We extend research on management ideas by providing a narrative framework for studying how management ideas are consumed. We dwell upon Certeau’s (1984) work on the practice of consumption and Ricœur’s (1983) concept of emplotment. Specifically, we study, over a 20-year time period, how Cement Inc., a multinational company, adopted and used knowledge management (KM) ideas and practices. We disclose the consumption of KM at Cement Inc. through four plots that provide an account not only in terms of adopting and using, but also in terms of organizational and individual experiences. We show that knowledge management ideas are co-consumed through multiple, iterative, continuous emplotments, unfolding at multiple levels across time, people and practices.We argue that our narrative framework makes two contributions. First, it provides an integrative view of the consumption of management ideas and proves a helpful device for making sense of an enormous amount of data. Second, it allows unity as well as multiplicity in analysis of the consumption process: one story is told from many different perspectives and results in broader understanding.

The narrativizing of practices is a textual 'way of operating', having its own procedures and tactics. […] Shouldn't we recognize its scientifi c legitimacy by assuming that instead of being a remainder that cannot be, or has not yet been, eliminated from discourse , narrativity has a necessary function in it, and that a theory of narration is indissociable from a theory of practices, as its condition as well as its production. (de Certeau 1988: 78)

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