essential-guide-to-qualitative-in-organizational-research

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– STORIES IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH––––––––– 119PROCESSINGThe interviews were then transcribed from tapes yielding 404 organizational stories, of which159 involved computers. The stories were analysed with the help of a special version of acomputer database package, Cardbox-Plus. 3 Each story was entered on a separate record withseveral distinct fields as in Table 10.1.The software permits the selection of stories sharing specific qualities, or having particularwords in common. For example, it instantly retrieves all stories which involve a disparagingcomment about one’s supervisor, or all comic stories involving computers or animals.FINDINGS ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––Density of folkloreThe number and quality of stories drawn from different organizations varies enormously. Forexample, 24 interviews at the manufacturing firm yielded 138 stories, whereas the samenumber of interviews at the research and publishing organization yielded a mere 48. Thisvariation was not a product of the methodology but reflects, at least in part, the vitality andstrength of folklore in different organizations. The research and publishing organization hadan ethos of factual precision and accountability which seemed to inhibit the making ofunsubstantiated claims and the spinning of elaborate stories. By contrast, the manufacturingcompany had many older participants who had known and worked with each other for anumber of years and related many stories.Types of storiesThe classification of stories into different types of narratives was the hardest part of theprocessing. 4 Some stories instantly fell into a well-established type, such as comic or epic, orwere hybrids of two or more types (for example, comic-tragic); yet, some were not easilyclassifiable in spite of several iterations. Several things eventually became clear. First, the same‘events’ may feed different types of story. One particular event, involving the accidentalexplosion of a fire extinguisher gave rise to an epic, a comic and a tragic narrative (Gabriel,2000). Second, certain narratives described events purely as facts, devoid of emotional orsymbolic content. Such narratives were identified as ‘reports’ rather than ‘stories’, followinga long-standing Aristotelean distinction. 5A third classification issue arose in connection with certain terse narratives with either avery thin plot or uncommitted emotional content; under certain conditions of repetition andembellishment these could yield fully fledged stories. Such narratives were classified as ‘protostories’.There were 119 proto-stories among the 404 narratives in the database, thecommonest of any type.What then are the main story types and what are their principal qualities? The followingclassification is not exhaustive, although it covers the great majority of stories collected.COMIC STORIESThese, as identified by Aristotle, involved ‘deserved misfortune’. Their emotional qualitiesencompass amusement and mirth but also disparagement. The majority of these stories had