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Storytelling and its contribution to organizational theory

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Storytelling and its contribution to organizational theory
ABSTRACT
The storytelling approach towards the knowledge sharing is explored in detail. The story telling can be used to elicit tacit knowledge and can be used to flow the knowledge about previous events in the organization and any other work related knowledge in an interesting and effective manner. Since emotions are attached to the stories, they narrate the much value to the listeners and the listeners tend to keep what they have heard. In this sense, organization memory is created by the anecdotes of the stories being told. The lessons learnt from the past experiences are valuable to the employees working now. It is also studied the negative stories have much impact on the listeners.
The story telling has the potential to capture tacit knowledge and how it is done in the context of IBM is explained. Moreover, the story telling in the organizations can be enhanced by the use of IT tools like intranet, emails and other knowledge management systems which helps employees to create platform to share their stories and communicate the values of the organization. This values and the knowledge base of the organization helps to form the organization memory.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Storytelling is one of the approaches towards knowledge capture and codification, the first phase of KM cycle. This is used to elicit tacit knowledge, towards creation of new knowledge and to organize the content in systematic manner. In knowledge capture phase, the distinction between the capture of existing knowledge and the creation of new knowledge has to be made. Mostly, only existing knowledge is set into the pattern, which only forms the explicit knowledge. There is huge pool of knowledge, which needs to be captured towards generating the new knowledge and that knowledge is mostly tacit in nature, which resides within the heads of knowers.
Every organization also has a memory. The embodiment of the organizational memory is the experience of its employees,

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