infonet-economy

As a researcher I am very much interested in the discursive construction of realities in organizations. How can this topic, rooted in not so easy to understand post structural philosophy, be taught to students? This is the main question to be answered in relation to experiences of a half day course with students in executive education. The contribution will discuss the didactic concept as well as the stories provided by students on the creation of organizational realities and their effects. By first providing and then analyzing their own stories, students get a first glimpse how organizational realties get discursively constructed. It is discussed how stories can be analyzed and thus so called subconscious levels of organizations culture can be made accessible. With the first step of telling and in a second step of analyzing their own stories, different narrative patterns and repertoires are detected, get noted and are then set in relation to paradigmatic foundations of research, later to be applied in their own research projects. Trying to round up a circle, the third step consists of reflecting what a ‘good story' entails, and how - or rather if - it can be created to deliberately influence learning processes in organizations. By critically reflecting the danger of over simplification of the rather complex concept in a half day course, the balance between research and application gets addressed, using the business case of Ikea and their story telling practices.