Epic and Tragic Tales

Abstract

This interpretive study of change in a U.K.-based college focuses on the divergent understandings of senior managers and two distinct cohorts of their subordinates in a postmerger situation. The authors found that the senior managers told a narrative of epic change, whereas the two subordinate groups both authored recognizably tragic narratives. The research contribution this article makes is threefold. First, they argue that groups' narrations of their working lives both are influenced by psychological processes (such as categorization, self-enhancement, and uncertainty reduction) and draw on broadly available cultural resources (for example, literary genres). Second, they contend that change in organizations is, at least in part, constituted by alterations in people's understandings, encoded in narratives, and shared in conversations. Third, they suggest that group narratives are not merely exercises in sense making but may be hegemonic and have psychic prison effects.