Article published in:
Narratives as Social Practice in Organisational Contexts
Edited by Dorien Van De Mieroop, Jonathan Clifton and Stephanie Schnurr
[Narrative Inquiry 32:1] 2022
► pp. 148–172

The moral work of becoming a professional

The interactional practices of storytelling in professional peer mentoring groups

| University of Jyväskylä
| Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT
In contemporary working life, art-based initiatives are increasingly used in organizational training and development. For artists, this has created new employment opportunities as creative entrepreneurs who provide specialist services for workplaces. In this article, we study the dynamics of such encounters through the narrated accounts of training professionals. Our data come from a professional mentoring program where the working pairs of artists and consultants shared stories about their customer projects. By using conversation analysis as a method, we analyze the way stories are interactionally accomplished in peer group sessions of the program. In particular, we analyze how participants produce different versions of the narrated events, and by so doing, negotiate the questions of blame and accountability with regard to professional action. In conclusion, we discuss stories and storytelling as organizational practice through which the moral order and legitimacy of the program is sustained and the boundaries of the profession constructed.
Keywords: artist-developer, professional boundary-work, peer group interaction, reflection, morality, situated storytelling
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Data and method
  • Analysis of storytelling as a means for professional boundary work
    • Eliciting professional reflection and development
    • Giving reasons for unexpected experience
    • Shifting the blame and normalizing the problem
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 08 June 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.20056.nis
References
Adams, J. & Owens, A.
(2015) Creativity and democracy in education: The practice and politics of education through the arts. Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Angouri, J. & Meredith, M.
(2010) Corporate meetings as genre: A study of the role of the chair in corporate meeting talk. Text & Talk, 30(6), 615–636. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Arminen, A.
(2004) Second stories: The salience of interpersonal communication for mutual help in Alcoholics Anonymous. Journal of Pragmatics, 36(2), 319–347. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Arminen, I.
(2005) Institutional interaction: Studies of talk at work. Ashgate.Google Scholar
Berthoin Antal, A., Woodilla, J. & Johansson Sköldberg, U.
(2016) Artistic interventions in organisations introduction. In U. Johansson Sköldberg, J. Woodilla & A. Berthoin Antal (Eds.), Artistic interventions in organizations: Research, theory, practice (pp. 3–17). Routledge.Google Scholar
Bruner, J.
(1990) Acts of meaning. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Clift, R. & Holt, E.
(2010) Introduction. In E. Holt & R. Clift (Eds.), Reported talk: Reported speech in interaction (pp. 1–15). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Czarniawska, B.
(1997) Narrating the organization: Dramas of institutional identity. The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
De Vos, J.
(2012) Psychologisation in times of globalization. Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dewey, J.
(1933/1998) Analysis of reflective thinking: From how we think. In L. A. Hickman & T. M. Alexander (Eds.), The essential Dewey, Volume 2: Ethics, logic, psychology (pp. 137–144). Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Djordjilovic, O.
(2012) Displaying and developing team identity in workplace meetings – A multimodal perspective. Discourse Studies, 14(1), 111–127. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Drew, P. & Holt, E.
(1988) Complainable matters: The use of idiomatic expressions in making complaints. Social problems, 35(4), 398–417. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, D.
(1997) Discourse and cognition. Sage.Google Scholar
Fenton, C. & Langley, A.
(2011) Strategy as practice and the narrative turn. Organization Studies, 32(9), 1171–1196. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gabriel, Y.
(1995) The unmanaged organization: Stories, fantasies and subjectivity. Organization Studies, 16(3), 477–501. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, C.
(1984) Notes on story structure and the organization of participation. In J. M. Atkinson & J. Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 225–246). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1994) Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606–633. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gratton, L.
(2011) The shift: The future of work is already here. William Collins.Google Scholar
Halonen, M.
(2002) Kertominen terapian välineenä: Tutkimus vuorovaikutuksesta myllyhoidon ryhmäterapiassa [Telling as a therapeutical device: A study of interaction in Minnesota-model group therapy]. Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar
Hautamäki, A. & Oksanen, K.
(2011) Tulevaisuuden kulttuuriosajat: Näkökulmia moderniin elämään ja työhön. [Culture specialists of the future: Insights into modern life and work]. Committee for the Future, Parliament of Finland, Publications 5/2011.Google Scholar
Heinonen, S., Ruotsalainen, J. & Kurki, S.
(2012) Luova tulevaisuustila ja tulevaisuuden osaamisen ennakointi [Creative foresight space and foresight of future skills]. Finland Futures Research Centre.Google Scholar
Holt, E.
(2000) Reporting and reacting: Concurrent responses to reported speech. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 33(4), 425–54. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Housley, W. & Fitzgerald, R.
(2015) Introduction to membership categorization analysis. In W. Housley & R. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Advances in membership categorization analysis (pp. 1–22). Sage. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jayyusi, L.
(1984) Categorization and the moral order. Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G.
(1978) The sequential aspects of story telling in conversation. In J. Schenkein (Ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 219–248). Academic Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Karvonen, U., Pietilä, P. & Tainio, L.
(2018) Sankareita ja hirviöopettajia: Sukupuoli luokanopettajaopiskelijoiden kokemuskertomuksissa [Heros and monster teachers: Gender in teacher students’ oral narratives of experience]. In R. Rinne, N. Haltia, S. Lempinen & T. Kaunisto (Eds.), Eriarvoistuva maailma – tasa-arvoistava koulu [Unequalising world – equalising school] (pp. 367–388). The Finnish Educational Research Association.Google Scholar
Kong, K.
(2014) Professional discourse. Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Laitinen, L.
(1995) Nollapersoona [Zero person]. Virittäjä, 991, 337–358.Google Scholar
Labov, W.
(1972) Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Larsson, M., & Lundholm, S. E.
(2013) Talking work in a bank: A study of organizing properties of leadership in work interactions. Human Relations, 66(8), 1101–1129. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lehikoinen, K.
(2013a) Training artists for innovation: Guidelines for curriculum development. In J. Heinsius & K. Lehikoinen (Eds.), Training artists for innovation: Competencies for new contexts (pp. 64–83). Theatre Academy of the Uniarts Helsinki.Google Scholar
(2013b) Qualification framework for artists in artistic interventions. In J. Heinsius & K. Lehikoinen (Eds), Training artists for innovation: Competencies for new contexts (pp. 49–63). Theatre Academy of the Uniarts Helsinki.Google Scholar
(2018) Setting the context: Expanding professionalism in the arts – A Paradigm Shift? In B. Revelli (Ed.) Careers in the arts: Visions for the future (pp. 17–30). ELIA.Google Scholar
Lehikoinen, K., Pässilä, A., Martin, M. & Pulkki, M.
(Eds.) (2016) Taiteilija kehittäjänä: Taiteelliset interventiot työssä [Artist as a developer: Artistic interventions at work]. University of Arts Helsinki.Google Scholar
Lerner, G.
(1992) Assisted storytelling: Deploying shared knowledge as a practical matter. Qualitative Sociology, 15(3), 247–271. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maclean, M., Harvey, C., Golant, B. & Sillince, J.
(2020) The role of innovation narratives in accomplishing organizational ambidexterity. Strategic Organization. Published online ahead-of-print. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Moerman, M.
(1987) Talking culture: Ethnography and conversation analysis. University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, S. & Dennehy, R. F.
(1997) The power of organizational storytelling: A management development perspective. The Journal of Management Development, 16(7), 494–501.Google Scholar
Nissi, R. & Pälli, P.
(2020) Textual artefacts at the centre of sensemaking: The use of discursive-material resources in constructing joint understanding in organisational workshops. Discourse Studies, 22(2), 123–145. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ochs, E. & Capps, L.
(2001) Living narrative: Creating lives in everyday storytelling. MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pomerantz, A.
(1986) Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies, 91, 219–230. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pässilä, A.
(2012) Reflexive model of research-based theatre – Processing innovation at the crossroads of theatre, reflection and practice-based innovation activities. Lappeenranta University Press.Google Scholar
Pässilä, A., Oikarinen, T. & Kallio, A.
(2013) Creating dialogue by storytelling. Journal of Workplace Learning, 25(3), 159–177. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, J. D.
(2012) Overall structural organization. In J. Sidnell & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 257–280). Wiley-Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, H.
(1974) An analysis of the course of a joke’s telling in conversation. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking (pp. 337–353). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
(1992) Lectures on conversation, Volume 1. Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schiuma, G.
(2011) The value of arts for business. Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schön, D. A.
(1983) The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Maurice Temple Smith.Google Scholar
Schnurr, S. & Van De Mieroop, D.
(2017) Introduction: A kaleidoscopic view of identity struggles at work. In D. Van De Mieroop & S. Schnurr (Eds.), Identity Struggles: Evidence from workplaces around the world (pp. 1–18). John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Selting, M.
2010 Affectivity in conversational storytelling: An analysis of displays of anger or indignation in complaint stories. Pragmatics, 20(2), 229–277. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, E. & Edwards, D.
2006 Story formulations in talk-in-interaction. In M. Bamberg (Ed.), Narrative – State of the art (pp. 56–65). John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Susskind, R. & Susskind, D.
(2015) The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Svinhufvud, K., Voutilainen, L. & Weiste, E.
(2017) Normalizing in student counseling: Counselors’ responses to students’ problem descriptions. Discourse Studies, 19(2), 196–215. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vince, R.
(2002) Organizing reflection. Management Learning, 33(1), 63–78. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vehviläinen, S.
(2001) Evaluative advice in educational counseling: The use of disagreement in the “stepwise entry” to advice. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 34(3), 371–398. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vince, R. & Reynolds, M.
(2009) Reflection, reflective practice and organizing reflection. In S. J. Armstrong & C. V. Fukami (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of management learning, education and development (pp. 89–103). Sage.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, D. H.
(1998) Identity, context and interaction. In C. Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 87–106). Sage.Google Scholar