Role Of Storytelling Research Articles

Sales leadership icons and models: How comic book superheroes would make great sales leaders

Developing strong leadership within the organization is one of the most valuable pursuits any firm can undertake. Considering the many demands on the resources of leaders, developmental opportunities must be efficient and effective to truly impact leadership ability. Comic books and their role in storytelling can offer unique insights regarding core leadership characteristics underlying great sales leadership and act as a tool for growth in leadership capabilities. With the recent explosion in superhero awareness through blockbuster movie releases and increased comic book readership, this article presents a series of leadership characteristics and their embodiment within superheroes. A list of top sales leader qualities from a panel of practicing sales professionals is first provided. Specific examples of these leadership qualities as evidenced by a particular superhero are then offered. These examples are solicited from a panel of superhero subject matter experts and yield insight into how managers can use superhero narratives as a learning tool. We summarize the findings from our research and propose specific managerial challenges and actionable recommendations offered by the exemplars we review.

Commentary on “Storytelling by the sales force and its effect on buyer–seller exchange” by David Gilliam and Karen Flaherty

The paper “Storytelling by the sales force and its effect on buyer–seller exchange” by Gilliam and Flaherty (2015) is one of the first attempts to empirically explore the use of storytelling in customer–supplier relationships. In this commentary we acknowledge that the topic is original and timely, and the issues addressed are relevant to an inquiry into the role of storytelling in B2B sales. However, we also argue that a more thoughtful discussion on the nature of sales and the characteristics of buyer–seller relationships in B2B markets would be more effective in capturing the scope of storytelling in B2B sales. In particular, we argue that buyers are not merely passive listeners of salespersons' stories, but actively participate in the storytelling process by initiating, interrupting, complementing or disseminating these stories.

Animal Production, Ag-gag Laws, and the Social Production of Ignorance: Exploring the Role of Storytelling

In recent years, a number of so-called “farm protection” or “ag-gag” laws have been proposed and passed in state legislatures across the USA. These laws generally ban the undercover photographing or videotaping of industrial animal agricultural production and processing facilities. Proponents of the legislation suggest that such bills protect local farm economies and prevent misinformation campaigns by animal rights activists. Diverse sets of critics have argued against the bills, suggesting that they prevent whistleblowers from exposing animal cruelty and stand in the way of the public's right to know. This paper analyzes the debate by blending theory from science and technology studies regarding the social production of knowledge and ignorance with communication theory that explores the power of storytelling in shaping public understandings of social life. It investigates the stories told by three oppositional stakeholder groups—members of industrial animal agribusiness who defend the legislation, small-scale producers and consumers who believe the legislation prevents productive transparency, as well as animal advocacy and first amendment interests who believe the legislation masks fundamental flaws in the contemporary animal agricultural system. The paper provides insight into how competing mediated narratives frame ideological battles over the present and future of animal production processes. It demonstrates how fundamental and often opposing value systems construct what we consider knowledge and non-knowledge in the context of our contemporary risk society and in the digital media age.

Creating legitimacy across international contexts: The role of storytelling for international new ventures

This paper considers the legitimacy-creating efforts of Better Place, an international new venture (INV) providing infrastructure services linking electrical vehicles and power grid networks. We analyze the debate on Better Place’s attempts to communicate its business idea to constituents in Denmark, Israel, Canada, and Australia using expert interviews as well as content analysis of newspaper articles and other secondary sources. Storytelling, which is found to be central to the legitimacy-creating efforts of international business ventures, interacts with existing discourses in the diverse contexts in which it occurs. Furthermore, our study demonstrates how constituents pick up specific elements as they become attuned to conversations concerning transportation energy use and sustainability. We believe that this study contributes conceptually, methodologically, empirically, and theoretically to the growing literature on INVs and on institutions in international business. For practice, our aim is to improve managers’ awareness and understanding of the importance of storytelling in the market contexts they seek to enter.

Phonetic shift across narrative and quoted speech styles

Qualitative descriptions of speech accompanying verbs of quotation (e.g., “She was like, 'I'm not going in there!'”) characterize quoted speech as a mimetic performance (Buchstaller 2003, Winter 2002) with “selective depictions” of the quotees words (Clark and Gerrig 1990, 1). The current study aims to quantify the performative and mimetic nature of quoted speech by comparing acoustic measurements of 539 vowel productions obtained through narratives of personal experience (Labov and Waletzky 1967) as told between friends. First and second formant frequencies were measured at the temporal midpoint of each vowel using Praat5.3 (Boersma and Weenink 2012), normalized using the BARK method and compared in a one way ANOVA in SPSS. The dependent variables were F0, F1, F2, and duration while gender of speaker and lexical set key word (Wells 1982) served as the independent variables. Results indicate that mainly female speakers showed phonetically shifted vowel quality features when moving from narrative style speech to quoting voices for characters in their stories. This specific type of phonetic alteration across speech styles is examined as a type of “speech play” (Sherzer 2002) and its role in story-telling is examined further.

Storytelling: a strategy for brand communication

Purpose of the study. The purpose of this research is to understand how storytelling supports existing brands and how it may help starting brands in their first phase of life. Based on the analysis of the Mesa winery, which highlights the strong connection between storytelling and brand, the paper takes into consideration the role of packaging, labeling, and the company’s architecture. Methodology. This paper combines aspects of theory with empirical suggestions coming from the experience of the Mesa Winery. The methodology of case study is appropriate for developing a theory through a deep comprehension of the empirical phenomena and the context in which they take place (Eisenhardt, 1989). Findings. The experience of the Mesa Winery permits to highlight the way in which the phenomenon of storytelling can be used as a communication strategy for small businesses as well. Moreover, it highlights that storytelling can be a new way to manage the brand. Research limits. This study is limited in that it analyzes only one single case. Practical implication. What emerges from the case study is that a brand’s image based on a storytelling strategy can be conveyed through various elements, bringing the company into direct contact with the consumer. Originality of the study. The contribution we intend to provide is connected with the reduction of insufficient knowledge of the new relationship role between brand and storytelling (Kapferer, 2008). In some scholarly contributions there are many interesting scientific studies with reference to brand and storytelling analyzed separately, but few of them deepen the meaning of the new role of storytelling as it strengthens a brand.

The Role of Storytelling at the Intersection of Transformative Conflict Resolution and Peace Education

I have worked as a peace educator for more than twenty-five years, teaching high school and university students, developing and writing curricula, and adminis- tering international internships and practicums. At the same time, I have served as a group conflict consultant for diverse local and national firms, mediating, facilitating, and training management teams. Over the years, I have come to realize that educating youth for peaceful global perspectives has a lot in common with helping management teams transform workplace conflicts. Mostly, I have learned this through student and participant stories I encountered in both classrooms and boardrooms. These stories revealed multiple intersections and overlapping purposes of peace education (PE) and transformational conflict resolution (TCR) and spoke to both interpersonal and global concerns. By interweaving the stories with scholarly literature, this article explores several of PE's and TCR's most compelling and symbiotic connections. Before I begin, however, I would like to note several qualifications.First, the intent of this article is not to provide a definitive or exhaustive analysis of either peace education or transformative conflict resolution or even to recommend a particular course of action for practitioners of either. Rather, this paper acknowledges several of the two methods' common objectives and means of achieving those objectives-their intersections-that emerge and become apparent through the stories. Moreover, the stories are limited to my remembrances. Thus I do not follow up with a thoroughgoing analysis of all that they might mean, nor do I provide recommendations for practitioners of peace education or transformational conflict resolution. To attempt to do so would be presumptuous given that I am dealing, not with raw data, but rather with what I have perceived, remembered, interpreted, or believed was signified.Second, Ryan points out that conflict transformation ideas and levels of analysis are interrelated and broad ranging (e.g., liberal or Marxist; personal, relational, or structural), and when discussing the concept, we must pay cre- dence to all perspectives. Certainly personal, relational, and structural conflicts affect one another, and different ideological standpoints affect how one sees. For example, unjust economic structures contaminate interpersonal relationships, and violent interpersonal relationships affect personhood and identity. A Marxist might focus on the former, a liberal the later. Ryan's argument notwithstanding, for the purposes of this paper, when discussing TCR I do so in the personal and relational tradition of Curle, Galtung, Bush and Folger, and Lederach.Third, Brunk, in discussing the central precepts of peace education, differ- entiates among three ways of conceiving PE: educating about peace, educating for peace, and peace through education. Again, notwithstanding the obvious interrelatedness of these three processes, when discussing PE, my focus will be education for peace.A Common PurposeTransformational conflict resolution as an approach to conflict and as a topic within conflict studies arose about fifteen years ago as a reaction to the perceived stultifying objectives of the ideology of conflict management (Dukes). According to a number of peace researchers (Bush and Folger; Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means; Lederach, Preparing for Peace), conflicts-interpersonal, intergroup, and systemic-are generally not resolved once and for all; hence processes of conflict resolution are more accurately characterized as transformational. As Galtung says, you transform conflict so that parties can live with them; you do not solve them (Transcend and Transform viii).The question is, Exactly what gets transformed, and to what does it get trans- formed? For the what, there are many offerings in the TCR literature: actors, issues, rules, and structures. Most commonly, however, the transformation is understood to relate to changes to persons, relationships, and structures (Mitch- ell). …

Influences of sales promotion on customer satisfaction and revisit intention in the restaurant industry - Focused on the moderating role of storytelling

Influences of sales promotion on customer satisfaction and revisit intention in the restaurant industry - Focused on the moderating role of storytelling

An empirical study of narrative imagery in implicit and explicit contexts

This study investigates if imagery is an inherent construct to narrative by playing a role in storytelling and comprehension. Visualization activities consist of ones that depend on pictures or physical objects and those do not depend on extraneous visual artifacts. The understandings of both types of visualization will contribute to their application and integration. In light of rapid development of technology and drastic increase of multimedia representations in social communication, applying storytelling approach to system design is increasingly relevant to many researchers who are eager to bring visual thinking to the classroom, alternative to applying physical visual artifacts. In this study, we looked into the cognitive process evoked in the comprehension of narrative and its similarity to imagery as an individual cognition. We transformed a course into conversational narrative and participants were randomly assigned into three sections, two were in narrative text and one was in expository text. Sections 1 and 2 were in narrative text, but only participants from section 1 were prompt for image creation before writing essays. Section 3 was in expository text and participants were also prompt for image creation before writing essays. The independent samples t-test was used to compare the mean scores of three groups on creativity score and word total across the sections. Our study found that narrative was able to activate the imagery world of the participants without giving them further instructions explicitly suggesting so. The implicit imagery context created by reading narratives had a stronger impact on creativity than that of explicit imagery creation context that did not involve of narrative comprehension. The study suggests that narrative innately provides some sort of control to its user cognitively and can be integrated with other types of media in design.

Entrepreneurial Stories: What Are They? What Can They Do?

The emerging literature on the role of storytelling in the entrepreneurial resource acquisition process shows some promising results and exciting avenues for future research. In this paper, however, I identify two key conceptual problems in extant literature that could jeopardize further advancement in this particular area of study. These problems relate to (1) how entrepreneurial stories are conceptualized and to (2) the attributes that are ascribed to entrepreneurial stories in terms of their potential effects on evaluative judgments. In this paper I address these issues by first clarifying the concept of what constitutes an entrepreneurial story as a specific form of communication and then proposing a number of mechanisms (that go beyond what has hitherto been proposed in the literature) by which entrepreneurial stories may affect the perceptions of potential investors regarding the attractiveness of a given opportunity. In so doing, I contribute to help the further advancement of theory on the role of...

The ethical complexities of sponsored digital storytelling

This article articulates key ethical issues that may arise in sponsored digital storytelling initiatives, projects wherein participants’ stories are used to promote the organization that subsidized their training. Analyzing a digital story from a public health project in the US, the article suggests that sponsored digital storytelling initiatives require participants, facilitators, and those within sponsoring organizations to make complicated ethical judgments about recruiting storytellers, the role of storytellers in the production process, and if and how to represent proximate others in stories. Critical concepts from life writing and documentary studies are used to explore these issues.

Circles disturbed: the interplay of mathematics and narrative

Circles Disturbed brings together important thinkers in mathematics, history, and philosophy to explore the relationship between mathematics and narrative. The book's title recalls the last words of the great Greek mathematician Archimedes before he was slain by a Roman soldier--Don't disturb my circles--words that seem to refer to two radically different concerns: that of the practical person living in the concrete world of reality, and that of the theoretician lost in a world of abstraction. Stories and theorems are, in a sense, the natural languages of these two worlds--stories representing the way we act and interact, and theorems giving us pure thought, distilled from the hustle and bustle of reality. Yet, though the voices of stories and theorems seem totally different, they share profound connections and similarities. A book unlike any other, Circles Disturbed delves into topics such as the way in which historical and biographical narratives shape our understanding of mathematics and mathematicians, the development of myths of origins in mathematics, the structure and importance of mathematical dreams, the role of storytelling in the formation of mathematical intuitions, the ways mathematics helps us organize the way we think about narrative structure, and much more. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Amir Alexander, David Corfield, Peter Galison, Timothy Gowers, Michael Harris, David Herman, Federica La Nave, G.E.R. Lloyd, Uri Margolin, Colin McLarty, Jan Christoph Meister, Arkady Plotnitsky, and Bernard Teissier.

Autoethnography, a Chicana's Methodological Research Tool: The Role of Storytelling for Those Who Have No Choice but to do Critical Race Theory

This article investigates the role of autoethnographic research as the methodological tool of choice for a Chicana who positions herself along the liminal perspective. I posit that testimonios, autobiographical educational experiences, must be used as valid ethnographic research to contribute to existing knowledge around issues of educational equity. Producing autoethnographic research acknowledges and validates my Chicana presence as well as draws attention to my marginal position inside dominant structures of education. Autoethnography and critical race theory are the manners in which I think about the world and the ways I have chosen to engage in educational research. My work is derived from personal experience in Los Angeles urban schools and later in elite institutions of higher education. These distinct locations present a unique opportunity to problematize the internalized forms of class and racial structures that permeate educational institutions. Grounded in my own educational biography, testimonios frame my research perspective to interrogate the role that educational institutions play in the creation of particular ideologies in working-class students of color.

The Creative Voice: Free Indirect Speech in the Cinema of Rohmer and Bresson

This article examines a particular use of the voice in cinema which conveys character reflexivity and generates expressive ambiguity in a film's narrative point of view. Drawing on Pasolini's notion of the free indirect style and Deleuze's elaboration of this into his concept of the free indirect speech-act, two different creative uses of speech are analysed: one in Rohmer's Claire's Knee (1970) and the other in Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest (1951). The essay finds that when characters narrate their thoughts, feelings, actions or experiences in a reflexive manner (that is, to themselves, even if also to another), and this activity becomes for a time the primary event of the film, these characters step into the role of storyteller. They become both subject and object of their utterances which take on the style of the free indirect. With this, the voice enters into a new relationship with the image – directing, counterpointing, or disconnecting from it – changing the function of voice and image while seeming momentarily to supplant the film's narration. The symbolic nature of language gives words the power to create images and meaning that cannot be captured or conveyed by the camera alone. Privileging speech as a creative force not only dimensionalises character but, on a formal level, creates a role for voice that allows it to exist not as an appendage to the image but for its own sake. In order to suggest practical uses for these theoretical considerations, Bresson's and Rohmer's reflections on the role of the voice are also discussed.

Scientific storytelling using visualization.

Scientists frequently tell stories using visualizations of scientific data, in the process of disseminating findings to peers and the general public. However, techniques and methods for effective scientific storytelling have received little attention so far. This article explores how literary and theatrical narrative conventions can inform the design and presentation of visualizations, and discusses the challenges of adapting scientific visualizations for broader audiences. It also summarizes recent workshops' findings on the role of storytelling in visualizations, and presents several examples of successful scientific-storytelling production teams. The conclusion is that scientific storytelling deserves greater support and recognition by the visualization community.

Stories with Impact: The Potential of Storytelling to Contribute to Cultural Research and Social Inclusion

Stories with Impact: The Potential of Storytelling to Contribute to Cultural Research and Social Inclusion

“Serious” Talk

Starting with its opening scene, A Serious Man offers a complex, provocative engagement with the role of storytelling in Jewish life, past and present. Many viewers have wondered how the film's “shtetl” prologue relates to its main story, set in Minneapolis in 1967. They have often speculated that there is some plot-driven relationship that they somehow missed. But the connection, by the filmmakers' own assertion, is not diegetic; rather, it is thematic, and storytelling figures strategically in articulating this link.

A criança, a Bíblia e a história

The topic of this text is the telling of Bible stories in the perspective of children, with a special emphasis on foundations and narrative models, in the search for criteria and paradigms for the practice of telling Bible stories to children. The narrative is presented as an important literary gender in the Bible and the telling of Bible stories, especially to children, as a fundamental activity in the process of teaching and learning the faith in families, schools, congregations and other contexts of Christian Education. The narrative activity is described as an interdisciplinary process with multiple dimensions that are profoundly interrelated, providing data and concepts that help to identify the constitutive elements of the narrative process. On the basis of bibliographical research, the telling of Bible stories is shown to be a pedagogical, theological and methodological principle par excellence in Christian Education with children. This text presents a biblical-theological approach, focusing on the view of education in faith that pervades the Old and the New Testament, with an emphasis on the role of story telling in this educational process. On the basis of the relationship between child, Bible and theology, this article indicates possibilities, challenges and implications for the re-reading of the Bible and the telling of Bible stories in the child's perspective.

The role of storytelling in the formal mentoring program

This article addresses the question of what sort of role storytelling plays in the formal mentoring program. Firstly, individual's personal competence which is divided into knowledge and socially based competencies, and how this competence alters in the course of individual's working life is illustrated. Secondly, due to the fact that the mentor's competence is transferred from his or her worldview to the mentee's worldview, the concept of worldview is described. Then the discussion deals with the main content of the article – namely, mentoring and storytelling, and the characteristics of knowledge transferred through these activities. Because of the need to attain a better understanding of the knowledge transferred through mentoring and storytelling, some results of an empirical study conducted on a formal mentoring program in a large Finnish technological manufacturing company (i.e., comments of interviewees) are picked up in brief and included in the article. The article ends with the conclusion according to which knowledge transferred through the formal mentoring program differs from the knowledge transferred through an ordinary storytelling practice, and therefore, the storytelling plays only a weak role in the formal mentoring program. However, the situation depends upon characteristics of the mentor and mentee.

The Role of Storytelling in Understanding Children's Moral/Ethic Decision-Making

As students advance in their education, the use of stories and specifically the process of storytelling often wane from the central mode of learning to be replaced with more didactic methods and content-driven applications. However, the use of stories has remained a central component of moral/ethics education and continues to be used as a foundation for values instruction. The process of storytelling can be seen as a central component to understanding how students comprehend and reason out ethical ambiguities. This study examined the storytelling event as it related to the process of ethical deliberation for upper elementary students. The findings reveal how storytelling offers a distinct child-referenced perspective, presenting an opportunity for teachers to better understand the complexity of the particular child's ethical world. Likewise, data show youth challenging simplistic moral understandings, revealing the complexity of their daily ethical decision making.