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The Aesthetics of Management Storytelling

A Key to Organizational Learning

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, SST{at}alum.mit.edu

Dalmar Fisher

Boston College, USA, fisher{at}bc.edu

Ronald L. Dufresne

Boston College, USA, dufresnr{at}bc.edu

An aesthetics perspective on storytelling contributes to an understanding of how and why some stories are more effective than others. Three ideas about the nature of aesthetic experience—that it is (1) felt meaning from abductive reasoning, (2) characterized by feelings of connectedness, and (3) enjoyed for its own sake-supply criteria for identifying story quality and suggest how to make stories more effective. This idea of good and bad stories informs every aspect of management storytelling, which we illustrate by reviewing the functions of management storytelling using Mintzberg's taxonomy of the roles of the manager Furthermore, through Mintzberg's taxonomy, we show the contributions of aesthetically strong management stories to organizational learning.

Key Words: aesthetics • management roles • organizational learning • stories • storytelling

Management Learning, Vol. 33, No. 3, 313-330 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/1350507602333002


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