Storytelling in the creation and maintenance of organizational tension and stratification

Abstract

This qualitative field study describes the organizational storytelling in naturally occurring contexts at a harness racetrack. It explores how three organizational tensions—administration vs. horsemen, “chemists” vs. honest horsemen, and men vs. women—are produced and reproduced through storytelling. The author argues that storytelling creates and sustains symbolic oppositions that enable members to position themselves and others in the organization. Thus storytelling serves to stratify the organization along lines of power and authority, gender, and ethics.