Workplace Narratives Research Articles

Gender Inequality in Workplace: A Perspective of Gender Narrative

The prejudice and discrimination toward femininity lasted from the ancient world to today's workplace. Women frequently faced judgments, with a particular focus on anti-feminity, this study explores the gender differences in career expectations, the unequal distribution of career opportunities, and disparities in unemployment rates which all contribute to this pervasive imbalance. Firstly, this research investigates how societal norms and stereotypes shape gendered career expectations. By analyzing the pressures that steer individuals towards specific career paths, it becomes evident that femininity was often marginalized, leading to limited career choices for women. Secondly, this research examines the unequal distribution of career opportunities, revealing how institutional and structural factors perpetuate gender disparities. The scarcity of women in leadership positions and male-dominated industries further entrenches the absence of femininity within workplace narratives. Lastly, the study uncovers the gender-based disparities in unemployment rates, highlighting the systemic biases that hinder women's access to stable employment, particularly during economic downturns.

Exploring empathy in project management: Workplace narratives inspiring reflection and discussion

Empathy has been acknowledged as a necessary addition to the project manager’s toolkit, yet there is little in the literature on how this may be used in practice. There is no one agreed definition of empathy. However, it is acknowledged that it is a complex multifactorial construct incorporating cognitive and affective components. Given the complexity of the construct, it is reasonable to suggest that the use of empathy within the project management context is similarly complex. There is a call to incorporate the lived experience of project managers in research, and this article seeks to do that by sharing stories from several Master of Project Management students about their experience with empathy in industry. By showcasing the practical applications of empathy in diverse industries and contexts, this study aims to inspire project management practitioners to engage in reflective discussions on the integral role of empathy in effective project management.

Storying selves and others at work

Abstract This paper engages with the relationship between story ownership – so who owns a story, tellership – so who has the right to tell it, and functions of workplace narratives as well as the broader social practices at work. Drawing upon discourse and narrative analyses, the paper investigates specifically how the negotiation of meaning visible in the often incomplete and fragmented but naturally-occurring narratives points to the discursive struggle over the construction of self within the specific parameters of the notion of professionalism. The paper identifies the facets of story ownership and discusses how each one can be affected by such regulatory forces of the social practices of work.

Examining oilmen’s notions of ‘fatherhood masculinity’ as a pathway to understand increased offshore oilfield safety behaviours

This study explores how notions of fatherhood masculine identity held by offshore oilfield workers positively influenced safety and risk predispositions in the workplace. Findings are based on a ‘rapid’, two week, embedded ethnography of a remote offshore drilling platform in the UK North Sea. Ethnography was reflective of the traditional two-week ‘hitch’ permitted for most UK offshore oilfield workers. Drawing directly from the workplace narratives of thirty-five oilmen labouring in a variety of different roles in the North Sea drilling sector, this study presents how oilmen working in the traditionally hazardous and ‘high risk’ industry redeveloped previously risky masculine notions of workplace identity. For many men, this process of reimagining was intertwined with fatherhood. Oilmen formulated “softer, safer” masculine identity practices founded upon notions of distanced breadwinning, self-preservation, and returning home safe to their onshore families. Such notions readily replaced - and rendered “outdated” - oilmen’s previous and historic identity narratives largely linked to risky and hypermasculine workplace norms. Identity reformations resulted in a safer workplace culture that normalised and respected men who upheld safety, and marginalised men who performed risky or dangerous workplace behaviours. Implications upon worksite safety and for future research are discussed.

Introduction: the tale as a special discourse vehicle

ABSTRACT This special issue addresses a series of post-2008 financial developments by mobilising the concept of the tale, understood as a discursive artefact composed of a meaningful story or script that serves to separate good from evil, make sense of historical situations, stimulate action, and prefigure scenarios. Unlike standard workplace narratives, which are useful for practical decision-making, tales have strong collective and political connotations. As such, they assume two distinct forms: tales of ‘experiment,’ stemming from innovative projects that seek to transform the financial system from within, and tales of ‘defiance,’ which deal with the more ample changes that horizontal and disobedient practices prefigure. Several analytical coordinates are proposed in order to capture the semiotic and pragmatic natures of the tale. Regarding semiotics, tales involve not only themes and motifs but also polysemic metaphors and what are here defined as processes of characterisation, through which persons or institutions are positioned as characters and assume specific roles within a story. As for the pragmatic dimension, tales mobilise people toward specific functions and address audiences while also relying on material infrastructure to embed some of the content they convey.

“I tell you don’t trust the French”

AbstractNational stereotypes are inherently evaluative, often negatively, and potentially prejudicial. While research has examined stereotypes from an organisational perspective, this is overwhelmingly in experimental settings involving students (Landy, 2008); in other words not in workplaces, and not involving employees doing their jobs. Through a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of 53 authentic business meetings, this study finds that among certain communities, national stereotypes are used in workplace narratives, and argues that such narratives constitute a contextual, situated social practice. The novel methodology pinpoints and categorises all stereotypes in business-meeting narratives, before discussing what role they play in indexing the identities of the stereotyped and the stereotyping. Finally, evaluation, ideology and power are critically engaged with to explain their use or non-use, thus making a theoretical contribution to studies of evaluation, workplace narratives, and stereotyping in discourse. While ethically problematic, and potentially detrimental to business success, their use may be motivated by local workplace goals.

Telling stories: analysing Māori and Pākehā workplace narratives

ABSTRACTThe concept of encounter between Māori and Pākehā which has been the focus of so much historical and anthropological research also provides a rich source of insight for sociolinguists interested in the details of everyday workplace talk. Exploring the concept of ‘the culture order’ we discuss ways in which workplace narratives may provide evidence of subtle differences in Māori and Pākehā ways of telling stories at work. More than twenty years ago, examining Māori and Pākehā narratives in conversational contexts, features were identified in the narrative structure, as well as in the preoccupations of the different ethnic groups, which could be interpreted as contributing to the construction of distinctive ethnic identities. More recently, the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project (LWP) team has turned attention to workplace narratives, noting nuanced construction of identity in this discourse activity. We offer evidence of hybridised identities which allow for positive orientation to Te Ao Māori while navigating a Pākehā-dominant corporate world.

The Evaluation of a Narrative Intervention for Health-Care Professionals in an Urban Oncology Inpatient Unit

Background:Oncology professionals in fast-paced urban hospitals are at risk for burnout and secondary traumatic stress.Objective:This exploratory study evaluated the effectiveness of a workplace narrative intervention for oncology professionals in regard to reducing burnout and secondary traumatic stress.Methods:Thirty-five oncology health-care providers from three inpatient oncology units within an urban medical center completed the Professional Quality of Life Scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey before and after four monthly group narrative oncology interventions during the work day.Findings:Findings lend tentative support to the effectiveness of this intervention in reducing different aspects of burnout and secondary traumatic stress.Conclusions:Oncology social workers are in a prime position to take a leadership role in instituting such interventions in urban hospitals.

Rendering sexism invisible in workplace narratives. A narrative analysis of female entrepreneurs’ stories of not being talked to by men

Entrepreneurism is widely regarded as being one way in which women can sidestep the sexism of male‐dominated institutionalized work environments and enter into a world in which men and women operate on a level playing field. Yet, in a corpus of stories of female entrepreneurs’ experiences, we noted that being ignored by men was a constant theme. Taking a social constructionist and narrative approach to identity, we analyse the gendered identity work that female entrepreneurs do in these stories and we seek to explicate the process through which female entrepreneurs do not evaluate being ignored by men as sexism‐in‐action. Using positioning theory as an analytical tool, we analyse these stories at three different levels: the here‐and‐now interaction between interviewer and storyteller; the there‐and‐then identity work of the characters in the storyworld; and the wider societal Discourses that the storytellers enact, and which are enacted by such identity work. Findings indicate that despite making gendered difference, inferiority and lack of agency relevant, the stories are not evaluated as sexism‐in‐action because the female entrepreneurs enact a postfeminist and neoliberal Discourse of freedom, autonomy and choice, rather than a feminist Discourse of discrimination and sexism.

Translingual practice in L2 Japanese: workplace narratives

ABSTRACTTranslingual practice is an emergent theoretical perspective which emphasizes the capacity and disposition for meaning-making across linguistic boundaries. Following on studies of globalized workplaces that have focused on lingua franca English, this article explores translingual practice as represented in interview and blog narratives recounted by multilingual, multiethnic young adults hired by Japanese schools and companies for their English proficiency. In these metapragmatic narratives of interactions with supervisors and coworkers, participants portray themselves surmounting communicative challenges through investment in L2 Japanese, and especially through pragmatic accommodation to local norms. In this way, they avoid maintaining widespread ideologies that delegitimize Japanese L2 speakers.

“Man, Have I Got a Story for You”

Despite the potential value of narratives to inform and change workplace culture and practice, many stories from individuals at the margins of organizations often go untold or unheard. Based on a methodological framework of existing narrative approaches—autoethnography, guided autobiography, and narrative inquiry—we present in this article a new, emerging methodology: facilitated autoethnography (FAE). We suggest that FAE has the potential to offer human resource development (HRD) scholars and practitioners a new approach for exploring, collecting, and disseminating workplace narratives to a broad audience. The article concludes with a discussion of the emerging methodology and potential implications for its application in the field of HRD.

Reorganising hospitals to implement a patient-centered model of care: Effects on clinical practice and professional relationships in the Italian NHS.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the introduction of a patient-centered model (PCM) in Italian hospitals affects the pre-existent configuration of clinical work and interacts with established intra/inter-professional relationships. Qualitative multi-phase study based on three main sources: health policy analysis, an exploratory interview study with senior managers of eight Italian hospitals implementing the PCM, and an in-depth case study that involved managerial and clinical staff of one Italian hospital implementing the PCM. The introduction of the PCM challenges clinical work and professional relationships, but such challenges are interpreted differently by the organisational actors involved, thus giving rise to two different "narratives of change". The "political narrative" (the views conveyed by formal policies and senior managers) focuses on the power shifts and conflict between nurses and doctors, while the "workplace narrative" (the experiences of frontline clinicians) emphasises the problems linked to the disruption of previous discipline-based inter-professional groups. Medical disciplines, rather than professional groupings, are the main source of identification of doctors and nurses, and represent a crucial aspect of clinicians' professional identity. Although the need for collaboration among medical disciplines is acknowledged, creating multi-disciplinary groups in practice requires the sustaining of new aggregators and binding forces. This study suggests further acknowledgment of the inherent complexity of the political and workplace narratives of change rather than interpreting them as the signal of irreconcilable perspectives between managers and clinicians. By addressing the specific issues regarding which the political and workplace narratives clash, relationship of trust may be developed through which problems can be identified, mutually acknowledged, articulated, and solved.

Positioning oneself in relation to larger collectivities in expatriates’ workplace narratives

This article aims to explore narratives as sites for identity construction by employing the concept of positioning to analyse some of the discursive processes through which identity construction is accomplished in institutional contexts. Our specific foci are i) the ways in which individuals position themselves in relation to larger collectivities in their narratives about being expatriates living and working in Hong Kong, and ii) how they construct their professional identities in the tension that may arise due to their membership in different social groups. Drawing on data from a corpus of interviews with professionals in multicultural workplaces in Hong Kong, we provide an in-depth analysis of two case studies of expatriates who take very different stances towards their company and the cultural groups with whom they interact, and who, as a consequence, construct remarkably different identities for themselves, the people they work with and also their organisation. Our analyses illustrate some of the intricate ways in which identities are closely intertwined with and feed off individuals’ membership in different collectivities, which surfaces especially when zooming in on the different levels of positioning in the interviewees’ narratives.

Bridging Social Constructionism and Psychoanalysis in a Study of Workplace Emotions in India

This article makes a contribution to the study of emotions in organizations by offering a systematic juxtaposition and cross-fertilization of psychoanalytic and social constructionist approaches. Points of similarity and tension between these two approaches are discussed in connection with two critical case studies of the experiences of Indian women: these were obtained during field work in India in which emotions were studied as they featured in workplace narratives. India offers special opportunities to researchers of workplace emotion; its unique cultural and political legacy demonstrates the benefits of bridging theoretical approaches. A combined use of both social constructionist and psychoanalytic approaches suggests that emotions in Indian workplaces are intricately embedded in both postcolonial politics and in the unique configuration of Indian family and gender dynamics. This joint application of the two perspectives illustrates how emotions at work can be understood more fully through an intricate, sometimes tense, yet ultimately stimulating dialogue.

The need for fresh blood: Understanding organizational age inequality through a vampiric lens

This article argues that older age inequality within and across working life is the result of vampiric forms and structures constitutive of contemporary organizing. Rather than assuming ageism occurs against a backdrop of neutral organizational processes and practices, the article denaturalizes (and in the process super-naturalizes) organizational orientations of ageing through three vampiric aspects: (un)dying, regeneration and neophilia. These dimensions are used to illustrate how workplace narratives and logics normalize and perpetuate the systematic denigration of the ageing organizational subject. Through our analysis it is argued that older workers are positioned as inevitable ‘sacrificial objects’ of the all-consuming immortal organization. To challenge this, the article explicitly draws on the vampire and the vampiric in literature and popular culture to consider the possibility of subverting existing notions of the ‘older worker’ in order to confront and challenge the subtle and persistent monstrous discourses that shape organizational life.

Men of Steel? The Masculinity of Metal Industry Workers in Finland after World War II

This article examines the masculinity of metal workers in the post-WWII era of reparation and radical societal change in Finland. Young men from agrarian communities took on employment in metal industry jobs in droves after WWII. In this paper, metal workers’ masculinity is explored in three areas: (a) the transitional period when young men took their first steps in the shoes of metal workers; (b) defining the personal territory of work; and (c) the men’s physical capacity to bear their strenuous work. The sources we draw on are the metal workers’ work-life stories and workplace narratives in which they write about their personal experiences of work and their attitude about the trade. According to our analyses, metal workers’ culture was a double-edged sword. Male workers respected the skills, strength, and autonomy of their trade, but the work in itself and the habits and informal norms of the masculine industrial culture were often harmful to their health. Hence, although the masculinity of the post-war industrial era helped these men to overcome daily difficulties and to find collective strength when needed, masculinity was also connected to risk-taking, and even with illnesses and premature death.

Moral stance in the workplace narratives of novices

Recent work on workplace narratives as a site for the discursive construction of professional identities has focused on speakers who can be considered experienced and knowledgeable experts in their fields (e.g. university professors, business managers). The present study, in contrast, explores two types of workplace narratives — reflective and relational narratives — produced by a group of professionals who are non-experts: in this case, novice language teachers. Specifically, the article illustrates how the moral stance that a novice constructs within a narrative may be formulated in uncertain terms, may be destabilized by the primary narrator, or may be subject to revision by other participants. Finally, the study highlights the relationship between the narrative dimensions of moral stance and tellership, and suggests that participant structure, participants' role relationships, and institutional power asymmetry are especially relevant factors to consider in any further analyses of novices' workplace narratives.

“Let Me Tell You About My Job”: Exploring the Terrain of Emotion in the Workplace

Because of the rapid growth in literature on emotion and communication in organizations and the many disciplinary homes of this work, scholars use many conceptualizations of emotion in the workplace. In this article, the authors map the terrain of emotion and communication in the workplace. They first review extant literature and argue for five types of organizational emotion: emotional labor (inauthentic emotion in interaction with customers and clients), emotional work (authentic emotion in interaction customers and clients), emotion with work (emotion stemming from interaction with coworkers), emotion at work (emotion from nonwork sources experienced in the work-place), and emotion toward work (emotions in which work is the target of the feeling). They then explore these types of emotion through an analysis of workplace narratives from the books Working (Terkel, 1972) and Gig (Bowe, Bowe, & Streeter, 2000). Themes that characterize workplace emotion are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.

Story-telling at work: a complex discursive resource for integrating personal, professional and social identities

Workplace narratives are one means of satisfying the complex demands of identity construction at work. Following reference to the relevant literature, this article discusses the range of narratives identified in our extensive New Zealand corpus of workplace interactions, distinguishing between more socially-oriented ‘workplace anecdotes’, and more transactionally-oriented ‘working stories’. While both orientations are often relevant, the distinction is useful in examining how different types of narratives function in the construction of diverse facets of an individual's identity. In the final section, one particular workplace narrative illustrates the complexities involved in accomplishing a narrative in a formal meeting, and the analysis explores how two members of a senior management team use the narrative to negotiate contrasting aspects of their professional and social workplace identities.

Workplace narratives and business reports: Issues of definition

In the wake of Labov's seminal work in the late 1960s, sociolinguistic research on narrative typically focused a good deal of attention on narrative form, defining narratives predominantly by their structural features. More recently, however, sociolinguists have begun to take account of the functions of narratives in a range of different social contexts, including formal and informal interactions, in public and private settings (e.g., Dyer and Keller-Cohen 2000; He 1996; Holmes 1997a; Lakoff 2001; Schiffrin 1996). In this article, we extend the range of such settings to the institutional context of the workplace. Using data from the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project, this paper highlights the sociable function of workplace anecdotes, contrasting them with more institutionally rated talk, such as business reports. Information on the distribution of workplace anecdotes in different New Zealand workplaces is provided, and discussed in relation to the notion of contrasting workplace cultures.