1. Executive Summary
Title: Typology of Corporate Stories
Authors: Narayanan Mohan Kumar, Ma Jia Hui, Han Xiaoqian
Supervisor: Assoc Prof Khoo Soo Guan, Christopher
Introduction
Storytelling can be used for different purposes in an organization. Different purposes will
tend to require different kinds of stories. (Denning, 2000) Moreover, storytelling also can
be used to capture tacit knowledge. As tacit knowledge is not easy to articulate, Stories
allow people to share tacit knowledge in rich and meaningful ways, rather than articulate
it in the structured way.
The research objective is to develop a comprehensive typology of corporate story, which
can be implemented by KM professionals. From research perspective, there is no
completed typology of story. Although researchers such as Denning, who work on that,
say there is no theoretical or practical proof to support the existing categorization.
Knowledge Management professionals may not understand existing category of stories.
This study aims to develop a consistent and logical typology of corporate stories from
multiple authors and sources. A typology of corporate stories is required because many
stories are told in organizations, there are particular classes of stories that are told and re-
told in order to connect with employees by providing them an understanding and
motivation to make a personal contribution.
Method
In order to validate the effectiveness of the new typology, we are trying to investigate
and analyze how a story is being conveyed by the means of a questionnaire. A user
coding session is conducted to interpret this method.
A group of 50 students pursuing Masters in Knowledge Management and Information
Studies Programme were chosen as our respondents. Ambiguities of miscomprehension
could be diminished on the basis of shared knowledge and understanding about
storytelling. Specifically, 15 participants enrolled in Storytelling module and their
responses should be more representative due to deeper understanding of how stories can
be perceived.
50 coders will be divided into 10 groups (3 groups of storytelling class). Each group will
be assigned with 3 different stories. Each coder was asked to read 3 stories and then
categorize each story using our primary typology. None of stories exceed one page to
ensure it is readable and understandable.

2. Results
We have analyzed the responses from the students based upon four different criteria.
Analysis by Stories:
With respect to the choices made by interviewees, we were able to find out each story is
categorized into five or more types. However within the different categories, the
frequency of the each category varies from high to low. For example, consider story 2
(Royal Dutch Airline), every student in that group figured it out as ‘Branding’ and
‘Foster Bonding’ story because the it was quite evident that the Airline company did a
good job in connecting with customers by providing spectacular gifts, which clearly
presented company’s values that made participants easily to relate as to why it belonged
to that particular type.
It was interesting to find that 16 out of total 30 stories were different from our responses.
This reveals that students haven’t got a clearer picture of what each category means
perfectly. Nine stories were given to students who took the ‘Storytelling’ module in KM
course, six of them matched with our coding. Coders were able to support our ideas with
respect to corporate stories. There is slight possibility that since the students already have
an idea about meaning of different categories, it was easier for them relate a story to a
particular type. Since the sample size is low, our assumption could be inconclusive.
Analysis by Categories:
Categories such as Hero story, Achievement story, Leadership stories had the highest
frequency among students. We presume that there could be certain influential factors that
aided their decision making process. First it might be due to improper understanding of
our typology that resulted in confusion for them to distinguish between different types.
Secondly, the perception of the students could differ because they have different interests,
experience and culture. Finally, the disturbances caused while coding or losing interest
because of the time consumed to read the stories.
Analysis by Pairs:
The pairs ‘Branding & Leadership’ and ‘Hero & Leadership’ have the maximum no. of
hits from students. A simple explanation for this response, every Hero is indeed a leader
in some way. He inspires people to follow him and take pride in belong to a Heroic
organization by narrating his story about achieving something extraordinary. Also
‘Lessons from Mistakes’ can also be ‘teaching story’ because it if things go wrong at
some point it indirectly teaches how to avoid mistakes committed earlier and how to
perform the task more effectively.

3. Analysis by Coders:
There are some coders who have selected more than 4 types for each story, while others select
just one or two responses maximum. The variation could be due the lack of interest that drains the
enthusiasm for doing the survey might have lead to random selection of choices. From the
feedback that we got from other students, they felt that studying three stories takes a lot of time,
also understanding and relating each story to a particular type is tedious process. This can lead
them to rush through the survey since they fell that it is going to take too long. Students can look
at story either from the storyteller’s point of view or recipient’s point of view.
Conclusion
Our study analyzed the different types of stories that organization can use to motivate,
inspire or educate their employees for the betterment of their organization. We have
developed a new typology of corporate stories based on Message or Lesson,
Organizational Purpose and Sentiment or Emotion.
Employees in an organization can be benefitted in several ways by weaving these stories
in their organization. These stories can be used to develop trust and commitment by
communicating the competencies and commitment of oneself and others. It also enables
an exchange of tacit knowledge to help employees solve difficult problems more quickly.
Stories can be effective in achieving the transformations that requires organization to
facilitate not only learning but also the unlearning process. By developing a typology of
organizational stories can help companies to build a knowledge sharing culture, achieving
business goals and implement strategies that are necessary for organizational growth.
Storytelling is a means to build a shared knowledge base for organizations. They can use
mentoring to share values, transfer skills and share tacit knowledge.