Abstract

Storytelling is a central part of organizational life: the power of the story does not depend on its connection to the world outside the story but in its openness for negotiating and interpreting meaning. Narrative knowledge about organizational life is based on the assumption that the organizational actors make sense of their experience through accounts or stories, and that researchers can study and interpret those stories as a means of understanding organizational processes (organizing) and events like change. Time is one essential dimension in making sense of change. In this article I consider time as «kairotic». «Kairotic time» needs to be studied in organizing, looking at individual experience and perception of change: the process acquires meaning by gaining a place in a narrative of organizational life. In this article, the relation between storytelling and time-making is analysed with reference to the case of an important Research Centre of North Italy.