Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Organization Studies
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
0170840606064568v1
27/8/1091    most recent
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Barry, D.
Right arrow Articles by Hansen, H.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Article

To Text or Context?: Endotextual, Exotextual, and Multi-textual Approaches to Narrative and Discursive Organizational Studies

David Barry1*, Brigid Carroll2, Hans Hansen3

1 Universidade Novade Lisboa, Portugal
2 University of Auckland, New Zealand
3 Texas Tech University, USA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.


   Abstract

Organizational researchers doing narrative and discursive research have three choices in how they approach a text: an 'endotextual' approach where the researcher works within a text, an 'exotextual' approach where the researcher works outward from a text to its context(s), or a combined exo/endotextual approach which embeds a textual analysis within contextual inquiry. Although all three methods are now widely used in mainstream organizational research, the merits of combining, sequencing, or separating them have never been systematically considered. After reviewing the advantages and limitations of each perspective, we discuss an experiment in which endo and exo methods were applied to a skit co-written by management and a communications company specializing in organizational theater. The finding that using one approach creates multiple, subtle blind spots towards the other, and even more significantly affects a researcher's capacity to effectively adopt a combined method, is used to construct an alternative 'diatextual' framework. This is used to frame a discussion of how multi-method textual studies of organizations might be conducted in the future.

Key Words: narrative, discourse, research methods, textual methods, organizational theater

First published on May 4, 2006, doi:10.1177/0170840606064568

Organization Studies 2006;27:1091.

A more recent version of this article appeared on August 1, 2006


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
Journal of Applied Behavioral ScienceHome page
D. Geiger and E. Antonacopoulou
Narratives and Organizational Dynamics: Exploring Blind Spots and Organizational Inertia
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, September 1, 2009; 45(3): 411 - 436.
[Abstract] [PDF]


Home page
LeadershipHome page
P. Parker and B. Carroll
Leadership Development: Insights from a Careers Perspective
Leadership, May 1, 2009; 5(2): 261 - 283.
[Abstract] [PDF]