Managerial Storytelling: How We Write Up Managerial and Academic Stories in B2B Case Study Research

This study reintroduces the debate regarding the generally accepted qualitative research approaches in the B2B literature by focusing in case studies and the nature of knowledge that can be accessed through managerial interviews. In this paradigm, the researchers have commonly adopted approaches to both the interview process and the analysis and reporting of research findings that generally assume the veracity and factuality of the interview data. We question these assumptions through empirical evidence collected in unconventional interview settings. This study displays the situational, ephemeral and ultimately unstable nature of managerial 'truths' imparted in the interviews. We argue that the data should be viewed as stories and their reporting is a form of storytelling. Adopting a constructionist ontology and interpretivist epistemology accompanied by in-depth ethnographic fieldwork and methodological pluralism is suggested to for the generation of new compelling and interesting research. The nature of realist knowledge and truth claims in academic B2B discourses is thus reconsidered by offering new perspectives that endorse findings conceptualized as compelling stories of pragmatic academic and managerial value.