New development: Macroeconomic fables

Abstract

This article uses a structural narratology approach to define four archetypal fables concerning managers and organizations, based on whether the narrative involves growth or decline for the protagonist and growth or decline for the organization which the protagonist leads. This approach is applied to three cases: a celebratory-political narrative about the Conservative Party of Canada's victory in the 2011 federal election; Charles Ferguson's Academy Award-winning documentary ‘Inside Job’ about the 2008 financial meltdown; and the ideological-polemical narratives of the Democratic and Republican parties in the United States. The article concludes that narrative analysis helps us understand the structure of these stories and helps us examine and question the assumptions about economic causation that they incorporate.

Keywords:

• Fable
• heroic
• ironic
• narrative
• recession

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sandford Borins

Sandford Borins is a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto and a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. His website is www.sandfordborins.com