WELCOME TO MODULE 7: PLOT ANALYSIS
Title of this web page -->Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research
by David M. Boje, Ph.D.
Purpose: a web resource library of qualitative materials, exercises, and study guides to supplement the (2001) book titled Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research. London: Sage Publications. See Amazon to order book and/or read book review.
Each module on this web site will
tackle a different analysis in Narrative Analysis for
Management and Communication Research (hereafter NA). Then we
situate that analysis in its philosophy of science context - (press
here) for summary table.
Readings Index & Abbreviations Explained (All Modules)
- NA Narrative Analysis for Management and Communication Research (book) by Boje (2001) the modules that follow are keyed to the chapters of this book.
- HQR: Handbook of Qualitative Research by Denzin & Lincoln (can buy the soft cover books; excellent book for background on methods and qualitative philosophies of science).
- ES: Ethnostatistics by Gephart (this book transcends all false dichotomies of qualitative and quantitative).
- WC: Writing Culture by Clifford & Marcus (optional good for intermediate).
- PO: Participant Observation by Spradley (optional good for beginners).
- GC: Greening Culture by Herndl & Brown (optional great for very advanced QM writing).
- FG: Focus Group text by Krueger (required for Marketing, optional for others).
 | NA Chapter 7 - plot analysis (emplotment) |
MODULE 7 PLOT ANALYSIS (Continued) - there is a floating menu on your left that takes you between modules or to the top of this one.
Assignment Options
Assignment Option 1: Review Boje (1991) Office Supply Article and relate it to supply chain management. (Press here) for (Boje, 1999) Chaos and Complexity in Supply Chain Transorganizational Development Networking. Relate narratives by customers, vendors, and executives to theory of emplotment.Assignment Option 2: Do some investigative interviewing. Tape and transcribe one more interview. Explore the history of a unit or organization. Ask for a chronology of events and see what emplotments emerge. Do an analysis of the plots you find being narrated. Ideally, you will see a hybrid of plots (but not always).
Assignment Option 3: You will be given a qualitative article for review. Use the criteria for Academy of Management Journal, fill out the scaled ratings, and write up a review with constructive feedback to improve the article. Then do an analysis of the plots of that article.
Organization and capitalism narratives and stories can be analyzed for plot. A narrow definition of plot is the chaining of cause and effect or stimulus and response into a pattern/structure/arrangement/network. A more comprehensive definition of plot is not just a chronology of events; it is the causal chain that links events together into a narrative structure. But to get beyond these simple definitions of plot we have to move from plot to "emplotment."
Paul Ricoeur (1984) is a major figure in applying hermeneutics to plot and takes plot to a mroe rigorous level of definition. For Ricoeur "emplotment" is the mediating stage of a three stage model of three memetics. In the first mimetic, we look to the pre-understanding of networks of actioin, symbolism, and narrative time that are requried to be able to employ. Second is the mimesis of emplotment, the grasping together of selected events, characters, and actions into a plot. Third is the ifnal stage of memesis that reconnects the parts to the whole. The three mimetic stages for Ricoeur form a bridge between Augustine (three-fold present of time) and Aristotle (model of tragic, comedic, romantic, and ironic plots). Ricoeur relies on hermeneutics and a bit of Heidegger to pull together his approach to plot analysis. In the field of organiztion studies you see application of the hermeneutic circle (for Ricoeur it is the circle or spiral of the three memetic moments) in several articles. For example Tojo Thatchenkery (1992) applies the hermeneutic circle to organizational change, and Barry and Elmes (1997) have applied the concept of narrative plot to organizational strategy.
"Accordingly, a narrative approach can make the political economies of strategy more misible (cf. boje, 1996): "Who gets to write and read strategy? How are reading and writing linked to power? Who is marginalized in the writing/reading process?" (Barry & Elmes, 1997: 430).Ricoeur (1984) like Kristeva (see intertextuality sections above) brings the readers and writers of narrative plot together. To think of organiztional change and strategy implementation as part of the writing and reading of an organizational plot is a recent step being taken in organiztional studies. The value of looking to Ricoeur and to hermeneutics is that it puts the process of writing and reading plot into a dynamic and poly-voiced context. "An stoy the strategist tells is but one of many competing alternatives woven from a vast array of possible characterizations, plot lines, and themes" (Barry & Elmes, 1997: 433). Boje (1991) looks at how executives, customers, and vendors use narrative devices (i.e. terse tellings, filling in the story blanks, glossing). And the storytelling about strategy and change bridges what Ricour calls the first and second stages of memeis.
An example of Emplotment - In the office supply study (1991), I looked at how collective acts of storytelling brought about a patterning of experiences - e.g. pattern is no longer financially sound, or ethical, or it is still going on, etc. For example "The CEO and several vice presidents participante in a strategic planning session during which Harmon asks q question to which Doug [the CEO] reconstructs a story line (341-3) and then once again invits Sam to gloss one aspect of the story (338-9) {numbers refer to lines in the story below (See Boje, 1991: 117-118)
S4: Printing Was Different Story
Harmon: But is that the most effective
way
335
to do it? Do they hit the same
places? 336
Doug: Historically, in
reading a
little
337
bit of the history and may
Sam
338
can help us out here. The
printing
339
business that we were wrting
was
340
significant at one time and when
the
341
folks left for Epsilon they took
that
342
business with them and now we're going 343
through a whole retraining
process
344
Sam: Well that could be
so I
mean
345
printing again falls with
the
346
salesmen. A lot of the salesmen
will
347
not sell printing because they
are
348
afraid that the printing
department,
349
as int the past, has fouled
up
350
Kora: Vickie has been
wonderful
351
Sam: Yes I think Vickie
has
been
352
wonderful. It is a matter
of
353
confidence in whoever it is
there.
354
Ruth: And I think
training comes in
here
355
Jim:
When I was in sales I would what
I
356
understood. If I didn't understand
**** 360
Storytelling then is a way of drawing parallels between various patterns of experience or what Ricoeur calls "networks of action" in mimesis1. How people come together to make sense of context in storytelling brings us into the hermeneutic circle that bridges three mimetic moments (See Boje, 2000 Chapter on Plot in Narrative Analysis).
Mimesis1 -
| Plots are constructed from pre-understandings of (1) networks of action, (2) symbolic mediations, and (3) temporal narration (Ricoeur, 1984: 54-64). "To imitate or represent action is to preunderstand what human acting is, in its semantics, its symbolic system, its temporality" (Ricoeur, 1984: 64). Plot in this first mimesis is defined as the ordering of action events, symbolism, and temporality. |
Mimesis2 -
| Ricoeur prefers the word "emplotment" to "plot" for this stage of mimesis. Emplotment here is the "grasping together" of the stuff (events, factors & time episodes) of narrative configuration and the mediation between the earlier and latter stages of mimesis. Emplotment is constructed out of this pre-understanding of networks of actions, symbolic mediation, and being-within-time and a postunderstanding. There are three mediations of emplotment. |
Mimesis3 -
| Ricoeur (1984: 700) says narrative "has its full meaning when it is restored to the time of action and of suffering in mimesis3." In this third representative stage H. G. Gadamer's hermeneutics of "application" the triadic cycle of meaning is fulfilled in the three-dimensional intersection (or intertextuality) of text and reader and real action. |
What is the plot or emplotment at Goldco? - For Barry and Elmes (1997: 437) plotlines of organiztions are rmantic Heor's journeys. The heor of the company (usually its CEO) confrongs the enemies, overcomes the obstacles, and pulls together the company so it emerges victorious (p. 437). For example strategies using SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, & threats) analyses. The "opportunities" is the "call" in Cambell's epic Hero's Journey, the romantic call to adventure where strengths are marshalled to overcome and transform weaknesses. In Goldco there was a romantic "fall from grace" stemming from the excesses of past CEO's, a situation the currend CEO (Doug) sought to remedy. One CEO it is said "abscounded with some of the corporate assets, and during that episode seven of the "most hungry" and "agressive" sales people had jumped ship to the major competitor, another office supply firm, called "Epsilon." With the pending trade of Goldco to another conglomerate, there would be the enivitable "blood letting" and downsizing and tightening of the compensation perks to sales people. The Hero would have to slim down to look appealing to its buyers and perhaps the CEO could save the firm from disaster. As Barry and Elmes (1997: 438) point out there is an important interplay between the text that is being con-constructed in acts of narration, the authors of that texts (and intertext) and the readers who recieve it and make sense of it (and in the process alter it yet again). As part of the process of interpreting text, the CEO and VPs gazed the tapes of focus groups I ran with customers and with vendors. Tehy attempted to make sense of the stories they saw and heard as well as the trasncripts of those focus grupos. And as part of the impending "blood letting" the CEO and VPs and a few managers met with consultants (of which I was one) to review the Boston Consulting Model and identify the dog, star, cash cow, and question mark subunits, the ones to keep and to liquidate. And in this process we return again to Ricoeur's first mimesis, the symbolic mediations (i.e. those strange BCG labels). The change in symbols is a way to "defamiliarize" and to signal a change in the ongoing organiztional storyline (p. 438-0).
Besides the romanticst plot there is osme technofuturist material in my transcripts, some talk about advanced information systems, installed in customer sites to allow direct orders without caling through to sales assistants. But, such technology requires lots of customer trianing and a shift in the face-to-face relation between sales people making huge commissions and customers wanting personal service. Barry and Elmes (1997: 440) reading is that as an organiztion shifts from heor's journey (SWOT) strategies to technofuturists genres, there is a shift as well in the narratives from stories of authority and hierarchy among the supply chain stakeholders (in my example) to a nore technofuturist narraitve with a positivist orientation. In my case example, both these genres were happening. And I can see the "purist narrative" genre in the transcripts as well, the long discussions of being a "soct leader" "defeder: and engaging in acts of "differentiation" with respect to office supply competitors. And there were the "wanderer" strategies emplyed by the company founder and a few of its more enterprising succeeding CEO's, the adding of this branch office or that unit of operation, to "bet the future" on some chance shift in the environment.
As Barry and Elemes (197: 442) put the model forward, we are talking here of a "Tamara" organization, a move away from "individualist, mnological" organizations driven by one emplotment. rAther as in "Tamara" (Boje, 1995) there are competing and rapidly changing strategic and change discourses, there are parallel storytellines. Goldco is a case example of polyphonic strategies, of bits and pieces of strategie and polyphonic strategy-making. No single plot, emplotment, or storyline unfolded in this supply chain network. Tracing polyphonic strategic narratives is a matter of listening to many strategy autors and readers and paying attention to the dialogic relationship between pre-understandings of networks of action, symbolism, and temporality (e.g. three fold present), the employtemtns, and the relations of parts to the whole. In short the three moments of mimesis modeled by Ricoeur.
Readings (*=Required)
| *NA: Plot Analysis Chapter 6 |
| *Ricoeur 1984 Time and Narrative Volume One. Rans by Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Please read chapter 3 "Time and narrative: Threefold Mimesis. pp. 52-90. |
|
*HANDOUT: Boje, 1991. "The Storytelling Organization: A Study of Sotry Performance in an Office-Supply Firm." Administrative Science Quarterly. 36: 106-126. |
| *HANDOUT: Thatchenkery. Organizations as "texts": Hermeneutics as a model for understanding organizational change. 1992. |
 | What is Hermeneutics? Hermeneutic study (says Thatchenkery: 200) emerged as a discipline devoted to establishing guidelines for ... Biblical scripture....and in organiztional contexts is ideally suited for interpreting "organizational texts." there is a critique of Kant's"Phenomenology of Mind: by Gadamer and others. "In summary, hermeneutics makes the point that language and history are always both conditions and limits of our understanding." |
| What is Fusion of Horizon? The horizon of meaning of the cultural setting in which the author writes and the reader reads. This horizon takes in both idology and history since conceptual schemes or models or theoris change over time. See Gadamer. |
| What is the Hermeneutic Cirlce? (p. 219). Inquiry moves between the whole, the parts, and back again (see Ricour's 3 mimetic moments above). There is a dialectic relation betwen parts and the whole and comprehension and explanation. "This is so because every understanding must be based on some pre-understanding of the concepts used to express meaning" (p. 220). |
| *Barry, David & Michael Elmes 1997 "Strategy retold: Toward a narrative view of strategic discourse." Academy of Management Review, 22(2) 429-452. (press here) for on line copy. Question: Waht are the types of plots and how do they relate to popular models of strategy? |
| Boje (1999) Chaos and Complexity in Supply Chain Transorganizational Development Networking. (Press here) Relate narratives by customers, vendors, and executives to Ricoeur's (1984) theory of emplotment. |
| Understand model of Storytelling Organization (press here). |
| StoryTelling Organization (STO) Gameboard - (press here) for intro to STO. |
| Transorg Development Gameboard - (press here) for more advanced treatment of STO. |
| *Paul Ricoeur Interpretation Theory (press here). Good crisp outline of Ricoeur and hermeneutics and hermeneutic circle. |
 | More Advanced- The Hermeneutic Arc: Ricoeur's Theory of Interpretation (press here). |
| hermeneutics |
| NOTE: Refer to Hermeneutics Chart (http://business.nmsu.edu/mgt/handout/boje/hermen/index.html) on page one of syllabus. |
| Hermeneutics: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Tradition 1996 by Nick Szabo (press here). |
| Hermeneutics info/Hermeneutics Overview: from Rationalism (Descartes) Empiricism (Hume (to Deconstruction (Derrida) Kuhn's work on logical positivism, and Postmodern http://www.friesian.com/hermenut.htm |
| Another good overview by Hyde http://ccmail.sunysb.edu/philosophy/Faculty/papers/Expherm.htm |
| Heidegger's Ontological Hermeneutics http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/papers/1986-ai-memo-871/subsection3_4_1.html |
| Gadamer's hermeneutics http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/papers/1986-ai-memo-871/subsection3_4_2.html |
| Critical Hermenutics (Gadamer and Heidegger) and Habermas-Gadamer Debate http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/papers/1986-ai-memo-871/section3_5.html |
| Richard Rorty and Jürgen Habermas positions on Hermeneutics from Christian perspective http://capo.org/premise/95/sep/p950808.html |
| Kuhn and Hermeneutics http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/jcma/papers/1986-ai-memo-871/subsection3_7_2.html |
- The Hermeneutics of Transcript Analysis by Joyce G. Love http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/BackIssues/QR2-1/love.html
with his ruse document http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2.html
| FOR OM and MIS Majors |
| Ellram, Lisa M. 1996 "The use of the case study method in logistics research." Journal of Business Logistics. Vol 17(2): 93-138). |
