Narrative Inquiry

It is falling increasingly to international organisations and institutions to provide a coherent and workable global value system that embraces difference, internally and externally, with compliance expected from every level of the organisation. International human rights conventions and statutory regulations require compliance to human rights principles putting such organisations at the forefront of cultural relations. A global value framework gives them the opportunity to shake off colonial pasts and to strive to make a good business case for adherence to such principles. As principles are more challenging to enact than to formulate, to support this values portfolio, research is needed into how principles can be enacted in everyday matters of the organisation. Current literature highlights the use of storytelling as sense-making, and, as such, there is a growing trend in the use of the narrative approach across disciplines and professional sectors. Its contributors are from anthropology, education, linguistics, translation studies, literature, politics, psychology and sociology, organisational studies and history. This chapter surfaces the link between local and grand narratives through an ethno-narrative approach contextualised within a recent study of diversity (equality, diversity and inclusion) and specifically global diversity management.