A universe of stories: Mobilizing narrative practices during transformative change

• Author: Giada Di Stefano,Elena Dalpiaz
• Date: 01 March 2018
• Published date: 01 March 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2730

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

A universe of stories: Mobilizing narrative practices

during transformative change

Elena Dalpiaz

1

| Giada Di Stefano

2

1

Imperial College Business School, Imperial

College London, London, U.K.

2

Department of Strategy and Business Policy,

HEC Paris, Jouy-en-Josas, France

Correspondence

Giada Di Stefano, Department of Strategy and

Business Policy, HEC Paris, Jouy-en-Josas,

France.

Email: di-stefano@hec.fr

Research Summary: Constructing narratives of transfor-

mative change is an important but challenging practice

through which strategy-makers attempt to influence

acceptance of an ongoing transformation. To understand

whether and how strategy-makers can construct a steady

influx of captivating narratives of transformative change,

we analyzed how one noted strategy-maker assisted the

successful transformation of his organization over three

decades by orchestrating the production of change narra-

tives. Our analysis reveals that the strategy-maker con-

structed and reconstructed meanings of change over time

using three sets of distinct but interconnected narrative

practices. We develop a dynamic model linking the

simultaneous mobilization of these practices to strategy-

makers’ability to harness the persistent tension between

novelty and familiarity in a transformative change, and

thereby, win endorsement from key audiences.

Managerial Summary: How can storytelling be used to

influence acceptance of an ongoing organizational trans-

formation? In this article, we try to answer this question

by examining how, over three decades, Italian company

Alessi documented its transformation from a manufac-

turer of kitchen steel utensils to a producer of a variety of

household objects purchased also for their symbolic

value. The leader behind Alessi’s transformation, Alberto

Alessi, orchestrated such storytelling effort, targeting

employees, customers, retailers, and visitors to Alessi

exhibitions. Our findings uncover how stories can be

used to win audiences’endorsement of change through

narrative practices aimed at: (a) constructing a collective

memory of change, (b) depicting change as a novel but

coherent departure from the past, and (c) portraying

change as a transcendent endeavor.

Received: 28 August 2015 Revised: 18 September 2017 Accepted: 24 September 2017 Published on: 14 December 2017

DOI: 10.1002/smj.2730

664 Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/smj Strat Mgmt J. 2018;39:664–696.

KEYWORDS

narrative, reflection, storytelling, strategic change,

strategy-as-practice

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”—Muriel Rukeyser

1|INTRODUCTION

Recent years have witnessed an increasing interest in understanding the practice of strategy, meaning

“what actually takes place in strategy formulation, planning, and implementation and other activities

that deal with the thinking and doing of strategy”(Golsorkhi, Rouleau, Seidl, & Vaara, 2015, p. 1).

Within this domain (Jarzabkowski, Balogun, & Seidl, 2007; Vaara & Whittington, 2012; Whittington,

1996, 2006), a vibrant debate has focusedon the construction of narratives as a crucial practice through

which strategy-makers influence audiences’acceptance of strategic change (e.g., Brown & Thompson,

2013; Fenton & Langley, 2011; Küpers, Mantere, & Statler, 2013; Vaara,Sonenshein, & Boje, 2016).

Organizational narratives are stories composed to arrange organizational events and actions tem-

porally (Boje, 2008) and meaningfully (Polkinghorne, 1988) around specific themes (Barry &

Elmes, 1997).

1

In particular, narratives are temporal representations of events that construe the past

and present, and envision the future (Czarniawska, 2004). As a result, the construction of narratives

is well suited for influencing the interpretation of a process like strategic change, which is inherently

temporal (Van de Ven & Poole, 1995) and characterized by an intense negotiation of meanings

(Sonenshein, 2010), with the aim of establishing a new reality in the minds of relevant audiences

(Dunford & Jones, 2000). This is particularly true when strategic change is transformative—that is,

when it is characterized by “constant, evolving, and cumulative”changes (Weick & Quinn, 1999,

p. 366) that lead to a radical organizational transformation over years (e.g., Brown & Eisenhardt,

1997; Girod & Whittington, 2015).

To effectively influence how audiences perceive transformative change, narratives must capti-

vate attention by balancing the presentation of novel and familiar events (Barry & Elmes, 1997).

This is a formidable task for a number of reasons. First, asserting novelty and familiarity simulta-

neously poses a dilemma since these are contradictory but interdependent elements of change

(Farjoun, 2010; Sonenshein, 2010), and emphasizing one element over the other has clear advan-

tages and disadvantages (Smith & Lewis, 2011). On the one hand, presenting events as overly novel

may increase audiences’interest, but decrease the story’s perceived credibility (Barry & Elmes,

1997), thus increasing audiences’resistance to change (Lewin, 1951). On the other hand, presenting

events as overly familiar may increase a story’s perceived credibility while diminishing its ability to

generate the “concern, curiosity, and excitement”(Bartel & Garud, 2009, p. 114) that is necessary

to garner audiences’support for change (Barry & Elmes, 1997; Czarniawska, 1997). Second, the

challenge of managing the novelty-familiarity tension is exacerbated by the nature of transformative

change. A transformation that audiences ultimately perceive as highly novel can trigger resistance;

while a steady and cumulative flow of changes can be perceived as overly familiar and lacking in

significance. Since transformative change may unfold over a long temporal span, the tension

1

Following prior work (Barry & Elmes, 1997; Hardy & Maguire, 2010; Shipp & Jansen, 2011; Sonenshein, 2010), in this article, we

use the terms narrative and story interchangeably.

DALPIAZ AND DI STEFANO 665

between novelty and familiarity must also be managed over time. As narratives have “shelf lives”

(Barry & Elmes, 1997, p. 439) and “become familiar, mundane, and tiresome with time”(1997,

p. 438), strategy-makers must come up with captivating narratives over and over, creating “a steady

influx of new perspectives”(1997, p. 439).

The narrative approach to understanding strategic change has begun to illuminate methods for

addressing the tension between novelty and familiarity, and how these methods may influence the

interpretation of change by key audiences. For example, this work has suggested that putting a posi-

tive spin on events (Sonenshein & Dholakia, 2012), creating ambiguity about the valence of change

(Abdallah & Langley, 2014; Sonenshein, 2010), and leveraging shared cultural values (Dunford &

Jones, 2000; Vaara & Tienari, 2011) can induce favorable interpretations of change. Past work has

also shown that narratives emphasizing novelty at the expense of familiarity may trigger tragic inter-

pretations of the consequences of change among relevant audiences (Brown & Humphreys, 2003).

This research does not, however, make clear how strategy-makers can construct a steady influx of

captivating narratives in the specific context of transformative change. In this case, as we have

argued, the challenge of managing the presentation of novelty and familiarity is exacerbated by the

nature and duration of change. Thus, in this article, we ask whether and how strategy-makers can

construct a steady influx of captivating narratives about a transformative change.

To this end, we conducted a thematic (Bruner, 1991) and narrative (Czarniawska, 1998) analysis

of the content and authorial elements of the narratives produced over three decades at Alessi, an Ital-

ian manufacturing company. These narratives documented Alessi’s transformative change from a

manufacturer of kitchen steel utensils to a producer of a variety of household objects purchased also

for their symbolic value. Alberto Alessi, the strategy-maker and leader of Alessi’s transformation,

orchestrated this narrative production, which covered various topics related to Alessi’s history,

change, and product-related projects. Narratives were distributed to employees, customers, retailers,

and visitors to Alessi exhibitions, and helped employees overcome resistance and support change

(Rindova, Dalpiaz, & Ravasi, 2011).

Our findings show that the strategy-maker attempted to construct and reconstruct meanings of

change over time using three distinct sets of narrative practices. First, the strategy-maker worked to

construct a collective memory of change using three narrative practices for memorializing:

(a) creating a sustained narrative world (serializing), (b) compiling a body of texts essential for the

transformation (anthologizing), and (c) identifying the memory-makers (curating). Second, the

strategy-maker sought to re-interpret Alessi’s past to portray change as a novel but coherent depar-

ture from the past using two narrative practices for revisioning: (a) expanding the significance of

change-related events (refocusing) and (b) retroactively enriching the meanings attributed to past

events (augmenting). Finally, the strategy-maker strived to portray change as a transcendent

endeavor using four narrative practices for sacralizing: (a) elevating the worth of change (enno-

bling), (b) presenting the change leader as a secular prophet (prophet-making), (c) characterizing a

set of organizational artifacts as revered icons of change (iconizing), and (d) denoting the old strat-

egy as unorthodox relative to the new strategy (anathematizing). We theorize how these distinct but

interrelated practices can be used to harness the tension between novelty and familiarity, and how

mobilizing them simultaneously may help win audiences’endorsement of change.

2|THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Organizational narratives are the stories (Barry & Elmes, 1997; Hardy & Maguire, 2010; Shipp &

Jansen, 2011) that organizational actors compose to configure “an initial state of affair, an event or

666 DALPIAZ AND DI STEFANO