City Research Online

Abstract

The research investigates the sites in which organisational storytelling takes place (an under-researched area) and explores the extent to which these spaces are performed as liminal. It also analyses the value of such stories especially in relation to knowledge exchange and takes a comparative approach by reviewing organisational storytelling spaces before and during Covid-19 and in a world emerging from the pandemic. The research adopts a sociomaterial perspective by investigating the embodied and intertwined experience of storytelling, space and liminality and draws on three methodologies designed to explore the diffuse, changeable and slippery nature of the social and material worlds: Grounded Visual Pattern Analysis (a form of photo-elicitation); participant observation using situational maps; and social probes. The findings confirm that storytelling is not an isolated performance that unfolds on an inert stage set; rather it is entangled with, and coconstitutive of, those spaces. The research also highlights the role of liminal spaces — those without ownership, that shift shape, stray and facilitate transgression — in affording the opportunity for storytelling and develops a new conceptualisation of liminal space. In addition, the findings reveal the importance of stories involving private, non-work issues in building social capital and thereby providing the foundations for future valuable organisational knowledge exchange and diffusion. Finally, the research confirms the ambiguous experience of space and storytelling during Covid-19 and concludes with seven recommendations (or provocations) for knowledge management practitioners.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity > Media, Culture & Creative Industries School of Communication & Creativity > School of Communication & Creativity Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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