Business Narrative Research Articles

Ethics and compliance programs for a new business narrative: A Kohlberg‐based moral valuing model for diagnosing commitment at the top

AbstractA genuine commitment to ethics and compliance (E&C) programs means that top management adopt them for what they represent and not for other purposes. Only then can they truly build socially responsible behavior and a successful and sustainable business, as stated in the latest international standard for compliance management practice (ISO 37301:2021), which we found to be consistent with a new business narrative as conceptualized in Freeman's work. However, it also requires that top managers place a moral value on these practices, rather than simply using them for instrumental reasons. Building on Kohlberg's six stages of moral development as applied to managers' moral thinking, this manuscript offers a model to explain how top managers' moral valuing of these practices varies along a moral reasoning continuum, resulting in four distinct modes. It also theorizes that each mode of moral valuing yields an archetype of E&C programs. It thus offers a new approach that contributes to the business ethics and management literature by incorporating a morally grounded perspective on the adoption and implementation of E&C practices and how it might shape their features and characteristics. It also aims to improve professional practice and business contributions to Freeman's ideas through genuine ethics‐based E&C programs.

The Circular Economy Transition in Australia: Nuanced Circular Intermediary Accounts of Mainstream Green Growth Claims

Australia has recently declared its commitment to a Circular Economy. Policy and initiatives to date have focused on recycling and waste management and research to date has highlighted the need for more ambitious policy, clearer definitions, collaboration, and consensus on goals. There are also calls from some government and non-business sectors for more inclusive, circular models, including Doughnut Economics. In the context of a competing mainstream Circular Economy and inclusive circular society discourses, circular intermediary organizations and their representatives are key to achieving change. Compared to the green growth business narrative of policy and industry media, intermediary representatives are aware of the diversity of challenges and solutions for Australia. Based on semi-structured interviews with twenty representatives of circular intermediaries in Australia and thematic discourse analysis, this study finds Circular Economy, circular society, and de-growth discourses informing themes about government, business, growth, consumers, society, and policy present and future. Arguing for a more nuanced view of the discursive and practice-based complexities of the circular transition, the study concludes with recommendations for a more holistic policy and practice beyond the current circularity for circularity’s sake.

Business power against redistribution: The case of watered-down tax reform in Poland

AbstractIn 2021 the ruling party in Poland proposed a reform to reverse the regressivity of the Polish tax system. Although the number of potential beneficiaries significantly exceeded the number of sufferers, the media coverage of the reform was strongly negative. This pushed the government to introduce reform adjustments, all of which benefited the high-income self-employed, increasing the cost of the reform and reducing its redistributive effect. To explain this, we analyze articles on the reform published in the three most opinion-forming newspapers. We demonstrate that the negative media coverage stemmed from successful incorporation of business narratives in the public debate by the business lobbying associations. It was supported by the weakness of workers’ organizations and a low level of citizens’ trust in government.

Islamic Narratives in Ukraine: Analyzing Communicative Dynamics

The significance of Islamic marketing for Ukrainians is determined by its influence on consumers of informational and industrial products in a non-Muslim country. The objects of our research are semantic components of the Islamic narrative in Ukraine. The subject of the study is Islamic marketing of communications. The research objective is to analyze the communicative dynamics of Islamic narrative found in the popular Ukrainian media. The research methodology is based on the current scholarly approaches to religion narratives. The results show that the Islamic narrative has consisted of two different narratives, the first related to Ukrainian Muslims, and the second related to Muslims of other countries. The analysis of the narratives revealed that since the beginning of the military confrontation with Russia. a battle of ideologies has emerged in which the successful business narrative was first rooted in soft power strategy, then turned into a strategic narrative, and has eventually become a weaponized narrative.

How do organisations generate and distribute value? Stakeholder value as the aim of the New Business Narrative [NBN] and Stakeholder Accounting [SA] as an information tool

Many different companies have decisively embraced the New Business Narrative focused on the Stakeholder Theory and it has been part of the ethos of leading companies worldwide for some time now. However, a systematic process has not been developed to identify an organisation’s withdrawn or distributed value for its different stakeholders in monetary terms. Accounting is inadequate for this purpose and the current information system therefore needs to be expanded. This article reflects on Stakeholder Accounting [SA]. Based on the multi-faceted model, it proposes broadening the value concept to also include price-based transactions, transfers performed in a non-market environment (and without consideration), and emotional ones. Moreover, it proposes expanding from a one-dimensional perspective, focused on shareholders, to a multi-dimensional including all the stakeholders of the organisation. The rest of the article reflects on the multiple experiences generated over the last ten years, along with the applicability, the potential and the implications of this accounting both for organisations and for their stakeholders.
 Received: 11 November 2021Accepted: 18 February 2022

Changing the business narrative: a guide to successful experience offerings

PurposeIn this article, we aim to increase understanding of the unique nature of experiences in comparison to services and explain how narrative change can enable organizations to fully participate in the experience economy.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon relevant experience design and experience economy literatures the paper outlines key differences between experiences and services. The narrative change process is then employed to provide managers specific guidelines for strategically reframing their value production paradigm to become more experience-centric.Findingsrticulating key elements of an organization’s narrative such as characters and intended outcomes allows an organization to more intentionally change their narrative to align with the experience economy.Practical/implicationsThe essential outcome of an experience is that participants do something for themselves ? for example, learn a new skill. Participation is integral to every experience transaction.Originality/valueAlthough Pine, Gilmore, and others have detailed the differences between experiences and services, definitional disagreements and oversimplifications of these concepts still exist. This paper further differentiates these economic offerings. Additionally, this paper is the first to integrate the narrative change process into a discussion about experience strategy.

A Narrative Approach to Corporate Relations: The Historical Background on Telenor’s Success

This article examines the development of buyer-supplier relations in the telecom sector. The literature on telecoms in Scandinavia has been dominated by the narrative praising the trusting and collaborative relations between Telia, the Swedish public telephone operator (PTO), and Ericsson, the equipment supplier. The Norwegian PTO, Telenor, diverted from this path and was a pioneer in preferring competitive tenders and arm’s length relations with its suppliers starting in the 1970s. The article argues that Telenor’s history and nationality had a significant impact on its business strategy. In addition, the article examines why some business narratives persist while others remain unknown. One finding is that shareholder-friendly narratives have a handicap because they focus on self-interest and money, and not societal values.

Psicología organizacional crítica frente a los efectos del neoliberalismo cultural. Una problematización de aspectos prácticos y epistemológicos

Este artículo analiza la problematización de los aspectos prácticos y epistemológicos relacionados con la configuración de una psicología ocupacional crítica y relevante en el contexto del neoliberalismo cultural. Utilizando un enfoque empírico inductivo y una estrategia de revisión bibliográfica fundamentada en el análisis crítico de enunciados teóricos y autores, sustenta que la psicología organizacional debe reforzar su carácter crítico y pluridisciplinario en el abordaje conceptual y metodológico de la realidad organizacional, sin conformarse con el estatuto de una disciplina profesionalmente más vinculada a los designios ideológicos del gerencialismo. El artículo concluye evaluando los desafíos de la psicología frente a las prácticas gerenciales que, en nombre de la sobreproducción, la eficiencia y el cambio intemperante, están siendo aprehendidas como una virtud en la narrativa empresarial moderna.

A point of view: can a narrative imagination approach to the business curriculum contribute to global citizenship and sustainability?

The impact of technology and globalisation, sustainability, and global citizenship now feature as dominant motifs within the global business narrative. This represents a broadening of the corporate...

Triple Bottom Line Sustainability Reporting: How to Make it More Tangible

Corporations are becoming aware that measuring and reporting the financial bottom-line metric alone will not suffice as they develop their business sustainably. Two other corporate metrics, namely, social and environmental bottom-line metrics, are becoming increasingly important in the business narrative. The challenge for today’s corporations is how to communicate their triple bottom line efforts effectively to stakeholders. One of the most common methods is to produce an annual sustainability report that encompasses the three generally accepted corporate social responsibility (CSR) elements: economic, social and environmental. The aim of this study is to analyse the opinions of employees regarding the practical implications of having to produce a business sustainability report. The study found the two main implications to businesses reporting on CSR issues to be a need to (i) improve the methods, measurement and reporting of CSR outcomes, and (ii) provide businesses with education/knowledge in all aspects of CSR.

Moral Voice: Talking About Ethics at Work

There are a number of reasons that individuals find it challenging to engage in discussion about ethics and values in the workplace environment, yet engagement regarding values is critically important for organizations. Effective organizations talk about and enact their values. This note discusses some of the key barriers to exercising “moral voice” in the workplace environment and offers suggestions for individuals and managers regarding how to foster such open discussion and how to minimize moral muteness. Excerpt UVA-E-0411 Rev. Jan. 5, 2016 Moral Voice: Talking About Ethics at Work Organizational learning and functioning depend on the willingness of employees to give voice to their ideas, opinions, and concerns. When expressed constructively, employee voice helps groups learn, make better decisions, and identify and address problems. Yet the default tendency for employees in many organizations is simply to remain silent; speaking up at work is perceived to be risky. High-performing organizations seek to overcome this workplace silence and find ways to encourage and listen to feedback from a diverse range of employees and individuals who might have a tendency to be overlooked or lost—the less powerful, the disenfranchised, and those who due to personality might simply be less inclined to speak up. Employee voice is a vital part of organizational functioning, because the ideas raised by employees can be a valuable source of innovation and a powerful impetus for change. Employee voice is especially important when it concerns matters of ethics and values, because moral voice highlights opportunities for organizations to better meet the needs of their stakeholders—opportunities that might otherwise fade into the background of a business narrative dominated by immediate competitive pressures. Moral voice is also a powerful deterrent to unethical workplace behavior. For instance, research demonstrates that employee tips are the single most effective mechanism for detecting and deterring corporate misconduct and uncovering more fraudulent behavior than audits, technology controls, and management reviews combined. Finally, moral voice can enhance workers' ability to engage with or question—and therefore better connect with—the purpose and values of an organization. For all of these reasons, ethics and values are among the most important topics for open discussion within organizations. Despite the many benefits of moral voice for effective organizational functioning, the process of speaking up about ethical matters can be difficult for both employees and their managers. Why is it so difficult to talk about moral issues at work? And why do managers tend to shy away from fostering and engaging in discussions related to ethics and values? Even more importantly, how can leaders overcome these challenges to encourage more effective conversations about ethics in the workplace? . . .

Present and Future Languages: How Innovation has Changed Us

Given the growth in usage of online social networks, such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat, which rely on videos and images (such as photos) to relay information between connections, new intuitive languages, though not yet formally recognized, have emerged. We also herein give the example of a new language we have created – the Business Narrative Modelling Language (BNML) – which communicates business perspectives based on pictorial representations, supported by the narrative. Currently, the concept of language is linked to the use of words. We foresee that such a definition of language will have to change to include other structured forms of communication, resorting and relying on graphics, also. We give examples of BNML representations, with regards to two case studies we have performed, based on face-to-face interviews and company visits. At ExpressGlass technology plays an important role, while at Yazaki Saltano a remarkable team effort between Toyota suppliers is made evident, to create innovation.

A Romance of Business: Genre, Scarcity, and the Businessman in the American Economic Novel

The subtitle of Richard Kimball’s novel, Undercurrents of Wall Street, represents the central tension of the American business novel that emerges during the second half of the nineteenth century. The novel calls itself as a “romance of business.” As a romance, there is never any doubt that the story must restore the fortunes lost by the main character when his business fails. As a business narrative, a large part of the text explores the myriad ways in which market conditions prevent his return to profitability. The tension between the desire to make him a wealthy man and the difficulty of making him a successful businessman is the kind of tension that becomes the defining feature of the business novel. These novels, as economic narratives, have a logical commitment to market and resource constraints. But as novels, such texts are also committed to reinforcing the relationship between moral behavior and personal success. These novels reflect a dramatic shift in the conceptual landscape that transformed economics from a science of wealth to a science of scarcity. This conceptual shift is reflected in the structural reorganization of the business world to favor a new class of professional managers. The businessman becomes an important financial technology as well as the central element of economic narratives. The economic novel must be understood as an attempt to reconcile the mathematics and calculation of economics as a rising science of scarcity with the genre constraints of the American romance.

Stories of Violence: A Narrative Criminological Study of Ambiguity

Violence features in human life, not only as actual physical confrontation but also as stories. Stories of violence are particularly important in violence-prone subcultures and among those partaking in the illegal drug economy. Drawing on narrative analysis, this study examines stories of violence among a population of incarcerated Norwegian drug dealers. Four widespread story types are identified: business narratives, intimidation narratives, moral narratives and survivor narratives. We explore the content of these stories and the work they do for tellers while keeping a keen eye on their ambiguous nature. We argue that stories and storytellers plurivocality is often missed when stories of violence are described within established criminological traditions.

The Export-Import Bank's Top Foreign Buyers

Ex-Im Bank advocates emphasize its importance to small businesses and economic growth. A new analysis of government data reveals that Ex-Im Bank's top 10 overseas buyers are large corporations that primarily purchase exports from multinational conglomerates. Ex-Im Bank's small business narrative is challenged by the fact that the buyers receiving the most subsidies are?like the exporters?major corporations. If lawmakers truly want to nurture small businesses and economic growth, they should end the Ex-Im Bank favoritism that undermines domestic companies and focus instead on reducing the tax and regulatory barriers that choke investment, innovation, and job creation.

What If Colorful Images Become More Important than Words? Visual Representations as the Basic Building Blocks of Human Communication and Dynamic Storytelling

Pre-historic communication included doing cave paintings, for example, of wild animals. Today, we continue to use images when communicating, most notably with videos and other such recordings. The advent and popularity of social networks on the Internet is based on the exchange of messages but for the most part on the sharing of images and videos. Although we are still generally very geared toward communication using words (and numbers) rather than visual representations, we foresee that a specific language that produces movement in the brain will soon be developed. The Business Narrative Modelling Language (BNML) has been used in various research contexts. BNML is based on pictorial representations, while incorporating business ontologies, which are studies of words and language to create a vocabulary that best represents relevant meanings in the business context to optimize information exchange. Do you prefer the narrative or do you prefer visual representations or would you rather have both? Providing examples of BNML, about servant leadership, we maintain that text without figures leads to incomplete communication, and vice versa—especially true for the “Millennium generation.” Leaders in business should strive to communicate more visually and diagrammatically, encouraging such communication among their employees, as much of knowledge today is tacit, and so difficult to communicate solely with the written word. Furthermore, words should be chosen carefully, to avoid overload and lack of comprehension, and using pre-defined ontologies is a good way of achieving this.

Lead with a story: a guide to crafting business narratives that captivate, convince, and inspire

Lead with a story: a guide to crafting business narratives that captivate, convince, and inspire

How interoperability fosters innovation: The case for servant leadership

What is the relationship between interoperability and innovation? While a relationship likely exists, according to the literature, it is seen to be very hard to prove. Furthermore, what role does (servant) leadership play? In order to address these questions, this research paper is based upon three research efforts, undertaken in Portugal: 1) An exploratory in-depth survey concerning servant leadership, administered to students finalizing their BSc Management Degree (54 valid responses); 2) An in-depth survey on servant leadership, interoperability and innovation administered to executives in various industries (55 valid responses from nine different industries); 3) A case study of Infosistema, an innovative Portuguese firm which exemplifies the servant leadership philosophy. Our results show that servant leadership leads to interoperability and both are seen to be antecedents of innovation. However, the servant leadership philosophy is a distant reality from most organizations in Portugal and this may mean less free-flowing communication and thus less organizational innovation as a consequence. Some culture change may first be necessary so that servant leadership may become more widespread. We also use the Business Narrative Modeling Language (BNML) at various points in the discussion, thus combining the narrative and visual content to communicate key management concepts. Key words: Servant leadership, innovation, interoperability, survey, case study, business narrative modeling language.

A reference model perspective for conventional business narrative analysis: An essay on an entrepreneurial narrative

When analysing a case study, using personal descriptions, involving interviewers, data analysis, and so many other possible elements, a simple qualitative method of application was revealed to be insufficient since it did not permit further analysis of the analyst’s point of view, his ability to reproduce the heard reports and his personal or particular perspective on the facts. Even using narrative analysis, in its complete and diverse ways, one has always to cope with the fact that it may reveal to be incomplete when referring to the possibility of rapidly and effectively viewing the possible interrelations and crossings among actors, either physical or human. This way, the contribution given to narrative analysis by some auxiliary new tools and graphic visualisation of the total process of narrative analysis enhanced that cross-viewing ability. Key words: Narrative analysis, case study, Timmons model, business model canvas, business narrative modelling language (BNML).

Business Narrative Modelling Language (BNML) representations: A storyline view and a plot view of how interoperability is an antecedent of innovation at IP BRICK

The relationship between interoperability and innovation is very hard to prove and more empirical studies seem to be needed to this end. We performed an in-depth case study at an innovative Portuguese software firm which has achieved steady growth, international brand recognition and consistent annual profits, despite the much publicized economic crisis in Portugal. IP BRICK is interesting as it differs from the survivalist entrepreneurial endeavours which tend to be the norm in Portugal. We indeed conclude that having an interoperability capability is central and an antecedent to innovation. Furthermore, a dynamic organizational innovation culture is instrumental and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is seen to be an enabler in the process. Using digital knowledge management tools as a basis for innovation and having a company-wide profit-sharing scheme based on seniority, but also on merit, encourage a knowledge-sharing corporate culture. This is seen to be especially important in Portugal where there is no religious diversity, a characteristic of a dogmatic culture with a low creative orientation and an absence of a performance orientation. Our research has also used the Business Narrative Modelling Language (BNML) – a research tool which made the research effort more agile and dynamic when compared to more traditional research methods. Key words: Interoperability, innovation, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), case study, Business Narrative Modelling Language (BNML).