Once upon a time in Africa: a case study of storytelling for knowledge sharing

Abstract

AcknowledgementsThis research project would not have been possible without the co-operation and support of the management and staff of the case study organisation, Kumba Resources, whose assistance is here gratefully acknowledged. This paper is based on a doctoral thesis submitted by the lead author, and his full thesis can be found at http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-07302006-065725/. An earlier version of this article was presented by the lead author as a paper at the British Academy of Management Conference, 2007, Coventry, England. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to report on research conducted into the use of stories and storytelling to share knowledge in a large mining company based in South Africa. The paper shows how the use of oral methods combined with other media can be used to support a number of different objectives and yield a wide variety of benefits.Design/methodology/approach -This paper presents the results of a case study which used a largely qualitative approach to gather data on a specific community of practice within the case study company.Findings -The research identified an innovative approach being used to combine a number of approaches to sharing knowledge through the use of stories and storytelling, in particular graphical representation of the stories and the use of graphics in conjunction with oral storytelling methods.Research limitations/implications -This research was conducted in only one company, in one country. Further research would be necessary to further test the effectiveness of the approaches identified in this case.Practical implications -The innovative approach of combining media and methods for sharing knowledge through stories and storytelling represent an opportunity for other organisations to use similar techniques in their efforts to improve knowledge sharing.Originality/value -This is the first time that a case study exploring the use of stories and storytelling in the South African mining industry has used empirical research findings to evaluate the use of stories and storytelling. Significant value may be gained by others seeking to understand how best to use stories and storytelling to share knowledge.

Learning Ontology from Text: A Storytelling Exploratory Case Study

“…Tobin and Snyman [6] discuss the opinion of other authors who affirm a number of storytelling benefits: stories tend to be more well established that abstract ideas; enable understanding of a relevant process; is an effective way to capture knowledge; allows for quick, natural, clear, reliable, collaborative, persuasive, and accurate communication; allows the sharing of knowledge in a diverse population; is full of reason and emotion. They also refer to the practical use in American companies (3M and Apple), Japanese (Sony and Toshiba), European (Club Med and Océ), among others.…”

“…In his work, Tobin and Snyman [6] conducted a literature review on the use of stories in various organizations and points out that all organizations, large or small, are dependent of stories for its operation [7]. In the business context, the authors define the stories as sequence of decisions, actions or events (past, present or future; real or fictional) that involves characters in an organization where a business challenge or an opportunity should be addressed.…”

“…They can be told in any form (written or oral) and use a variety of media. Storytelling is can be defined as the practices, tools and roles performed by those involved in communicating a story to an audience [6].…”

“…The Text2Onto uses the notes taken in GATE 6 for which nouns are "concepts" and proper names (proper nouns) are "instances".…”

Identifying different methods for creating knowledge from lessons learned in project oriented organizations

“…In addition, most of these experts were enrolled in research and development activities. We have designed a questionnaire in Likert scale and asked experts to assign a score to the following items as essential sources of knowledge creations and lessons learned (Milton, 2010) given in Table 1 as follows, Swap et al, 2001;Stacey, 2001;Tobin & Snyman, 2008;Bryant, 2005 …”