Enhancing Online Executive Education Using Storytelling: An Approach to Strengthening Online Social Presence

Abstract

One distinctive requirement of Executive Education is the need to integrate the corporate experiences of participants and frame them within a common body of knowledge wherein experiences can be shared, analyzed, and absorbed by all participants. What might customarily arise out of classroom camaraderie must now be technologically designed and supported from the outset in online executive education. Our research question is: What can be done to develop online executive programs that utilize the richness of executive experiences as the foundation for analyzing, comprehending, and retaining key concepts learned throughout the course? Storytelling is proposed as a method to capture and use corporate experiences of participating executives in meaningful ways while developing a strong social presence among participants online. This study explores organizational stories, identifying unique story elements and their purposes, and discussing how they can be introduced into online executive courses through modeled behavior, a part of social cognitive theory. Storytelling is compared to traditional case studies and chat rooms. While storytelling may be more difficult to implement, there are significant advantages to storytelling, including making the experience more real, increasing comprehension of concepts, and improving the retention of knowledge.

Creating effective visuals for destination marketing videos: Scenery vs people

“…However, we did not find any evidence for prior research (e.g. Kendall and Kendall, 2017) that indicates that social content positively affects behavioural intention. In our study, adding further social information to videos decreased the media effect.…”

Intimacy in online classrooms

“…This was based on mutual respect, as discussed by Stojanov (2016), and the creation of egalitarianism and dialogue (Baepler & Walker, 2014;Plaza, 2010). As described by Kendall and Kendall (2017), this realism and "vividness" added to understanding and aided episodic memory (Kendall & Kendall, 2017, p. 76) with testimonies contributing to the topics being discussed in the workshops as part of the subject content. Like in Abrahamson's (1998) study in a higher education context, storytelling became a pedagogical tool.…”

“…[10] Toni Dobinson include emojis, capitalization, symbols, written verbal communication, and onomatopoeic utterances (Lin & Chen, 2018;Wang, 2015). As observed in the literature about online classrooms (Kendall & Kendall, 2017;Thorpe, 2008) and face-to-face classrooms (Baskerville, 2011;Csikar & Stefaniak, 2018), they tell their small stories as seen in Vignette 3. The extract begins with Katie giving a short, commonly used response amongst young people when people behave in ways which are not acceptable ("bit rude") accompanied by a sad faced emoji ( ).…”

“…She builds a relationship necessary for learning (Uttamchandani, 2020). Her personal involvement in the topic helps strengthen not only her understanding of the topic, but the groups' understanding, facilitating students' retention of knowledge (Kendall & Kendall, 2017), making content more 'real' for everyone. Students' capacity to tell their small stories or personal testimonies fitted with literature in the area which suggests that storytelling in online educational settings (and traditional face-to-face settings) can enhance "trust, excitement and comprehension" (Kendall & Kendall, 2017, p. 77).…”

What Attention Regulation Behaviors Tell Us About Learners in E-Reading?: Adaptive Data-Driven Persona Development and Application Based on Unsupervised Learning

“…In contrast, the social presence did not affect the perceived learning or satisfaction in the highly-conscious learners. Studies have suggested enhancing the social presence of learners: Using scaffolded and self-reflective topics for better self-disclosure, [58], facilitating small group discussions [59], utilizing the storytelling [60], and providing personalized features in implementation, such as personal profiles, text messages, individualized video feedback, and one-onone email communication [57].…”