Antenarratives in ongoing strategic change

using the story index to capture daunting and optimistic futures

Tommi P. Auvinen

Pasi Sajasalo

Teppo Sintonen

Tuomo Takala

Marko Järvenpää

pp. 133-151

in: Hannes Kramer, Matthias Wenzel (eds), How organizations manage the future, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Abstract

Strategic organizational change is a complex, future-oriented phenomenon that is critical for any organization. Traditional means of inquiry have struggled with the difficulty of capturing the future; thus, the methods for managing things to come remain scarce. In this chapter, we contribute to managing strategic change, and thereby the future of the organization, by developing the Story Index (SIX) method. The method facilitates a better understanding of how organizational change takes shape in the discursive reality before materializing in concrete terms. SIX is an analytical process combining antenarratives and narrative rationality to reveal the emerging meanings and rationales of change at different organizational levels resonating positively or negatively with the future.