Storytelling can be defined as the “intra-play of dominant narratives … with ontological webs of lower level living stories that provide sense making currency for stakeholders” (Haley & Boje, 2014, p. 1116). Storytelling can be leveraged beyond marketing and communication. For example, storytelling is extremely powerful as a strategic management tool. Storytelling is also very effective in supporting organizational change management, facilitating internationalization and addressing sustainability. Storytelling, as a strategic tool, can facilitate various types of change processes, attract and help manage various kinds of external resources, and play an active role in driving collective agency and identification for social and political issues. This session is a discussion with two expert storytellers.
Key takeaways:
- Is storytelling a dying art in international business education in a post-truth world of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and misinformation?
- In a world of “infotainment” and the 15-second attention span, do all educators need to be master storytellers? You may also be a fictional writer, but not all of us are. What advice and tips would we give to IB educators who want to leverage storytelling in their teaching and even research?
- New Zealand punches well about its weight in the world, from Jacinda Ardern to Taika Waititi, to Sir Peter Jackson and Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith. What role does storytelling play in that success? Do all countries have storytelling agencies? What prompted New Zealand to lean so heavily into storytelling
Thursday May 25th, 2023
3:00 - 4:00 PM EST
Speakers:
Mr. David Downs
Mr. David Downs is the CEO of the New Zealand Story Group - the national storytelling meta-agency of New Zealand that has helped managed the brand that is "New Zealand" in overseas markets and cast a powerful Kiwi halo in tourism, exports, and political leadership around the world.
Professor Fiona Moore
Professor Fiona Moore is a professor of business anthropology at Royal Holloway, University of London. She is a master storyteller and the author of the hugely successful book Management Lessons from Game of Thrones: Organization Theory and Strategy in Westeros, (Edward Elgar, 2022).
Moderator:
Matt Raskovic
Matt Raskovic is an Associate Professor of international business & strategy at the Auckland University of Technology in Aotearoa New Zealand. He serves as Vice-President Administration at the Academy of International Business (AIB). Matt is also a visiting professor at Zhejiang University School of Management in China and at the School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Prior to moving to New Zealand in 2018, Matt was a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University, FAS Sociology and an Assistant Professor of international business at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia.
Matt is an award winning teacher, who incorporates storytelling in his learning and teaching. He has worked with the Northeast Asia Centre of Asia Pacific Excellence in New Zealand on storytelling for export in East Asia, and has as well collaborated with the New Zealand Story Group, New Zealand’s national storytelling meta-agency.