How to read interpretive accounts of organizational life: Narrative bases of textual authority

Abstract

Recently our discipline has given much attention to the “interpretive approach” to the study of organizational communication. Although much discussion of this approach has focused on theoretical and methodological issues, that evaluating interpretive research remains problematic has become increasingly clear. In this paper, we propose a schema for categorizing interpretive research based on current narrative theory. We examine authorial stance, authorial status, and author‐audience contact in four contemporary interpretive accounts of organizational life. We are not attempting to provide specific evaluative criteria for interpretive research in organizational communication; rather, the purpose of the analysis is to illuminate a framework within which evaluation may profitably occur. One result of our analysis is to show that, since interpretive research is productively “polyphonic,” no single set of evaluative criteria can be applied to all interpretive research.