WHO IS LEADING, LEADER OR STORY? The Power of Stories to Lead
Abstract
Narrative research has become more and more common in business and organization studies over the last two decades (Barry & Elmes 1997; Czarniawska 1995, 1997; Boje 2001). Behind the emergence of the narrative turn in business studies lies the linguistic turn, which has its background in philosophy (see Rorty [1967] 1992; Fisher 1985). Generally, philosophers have been interested in the problems of language and its role in human life and existence for a long time. There have been debates on such issues as to what extent philosophical questions are basically linguistic questions or, ontologically, what is the relation between language and reality (whatever the latter is)? These debates have reverberated in organization studies such that organizational reality has come under consideration from the linguistic and discursive point of view. (Grant & Keenoy & Oswick 1997.)