Literary frameworks for narrative analysis in entrepreneurship

research

A tale of two researchers

Joanne Larty – j.larty@lancaster.ac.uk

Eleanor Hamilton – e.hamilton@lancaster.ac.uk

Case presentation

• Brief overview of narrative and entrepreneurship theory (our context)

• A tale of two researchers adopting frameworks from early Western literary traditions

Narrative and entrepreneurship theory: brief overview

• Relatively recent appearance in the literature

• Recognised as having the potential to contribute to theory building

BUT ALSO

• To challenge dominant views of entrepreneurship as individualistic and gender biased

The tale of two researchers

• Elicited life and career stories through in-depth interviews

• How to analyse the empirical material?– little elaboration of analysis in existing studies – ‘more of an art than a science’ (Riessman, 1993)– ‘near anarchy in the field’ (Mishler, 1995)

• Need for exemplars (Mishler, 1990)

Two different processes of analysis

McAdams’s (1997) framework / seven features of narrative

Ricoeur (1991): time, life and narrative

Frye’s (1957) Anatomy of Criticism

romantic comedy

Aristotle’s Poetics

epic tragedy (reversals, recognitions and suffering)

Gergen (1994): progressive and regressive narratives

Researcher 1 Researcher 2

Researcher 1

McAdams’s (1997) framework / seven features of narrative

Ricoeur (1991): time, life and narrative

Aristotle’s Poetics

epic tragedy (reversals, recognitions and suffering)

Researcher 2

McAdams’s (1997) framework / seven features of narrative

Frye’s (1957) Anatomy of Criticism

romantic comedy

Gergen (1994): progressive and regressive narratives

McAdams

(Framework 1)

Alluding to Aristotle / Frye and early Western literary traditions

7 features of narrative:• Narrative tone• Imagery• Theme• Ideological setting• Nuclear episodes• Imagoes• Generativity/endings

Narrative material

Empirical material

Recorded interviews

Written transcripts

Researcher 1Aristotle

(Framework 2)

Reversals, recognitions &

suffering

Northrop Frye

(Framework 3)

Cyclical movements in

narrative

• The family and the business

• Masking of the role of the woman

• Socially situated nature of learning

• The hybrid role of the franchisee

• Positioning the self as franchisee

• Resistance to franchisor control

Researcher 2

Early Western literary traditions informing post-modern research agendas

• Reveal the literariness of the narrative accounts• Uncover myths, metaphors and the role of emplotment

…and then …

Doing things with (narrative) empirical material

A Tale of Three Research Approaches

Eleanor Hamilton e.hamilton@lancaster.ac.uk

Steve Fox s.fox@lancaster.ac.uk

Compare 3 forms of empirical material

1. In-depth interview (1:1 interview)

Ellie Hamilton (EH) with an entrepreneur [“Dave Walton” - DW]

2. Narrative-in-interaction (multiparty, 1:2 interview)

Ellie Hamilton (EH) with a couple [“John Draper” JD & “Mrs Draper” MD]

3. Narrative in interaction (ethnographic field notes)

Naturally occurring talk captured by Steve Fox (SF) with some Executive MBA students

3 kinds of communicative event

Key features of the narrative in the narrative canon emanate from the ‘communicative event’ in which it occurs:

– The research interview [prototypical interviewer as passive audience, elicitor of the story, assymetrical relations lacking intimacy]

– Interview narratives [co-constructed, co-authored, co-draftings]

– Naturally occurring narratives in ordinary conversational settings

Georgakopolou (2006: 237)

Interview with Dave Walton

EH Mmmm.

DW Now don’t forget me wife was me father’s bosses daughter so she’d come from a business family, they were business people. Most of her mother’s brothers and sisters were in business, she had a leaning towards business. I don’t say she’s business minded,

she isn’t my wife is a, was a head teacher, she was in the teaching profession, was a teacher at the time but she said why don’t we buy it. And I went to Mrs Jack and suggested this to her and she talked to me and said yes she would and I’d got a little bit of equity in the house, we hadn’t lived there long, but I got married in ’57, this would be, I went into the business on the first of January 1963 and on first of January 2003 I’ve actually been there forty years which is in a few months time. I’ve still got that business and I called it, their surname was Jack, and the people who owned it before them their surname was Jack because it was a brother and sister thing so I called it Jack’s of Norton

Interview with DW contd.

Narrative themes

• me wife was me father’s bosses daughter• so, she’d come from a business family• she had a leaning towards business• I don’t say she’s business minded • she was in the teaching profession,• but she said why don’t we buy it.• And I went to Mrs Jack and suggested

this• I’ve still got that business and I called it,

their surname was Jack, and the people who owned it before them their surname was Jack because it was a brother and sister thing so I called it Jack’s of Norton

Comments

• Business runs in families• DW’s wife came from a business

family• This doesn’t mean she was business

minded• Here’s why…• She seems to have made the decision• DW put it into action• More on how business runs in

families..

Interview with DW contd. 

DW So then we decided we must leave the house because then you could have a day off at home and just at the time then a piece of property came up for sale, it was a farm house, and it was only two and a half miles from the business and it was a farm house, three acre paddock, and farm buildings, not in too bad a condition, it came up for auction. We went and looked at it and the wife and I said yes we can live there and we went to the auction and bought it at auction. We paid £14,500 for it and the trouble, the problem though, we weren’t selling anything. We weren’t selling a house to buy a house and it was difficult so me wife got the mortgage, she was a teacher, she was a head by this time and she got the mortgage. And she browbeat the building society because even then they were reluctant to let a woman have a mortgage, but she could as she was in permanent employment, good prospects and it was permanent, you know it was alright and she got the mortgage, so it’s me wife’s house and she always says he lives there under sufferance, she always says that. I daren’t put a foot wrong in case she throws me out. So now that was the making of the business because this farm with three acres of land had outbuildings, we were able then to think of stocking a little bit more stuff for the shop and selling different things.

Interview with DW contd.

Narrative Themes• the wife and I said yes we can live there

• she was a teacher, she was a head by this time and she got the mortgage

• And she browbeat the building society because even then they were reluctant to let a woman have a mortgage

• so it’s me wife’s house and she always says he lives there under sufferance, she always says that. I daren’t put a foot wrong in case she throws me out

• so now that was the making of the business because this farm with three acres of land had outbuildings, we were able then to think of stocking a little bit more stuff for the shop and selling different things

Comments• House purchase as joint decision

• Her economic capital, and social capital, used to obtain the house

• Joke about the power that may be associated with that ownership and control

• Move allows the business to grow

Interview with John & Mrs Draper p.12

• MD Because I said, “we’d have to get somebody more in the office”. Because I came in one day after going out and getting some lunch for us and John had the telephone in one hand and what were you doing with the other one?

• JD I don’t know.• MD I know, I said, “this is ridiculous we can’t carry on like this”. I

was doing all the ordering wasn’t I, and everything. Because we ordered the stuff and had it sent to the supplier, er to the manufacturers to make up for us. And we just carried on from there. Then the …….

• EH Did you enjoy that spell?• MD Yes I did really I did. Until he used to shout at me (227)

[laugh] • JD You were gone three days weren’t you?• MD Because I can’t stand it, you see. [laugh]• JD You wanted to stay at home for three days.• EH Just to keep you on your toes?• JD Yes.

Interview with John & Mrs Draper p.13MD Yes it was really. People couldn’t believe how well we got on

together, which I couldn’t really [laugh]. But we did. We got on well together. Just that once I left the office and stamped out. 

JD I was muttering in me beer [laugh].

MD I said, “until you say you’re sorry I’m not coming back”. [laugh

EH And the spelling.

JD That’s what it was. 

MD Yes it was, it was over a letter that I typed three times. His a terrible writer to understand the writing and when I couldn’t spell you see I couldn’t do it properly and I was there late on real night, late one night typing out stuff, because he’d been out all day and come back into the office late at night. But um, it was all right you learnt your lesson [laugh].

JD I think it was one of the most wonderful periods of our lives together.

MD Oh yes, yes, it was, it was fabulous. Fabulous.

Analytic points on the Draper’s interview

p.12 note how MD cues JD to continue the ‘plot-line’ but he declines [1st few turns-in-talk]

Then Ellie (EH) cues her…

She (MD) responds and disses him…

He seems to justify himself – so there’s a looming ‘breach’

p.13 - Some repair work [1st few turns and closing lines]

Narratives in interaction: excerpts from an Executive MBA classroom

• key features of the narrative in the narrative canon emanate from the ‘communicative event’ in which it occurs:

– The research interview [prototypical interviewer as passive audience, elicitor of the story, assymetrical relations lacking intimacy]

– Interview narratives [co-constructed, co-authored, co-draftings]

– Naturally occurring narratives in ordinary conversational settings

– Georgakopolou (2006: 237)

Narratives in interaction21. OP: Contracts entered into by gentlemen will sooner or later be

22. executed by knaves

23. Sm: [laughter]

24. NL: But isn’t this true of all relationships, with great respect?

25. [Laughter]

26. Sm: [Pause]

27. NL: even in marriage!

28. Sm: [laughter]

29. OP: O.K. Nick, just because we didn’t all go to Cambridge!

30. Sm [laughter]

31. NL: [appealing to the lecturer] I was trying not to be

32. personal.

33. OP: As soon as he says ‘with great respect’ you know

34. T: Yes, start ducking when anybody says this..

35. NL: [pulls a face]

From Fox (2008: 747-8) Excerpt 1

Narratives in interaction

54. MR: What about the loan which we as students don’t know

55. T: It’s in the figures as debentures

56. [Pause]

57. MR: Ye-es.

58. NL: Everybody else found it Matthew!

59. Sm: [laughter]

60. DM: With great respect!

61. NL: No! With no respect!

62. OP: You’ll have to excuse Matthew(.) he works for ‘the Co-op’

63. Sm: [laughter]

64. T: Now that (slight pause) was (slight pause) knavish!

65. Sm: [laughter]

From Fox (2008: ) Excerpt 2

Analytical points narratives in interaction

Lines 21-22 is a sort of story

It has gendered and classed connotations & usages

It is reprieved throughout both excerpts in locally situated ways

Catch-phrases are woven in [e.g. ‘with great respect’]

These are re-used with comedic effect

The interaction itself unfolds as a performative & theatrical event, i.e. in a ‘storyable’ way (c.f. Sacks, 1981)

These events are ‘tellable’ (Georgakopoulou, 2006) cf. ‘storyable’

Lines 54-58 refer to a story (i.e. a business case study) they are all supposed to have read

So there’s intertextuality going on between the emergent narrative plot and the case study

The case study primes the group as a cast of characters, but their actual plot-lines are quite ‘emergent’