ABSTRACT
PROFESSOR Brown’s profile of what constitutes organizational stories gives rise to an interesting question: Why have organizational scholars so recently discovered organizational stories and, more generally, organizational symbols? Surely we cannot be so partisan or myopic as to believe that our generation of organizational members invented organizational symbols. What is fundamentally different about organizations today—or our perceptions of them — that suddenly inflates the significance of organizational stories? Specifically, how is it possible that Brown’s topic, which 10 years ago was a nonissue, commands a lead position in a prestigious publication of our discipline today? I see this question as an important one because it reveals a shift in our perceptions of contemporary organizations that is critical to the understanding and assessment not only of organizational stories but of all organizational symbols.
