Paper info

Managerial Storytelling: How We Write Up Managerial and Academic Stories in B2B: Case Study Research

Antti Sihvonen, Giuseppo Pedeliento, Henrikki Tikkanen, Jari Salo , Joel Hietanen , Pekka Mattila and Petri Parvinen

The paper was published at the 27th IMP-conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2011.

Abstract
This study reintroduces the debate around the generally accepted qualitative research
approaches in the B2B literature by focusing in case studies and the nature of knowledge that
can be accessed through managerial interviews. In this paradigm, the researchers have
commonly adopted approaches to both the interview process and the analysis and reporting of
research findings that generally assume the veracity and factuality of the interview data. We
question these assumptions through empirical evidence collected in unconventional interview
settings. This study displays the situational, ephemeral and ultimately unstable nature of
managerial 'truths' imparted in the interviews. We argue that the data should be viewed as
stories and their reporting is a form of storytelling. Adopting a constructionist ontology and
interpretivist epistemology accompanied by in-depth ethnographic fieldwork and
methodological pluralism is suggested for the creation of new compelling and interesting
research. The nature of realist knowledge and truth claims in academic B2B discourses is
thus reconsidered by offering new perspectives that endorse findings conceptualized as
compelling stories of pragmatic academic and managerial value.
Keywords: stories, storytelling, interpretivism, case studies