an influence on the firm's identity, corporate brand and reputation.
Practical implications
The more stories are shared, the more in‐tune with employees' needs, ideas, behaviour and concerns management can be. Management can only benefit by a process where staff collaborate and share their views. It is an important tool that should be used for organizational communication.
Originality/value
This is one of the first papers that links storytelling to corporate reputation. It recognises the key role employees play in building and influencing the reputation of an organisation.
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Peter H. Reid, Elliot Pirie and Rachael Ironside
This research explored the storytelling (collection, curation and use) in the Cabrach, a remote Scottish glen. This study aims to capture the methodological process of…
Abstract
Purpose
This research explored the storytelling (collection, curation and use) in the Cabrach, a remote Scottish glen. This study aims to capture the methodological process of storytelling and curation of heritage knowledge through the lens of the Cabrach's whisky distilling history, a central part of the area's cultural heritage, tangible and intangible. This research was conceptualised as “telling the story of telling the story of the Cabrach”. It was concerned with how the history, heritage, historiography and testimony associated with the parish could be harvested, made sense of and subsequently used.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was epistemological in nature and the research was concerned with how heritage knowledge is gathered, curated and understood. It was built around the collection of knowledge through expert testimony from Colin Mackenzie and Alan Winchester, who have extensively researched aspects of life in the Cabrach. This was done using a series of theme-based but free-flowing conversational workshop involving participants and research team. Issues of trust and authority in the research team were crucial. Data were recorded, transcribed and coded. A conceptual model for heritage storytelling in the Cabrach was developed together with a transferable version for other contexts.
Findings
The research was conceived around identifying the stories of the Cabrach and grouping them into cohesive narrative themes focused on the most important aspect of the glen's history (the development of malt whisky distilling). The research showed how all crucial narratives associated with the Cabrach were interconnected with that malt whisky story. It was concerned with identifying broad thematic narratives rather than the specific detailed stories themselves, but also from a methodological perspective how stories around those themes could be collected, curated and used. It presents the outcome of “expert testimony” oral history conversations and presents a conceptual model for the curation of heritage knowledge.
Practical implications
This paper reports on research which focuses on the confluence of those issues of heritage-led regeneration, intangible cultural heritage, as well as how stories of and from, about and for, a distinctive community in North-East Scotland can be collected, curated and displayed. It presents methodological conceptualisations as well as focused areas of results which can be used to create a strong and inclusive narrative to encapsulate the durable sense of place and support the revival of an economically viable and sustainable community.
Social implications
This conceptual model offers a framework with universal elements (Place, People, Perception) alongside a strong core narrative of storytelling. That core element may vary but the outer elements remain the same, with people and place being omnipresent and the need to build an emotional or visceral connection with visitors being crucial, beyond “telling stories” which might be regarded as parochial or narrowly focused. The model informs how communities and heritage organisations tell their stories in an authentic and proportionate manner. This can help shape and explain cultures and identities and support visitors' understanding of, and connection with, places they visit and experience.
Originality/value
The originality lies in two principal areas, the exploration of the narratives of a singularly distinctive community – the Cabrach – which plays a disproportionately significant role in the development of malt whisky distilling in Scotland; and also in terms of the methodological approach to the collection and curation of heritage storytelling, drawing not on first-hand accounts as in conventional oral history approaches but through the expert testimony of two historical and ethnographic researchers. The value is demonstrating the creation of a conceptual model which can be transferred to other contexts.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of Halliday’s linguistic theory known as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in analysing qualitative data. In order to do…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of Halliday’s linguistic theory known as Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) in analysing qualitative data. In order to do this, it initially presents an overview of SFL, and then explains how and why four linguistic features namely, nominalisation, grammatical metaphor, thematic structure and lexical density are useful in examining qualitative data. The paper also discusses three social metafunctions of language known as the ideational, the interpersonal and the textual metafunctions which are significant for understanding and interpreting texts.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs SFL as the main theoretical framework to discussing the usefulness of this linguistics theory in qualitative data analysis.
Findings
SFL can be seen as a paradigm shift in linguistic theory moving away from the traditional focus on syntax to the inclusion of the interface between language and pragmatics. The focus of SFL is language in use. It deals with texts in social contexts, which is the main focus in qualitative data analysis. Thus, SFL provides both research tools and theoretical insights for understanding and interpreting texts.
Originality/value
This paper provides significant insights into language which are crucial for understanding and interpreting texts in social contexts.
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This chapter argues that the near-universal exclusion from the academy of the Shakespeare Authorship Question (or SAQ) represents a significant but little-understood example of an…
Abstract
This chapter argues that the near-universal exclusion from the academy of the Shakespeare Authorship Question (or SAQ) represents a significant but little-understood example of an internal threat to academic freedom. Using an epistemological lens, this chapter examines and critiques the invidious and marginalizing rhetoric used to suppress such research by demonstrating the extent to which it constitutes a pattern of epistemic vice: that, by calling skeptics “conspiracy theorists” and comparing them to Holocaust deniers rather than addressing the substance of their claims, orthodox Shakespeare academics risk committing acts of epistemic vice, injustice and oppression, as well as foreclosing potentially productive lines of inquiry in their discipline. To better understand this phenomenon and its implications, the chapter subjects selected statements to external criteria in the form of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ 2015 Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which provides a set of robust normative dispositions and knowledge practices for understanding the nature of the scholarly enterprise. The analysis reveals that the proscription against the SAQ constitutes an unwarranted infringement on the academic freedom not only of those targeted by this rhetoric, but – by extension – of all Shakespeare scholars as well.
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IF no completely novel contribution to librarianship came out of the Eastbourne Conference, it could be justified as having to some extent integrated libraries and literature;…
Abstract
IF no completely novel contribution to librarianship came out of the Eastbourne Conference, it could be justified as having to some extent integrated libraries and literature; for, in the choice of a scholar to address it in Dr. R. W. Moore on the underlying connexion of books and therefore libraries with life; and of our own ex‐President, Dr. Esdaile, to recreate the poetry of the first years of the century, no mistake was made. The technical and administrative matters always seem Ezekiel's valley of dry bones in such a setting, but there were really good papers, practical ones like the very controversial contribution of Mr. Corbett, the excellent hospital library paper by Miss Southerden and Mr. Lamb's experienced treatment of Commercial and Technical Libraries. Most members there, too, were old enough to appreciate the chronicle of 1919–49 offered by Mr. Stewart, and all received stimulation from Mr. L. R. McColvin's forecast of our future. There were too many papers for any one librarian to absorb, but the Library Association serves many interests today. Some impressions have been given in other pages from the writer of Letters on Our Affairs.
Soohyung Joo and Gisela M. Schmidt
This study aims to investigate the perceptions of academic librarians regarding research data services (RDS) in academic library environments. This study also examines a range of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the perceptions of academic librarians regarding research data services (RDS) in academic library environments. This study also examines a range of challenges in RDS from the perspectives of academic librarians.
Design/methodology/approach
A nationwide online survey was administered to academic librarians engaged in data services at research universities around the USA. The collected survey responses were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive statistics, hierarchical clustering and multidimensional scaling.
Findings
Academic librarians perceived that consultation services would be more valuable to users than technical services in offering RDS. Accordingly, skills associated with consultation services such as instructional skills and data management planning were perceived by participants to be more important. The results revealed that academic libraries would need to seek collaboration opportunities with other units on campus to develop and offer RDS, especially technical services.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the existing body of research on the topic of data services in research universities. The study investigated various types of specific professional competencies and used clustering analysis to identify closely associated groups of service types. In addition, this study comprehensively examined both relevant resources for and barriers to RDS.
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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the important work of Peter Medway in seeking to define English as a school subject in the period from the 1980s to the early years of this century.
Design/methodology/approach
The author reviews the work of Peter Medway.
Findings
The paper addresses the issue of how his work reflected – or not – the curriculum thinking of his time and the complexity of ideas he brought to this endeavour.
Originality/value
This paper is an original look at the work of Peter Medway in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
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Dominik Heil and Louise Whittaker
The double challenge of strategic management research is to come up on the one hand with a truthful account of issues relating to the organization itself and on the other hand…
Abstract
The double challenge of strategic management research is to come up on the one hand with a truthful account of issues relating to the organization itself and on the other hand doing so in a way that is relevant for meeting the challenges of strategic management. To achieve this need for increased rigour and relevance we follow Heidegger's thinking and develop an ontological ascertainment of the organization as being a work. A work in this sense is the kind of entity that is fundamentally characterized by setting up a world for people. We then argue that because an organization is a work, an appropriate way of giving an account of an organization is in the form of strategic narratives: narratives that give a truthful account of the world of an organization as it is and as it could be. Since narratives play a fundamental role in human existence and are a powerful means to shaping peoples thinking and actions, we argue that strategic narrative research and development meet the double challenge of strategic management research and illustrate the application with an account of strategic narrative research and development in an organization.
The management of children′s literature is a search for value andsuitability. Effective policies in library and educational work arebased firmly on knowledge of materials, and on…
Abstract
The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.
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Anne Christie and Eric Sandelands
Considers how systemization of the action learning process combined with implementing solutions company‐wide will greatly enhance results. Focuses on knowledge created by…
Abstract
Considers how systemization of the action learning process combined with implementing solutions company‐wide will greatly enhance results. Focuses on knowledge created by International Management Centres Association (IMCA) and Canadian School of Management (CSM) Action Learning programmes. Looks at how “Enterprise Schools of Management” can harvest and disseminate knowledge and in particular at IMCA’s Published Learning initiative. Routinely publishing research may enhance learning and bring together theory and practice to provide workable solutions.