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This book challenges the widely-held belief that popular narratives about business are invariably critical. It develops a more nuanced analytic model of private sector narrative and applies it to 63 recent narrative texts (movies, histories, biographies) produced in the US dealing with three major industries: information technology, automobile manufacturing, and financial trading. It identifies recurring patterns to compare sectors and to analyze their implications. Negotiating Business Narratives appeals to academics and practitioners interested in business and society, strategic management, and contemporary literature and films about business.
List of contents
1 Conceptual Framework and Methodology.- 2 Insanely Great: The Dominant IT Fable.- 3 Cults of Personality: Fables of the Automobile Industry.- 4 "A Good Dose of Outrage": Financial Trading Fables.- 5 Conclusion: Narrative Templates and Social Negotiations.
Summary
Engages with an important aspect of contemporary culture (movies, novels, biographies, histories about business) in a thoughtful, rigorous, and accessible way
Demonstrates that how we as a society think about business is strongly influenced by the way it is represented in these texts, and that this influences key personal influences
Examines texts’ influence on social discourse and the circulation and reproduction within popular culture of the narrative structures they instantiate
Additional text
“My read of this short text (78 pages) is that the authors have most certainly been successful on the first front and have taken the field another valuable step toward the second. … this book has much to recommend. Analyzing popular culture narratives, this research effectively describes the narratives of three business industries. It does this quite well.” (Michael D. Jones, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, December, 10, 2018)
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"My read of this short text (78 pages) is that the authors have most certainly been successful on the first front and have taken the field another valuable step toward the second. ... this book has much to recommend. Analyzing popular culture narratives, this research effectively describes the narratives of three business industries. It does this quite well." (Michael D. Jones, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, December, 10, 2018)
