Storytelling and `Character': Victims, Villains and Heroes in a Case of Technological Change
通过英国公私合营企业的技术变革案例，研究故事如何帮助员工在失败变革中维护道德地位和组织声誉，聚焦一个角色从无辜受害者变为隐含恶棍再到英雄幸存者的转变。
In this article we examine the role of stories in the temporal development of images of the self at work. Drawing on an in-depth case study of technological change in a UK public-private partnership, we highlight the role of stories in the construction, maintenance and defence of actors' moral status and organizational reputation. The analysis focuses on the development of one `character' as he shifted from the role of innocent victim to implied villain to heroic survivor within the stories constructed during routine work conversations. We argue that stories are intimately linked to the forms of `moral accounting' that serve to deal with the challenges to `face' and social positioning that accompany `failed' organizational change. Stories, we suggest, are likely to be invoked when an interactional encounter threatens the participants' sense of social worth. Stories in which we present ourselves in a positive light—for instance as virtuous, honourable, courageous, caring, committed, competent— comprise a key component of face-saving strategies designed to maintain our social positioning: processes that are often intensified during periods of organizational change.