ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the analysis of organizational storytelling with a joke, for there are clear narrative similarities between jokes and stories: Both place actors in a scene and then outline an interaction between events, the actors and the situation, which proceeds to a conclusion that – in the case of the joke – is designed to generate laughter. Joking aside, it issues some unfortunate confluence of habit and tuition we tend to conceptualise management in ways which deny its complexity. The conceptualisation of the employment relationship as a 'structured antagonism' often angers or unsettles practising managers. The chapter suggests that the employment relationship is constituted upon a structured antagonism is simply to observe that those who have something to sell, whether this is second-hand cars, designer sunglasses or labour power have a clear and personal interest in brokering the best deal available.
