Syfte: Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att beskriva hur SIBA AB:s storytelling påverkar de anställda. Uppsatsen utgår ifrån att storytelling kan ses som ett ledarskapsverktyg och undersöker därför hur de anställda påverkas av Fabian Bengtssons tillämpade ledarstil under rådande påfrestande situation föranledd av marknadsförändringar inom hemelektronikbranschen. Forskningsfrågor: Hur kan en ledare påverka de anställdas attityder till företaget under påfrestande situationer på marknaden? Hur kan storytelling fungera som ledarskapsverktyg för detta genom att öka de anställdas engagemang och intresse. Genomförande: Fallstudien på SIBA AB baseras på en kvantitativ och kvalitativ studie samt en narrativanalys av den pågående reklamkampanjen ”I Fabians värld”. Det empiriska materialet består av en enkätundersökning ställd till 75 anställda och en skriftlig intervju med Fabian Bengtsson samt en narrativanalys som innefattar fem reklamfilmer. Slutsatser: Det framgår av analyserna av det empiriska materialet att kommunikationsverktyget storytelling genom reklamkampanjen har haft en positiv påverkan på de anställda och skapat en uppfattning om ledarens ledarstil. Det framgår även att ledare genom storytelling kan påverka anställdas attityder och intresse för företaget. Detta för att reklamfilmerna har förmåga att skapa identifikation och vi-känsla som kan forma positiva känslor och en bra uppfattning om företaget vilket kan bidra till ett ökat engagemang hos de anställda. / Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe how the storytelling of SIBA AB affects the employees. The paper works on the supposition that storytelling is a leadership tool and hence examines how the employees are affected by the leader Fabian Bengtsson’s leadership during difficult times on the market. Research questions: How can a leader influence the employees’ attitudes towards the company during times of pressure on the market? How can storytelling work as a leadership tool in this case to higher the employees’ involvement for an interest in the company? Research method: The case study on SIBA AB is based on quantitative and qualitative methods plus a narrative analysis of the advertising campaign ”I Fabians värld”. The material was collected through a survey including 75 employees and a written interview with Fabian Bengtsson, plus a narrative analysis of five commercials. Conclusions: The analysis shows that storytelling in the advertising campaign has had a positive influence on the employees and has shaped a picture of the leader and of his leadership. The analysis also shows that leaders have the possibility to affect the employees’ attitudes and interest in the company. The reason for this is that commercials have the power to create identification and sense of belonging that can form positive feelings and a good impression of the company which can lead to an increased commitment among the employees.

Employer Branding är ett managementkoncept vars primära syfte är att attrahera och behålla personal. Nyinstitutionell teori redogör däremot för att organisationers motiv att översätta samt tillämpa ett managementrecept så som Employer Branding är att framstå som socialt legitima och bra arbetsplatser. Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur Employer Branding implementerats vid ett kontor inom Swedbank AB och vad det betyder i praktiken. Med nyinstitutionell teori som referensram kommer studien undersöka hur Swedbank AB har översatt, tillämpat och kommunicerat konceptet. För att besvara syftet har kvalitativ metod använts genom tre semi-strukturerade intervjuer utifrån ett selektivt urval. Information erhölls även från Swedbank AB:s hemsida. Analysen grundades utifrån etnografisk kvalitativ metod med deduktiv ansats där teoretiska begrepp har översatts till koder. Av resultatet framkom det att banken arbetar med en strategisk omdömeshantering via införandet av nya värdeord, ledarskapskriterier, en lokal prägel, samhällsengagemang, jämställdhetsarbete och ett relationellt förhållningssätt. Översättningen av receptet kan dock vara problematisk att implementera för Swedbank, då personalsatsningar tenderar att vara ekonomiskt konjunkturberoende. Banken hanterar detta genom en löskoppling mellan storytelling som förmedlar hur banken vill framstå och hur arbetet bedrivs i praktiken. Utifrån att betrakta medarbetarna som potentiella externa ambassadörer skulle banken med en mer inkluderande storytelling åstadkomma större förståelse och acceptans för sitt beslutsfattande. Organisationsrecept såsom Employer Branding verkar utifrån studiens samlade analys fungera bäst under goda ekonomiska förutsättningar. / Employer Branding is a management concept which primary purpose is to attract and keep employees. In contrast, neoinstitutional theory explains that organizations motives to translate and apply management recipes such as Employer Branding, is to appear as socially legitimate and good places to work. The study aims to examine how the management concept Employer Branding is implemented at an office of Swedbank AB and what it means in practice. With neoinstitutional theory as a framework, the study will examine how Swedbank AB has translated, implemented and communicated the concept. To answer the question, a qualitative method has been used by three semi-structured interviews based on a selective sample. Information was also provided by Swedbank AB's website. The analysis was based on an ethnographic qualitative deductive approach in which theoretical concepts have been translated into codes. The results show that the bank is working with strategic reputational management through the introduction of new core values, leadership criteria, a local character, corporate social responsibility, equality work and a relational approach. The translation of the concept can be problematic to implement within the bank, because staff actions appear to be economically dependent. The bank handles this by a decoupling between storytelling that conveys how the bank would like to appear and how the work is conducted in practice. Based on considering employees as external ambassadors, the bank could provide greater understanding and acceptance with a more inclusive storytelling concerning its decision-making. Organization recipes such as Employer Branding seems from the study's overall analysis, work best under good economic conditions.

Det är numera självklart att företag försöker hålla en hög produkt- och servicenivå. För att nå framgång och för att sticka ut i mängden handlar differentiering alltmer om känslor, design och historier. Till följd av ändrade konsumtionsmönster finns det ett ökat behov av meningsfulla upplevelser och detta har resulterat i att fler och fler företag anammar så kallad storytelling för att kunna erbjuda kunden emotionella upplevelser. Ur ett företagsekonomiskt perspektiv är storytelling ett sätt att, med hjälp av historier, paketera produkter och tjänster samt kommunicera deras budskap. När mycket tid och resurser har lagts ned på att ta fram ett storytellingkoncept är det viktigt att säkerställa resultatet av en implementering. Därav vårt intresse för att undersöka storytelling med utgångspunkt i vad som faktiskt levereras av ett tänkt storytellingkoncept. De forskningsfrågor som styr uppsatsen är: ”Vad kännetecknar storytelling och hur kan storytelling användas i ett koncept?” och ”I vilken utsträckning skapas den avsedda upplevelsen genom hela kedjan, från framtagning av storytellingkoncept till konsumtion av det?” Med hjälp av fallstudiemetoden undersöker vi storytellingkonceptet för restaurang Danilo, en nyetablerad restaurang, som ligger i anslutning till SF:s biokomplex Bergakungen i Göteborg. Primärdata samlas in genom intervjuer med Stylt Trampoli, det tjänsteföretag som skapade konceptet, vd och personal på restaurang Danilo samt kunder. Den teoretiska referensramen bygger huvudsakligen på narratologi, storytelling, tjänstearkitektur och teori kring att skapa upplevelser i tjänsteföretag. Analysen visar att den avsedda upplevelsen för restaurang Danilos storytellingkoncept kommuniceras starkt i början av kedjan, men mattas av ju närmare kunden den kommer. Brister ses främst vid förankringen av konceptet hos restaurang Danilos personal. Många kunder var positiva till restaurangen och dess utformning, likväl når inte den avsedda upplevelsen hela vägen fram till kunden. / Nowadays it is evident that companies try to keep a high product- and service level. For companies to be successful, differentiation is more about feelings, design and stories. As a result of changes in consumption habits there is an increased need for meaningful experiences. More companies turn to storytelling as a way of offering the customer emotional experiences. From a business economic perspective storytelling is a tool for packaging of products and services and also a tool for communication of the same products and services. When a lot of time and resources have been used for creating a storytelling concept, it is important to ensure results of an implementation. Our wish is therefore to study storytelling with an interest starting from what actually is created in relation to the intended storytelling experience. The research questions examined through this paper are: ”What characterizes storytelling and how can storytelling be used as a concept?” and ”To what extent is the intended experience created through the whole process, from creation of the storytelling concept to consumption of it?” Through a case study we examine the storytelling concept for Danilo restaurant, a new established restaurant located inside the movie center Bergakungen. Empirical data is collected through interviews with Stylt Trampoli, the company that developed the concept, CEO and personnel at restaurant Danilo and customers. Primarily, theories about narratology, storytelling, service architecture and creation of experiences in service companies are being used in this paper. The analyze shows that the intended experience of the storytelling concept for restaurant Danilo is communicated well in the beginning of the process but decreases on the way to the customer. Shortages were found primarily when establishing the concept through the personnel. A lot of customers were positive towards restaurant Danilo and its interior, nevertheless the intended storytelling concept does not reach the customer.

In 2010 Swedish political parties used commercials broadcasted on TV for the first time in order to gain votes in a general election. In connection with the election the parties were criticized for not succeeding to formulate a story to the voters that conveyed how they wanted to change Sweden. In this paper I use central concepts from rhetoric, storytelling, postmodernism and psychology to formulate three demands each on the narrator, the story and its reception. Using the resulting image of what distinguishes a good narrator, a good story and a good reception as a starting point, I investigate to what extent the critique was justified. My findings indicate that the degree to which the commercials fulfill these demands vary greatly. Two flaws that I find are that the parties lacked credibility and were reluctant to state which groups in society would stand to lose from their policies. Another finding is that the stories provided by the parties were disturbed by other stories about the parties and the subjects their commercials covered. Based on these conclusions I formulate a set of questions that parties and others can use to test the potential of a story. / 2010 använde svenska partier för första gången reklamfilmer i TV för att vinna röster i ett riksdagsval. I samband med valrörelsen fick partierna kritik för att de inte lyckades förmedla en berättelse till väljarna om hur de ville förändra Sverige. I den här uppsatsen undersöker jag vilka förutsättningar partiernas valfilmer hade att förmedla en sådan berättelse till väljarna. Jag använder centrala begrepp inom retorik, storytelling, postmodernism och psykologi för att formulera tre krav vardera på berättaren, berättelsen och mottagandet. Med utgångspunkt i den resulterande bilden av vad som utmärker en bra berättare, en bra berättelse och ett bra mottagande undersöker jag i vilken utsträckning kritiken var befogad vad gäller filmerna. Jag finner stora skillnader mellan filmerna när det gäller hur väl de motsvarar kraven. Två punkter där flera av filmerna inte motsvarar kraven är att partierna brast i trovärdighet och att de inte ville tala om vilka grupper i samhället som skulle förlora på deras politik. Jag finner också att de berättelser partierna förde fram i filmerna stördes av andra berättelser om partierna och de frågor filmerna handlade om. Utifrån dessa slutsatser formulerar jag ett antal frågor som partier och andra kan använda för att testa en berättelses potential.

The emergence of digital capture and editing technologies make providing a more detailed and coherent description of the experiences depicted in photos possible. Through the combination of photos, music and voice, people can compose digital stories of their life experiences. However, communicating an experience using photos to people who do not share the experience, and are not co-located is a difficult endeavor, even with effective digital editing tools. In this dissertation, I studied the online photo communication challenges that have arisen as a result of the transition from film to digital photography. I detail my studies of consumer desires and barriers related to online photo communication. Also, I present the design and user evaluation of the Storytellr system, which addresses those desires and barriers. The Storytellr system integrates storytelling activities with traditional photo activities to reduce the challenges of online photo communication. Through this work I contribute to the understanding of the challenges encountered by consumers who desire to engage in sharing life stories through photos over distance. I also contribute a method - integrating storytelling activities into photo activities - for enabling people to overcome those challenges using a process they find satisfying, and that produces an outcome that satisfies authors and viewers alike.

Interactive narratives are marked by two characteristics: 1) a space of player interactions, some subset of which are specified as aesthetic goals for the system; and 2) the affordance for players to express self-agency and have meaningful interactions. As a result, players are (often unknowing) participants in the creation of the experience. They cannot be assumed to be cooperative, nor adversarial. Thus, we must provide paradigms to designers that enable them to work with players to co-create experiences without transferring the system's goals (specified by authors) to players and without systems having a model of players' behaviors. This dissertation formalizes compact representations and efficient algorithms that enable computer systems to represent, reason about, and shape player experiences in interactive narratives. Early work on interactive narratives relied heavily on "script-and-trigger" systems, requiring sizable engineering efforts from designers to provide concrete instructions for when and how systems can modify an environment to provide a narrative experience for players. While there have been advances in techniques for representing and reasoning about narratives at an abstract level that automate the trigger side of script-and-trigger systems, few techniques have reduced the need for scripting system adaptations or reconfigurations---one of the contributions of this dissertation. We first describe a decomposition of the design process for interactive narrative into three technical problems: goal selection, action/plan selection/generation, and action/plan refinement. This decomposition allows techniques to be developed for reasoning about the complete implementation of an interactive narrative. We then describe representational and algorithmic solutions to these problems: a Markov Decision Process-based formalism for goal selection, a schema-based planning architecture using theories of influence from social psychology for action/plan selection/generation, and a natural language-based template system for action/plan refinement. To evaluate these techniques, we conduct simulation experiments and human subjects experiments in an interactive story. Using these techniques realizes the following three goals: 1) efficient algorithmic support for authoring interactive narratives; 2) design a paradigm for AI systems to reason and act to shape player experiences based on author-specified aesthetic goals; and 3) accomplish (1) and (2) with players feeling more engaged and without perceiving a decrease in self-agency.

Thesis (Ph.D.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2000. / Bibliography: leaves 453-487.

Media affects our views of the world and plays a large part in creation and dissemination of social representations. Through media’s increasing importance, people and organizations need to work harder to stand out among the large amounts of brands that exists today.In 2013, Umeå Energi launched a commercial concept about Dolf and Järven, two characters living in Lill-Grobban, a fictional village outside of Umeå. The aim of this qualitative study is to examine how Umeå Energi uses stereotypes in the commercial concept Dolf and Järven and how this affects the respondents, and in the long run the stereotypification of norrlandians. To achieve this aim the following theories have been applied: stereotypes, identity and storytelling. The study was conducted through three focus group interviews with students, professionals and senior citizens, plus one informant interview with a marketer at Umeå Energi.The results and analysis of the study shows that students and professionals thinks the commercials are entertaining, while senior citizens are of a negative opinion; they believe it’s an outrageous and parodic image of locals represented in the commercials. The study also shows that the dialect of the northern Sweden is a large part in creating the stereotypical local in northern Sweden. Professionals and students have a positive image of Umeå Energi after watching the commercials while senior citizens are skeptical. Overall, the study's results show large differences in how the commercials about Dolf and Järven is being received by the respondents. Students and professionals think that the commercials are entertaining, while senior citizens disagree. They are of the opinion that the commercials show an exaggerated and negative image of norrlandians. / Medierna påverkar vår världsbild och spelar en stor roll för utformningen och spridningen av sociala representationer. I och med mediernas allt större plats i våra liv ökar behovet hos både människor och organisationer att sticka ut för att synliggöra sig i bruset av alla varumärken som finns.Umeå Energi lanserade 2013 ett reklamkoncept med karaktärerna Dolf och Järven som bor i Lill-Grobban, en fiktiv ort någonstans utanför Umeå. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att undersöka hur Umeå Energi använder sig av en stereotyp bild av norrlänningar i sitt reklamkoncept Dolf och Järven och hur detta påverkar mottagarna, samt i förlängningen även bilden av den stereotypa norrlänningen. Teorierna som används är stereotyper, identitet och storytelling. För studien genomförs tre fokusgruppintervjuer med studenter, yrkesverksamma respektive pensionärer, samt en enskild intervju med marknadsförare på Umeå Energi.Studien visar att studenter och yrkesverksamma upplever reklamfilmerna om Dolf och Järven som underhållande medan pensionärerna är negativt inställda; de anser att det är en överdriven och parodisk bild av norrlänningen som förmedlas. Av studien framgår även att den norrländska dialekten är en stor del i skapandet av den stereotypa norrlänningen. Yrkesverksamma och studenter har en positiv inställning till Umeå Energi efter att ha sett reklamfilmerna medan pensionärerna är skeptiska. Överlag visar studiens resultat stora skillnader i hur reklamfilmerna om Dolf och Järven mottas bland äldre och yngre personer. Studenter och yrkesverksamma anser att reklamfilmerna är underhållande, något som inte pensionärerna håller med om då de tycker att reklamfilmerna förmedlar en överdriven och negativ bild av norrlänningen.

The subject of this thesis is the communicative practice of strategic storytelling. The aim of the study is to analyse how storytelling is used and handled by organizations to reach comprehensive organizational goals. Within the all-embracing cultural context of modern Western society, here discussed through the concept of the new economy, strategic storytelling is explored in four areas: organizational discourses of strategic storytelling, narrativity as a resource to create and express values connected to the organization, storytelling as a practice of recontextualization and storytelling as an interactive tool. The data consists mainly of strategic stories but also of interviews, observations and documents collected from four Swedish organizations: two companies, a municipality and a congregation of the Church of Sweden. Applying a narratological, social semiotic and dialogical perspective the study investigates how narrativity is used by organizations as a resource to create identification and relations with and among stakeholders. The analyses in the study indicate that meaning is created in different layers. The structural resources of stories are used in various combinations to make organizations appear in specific ways in different situations. Furthermore, the picture of the organization is shaped not only by the stories themselves but also by the very fact that the organization is using storytelling. The potential of recontextualization that is characteristic of narratives is shown to be essential in offering possibilities of identification and a sense of community through storytelling. Furthermore, the fact that a story is told by an individual is shown to play a crucial role in creating a personalized picture of the organization. In strategic storytelling the interpersonal function seems to dominate over the ideational. This is a major finding of the analysis. More specifically, ideation is used as a tool to create interpersonal relations. The study also indicates that strategic storytelling comes with different possibilities and complications depending on what kind of organization is using it. Moreover, it is proposed that narrative as a form of communication fits perfectly within the broader cultural context of the new economy, characterized by commercialization, informalization, individualization and management practices founded on the strategic use of values.

abstract: This study follows three secondary teachers as they facilitate a digital storytelling project with their students for the first time. All three teachers were not specifically trained in digital storytelling in order to investigate what happens when a digital storytelling novice tries to do a project like this with his or her students. The study follows two high school English teachers and one middle school math teacher. Each teacher's experience is shared in a case study, and all three case studies are compared and contrasted in a cross-case analysis. There is a discussion of the types of projects the teachers conducted and any challenges they faced. Strategies to overcome the challenges are also included. A variety of assessment rubrics are included in the appendix. In the review of literature, the history of digital storytelling is illuminated, as are historical concepts of literacy. There is also an exploration of twenty-first century skills including multiliteracies such as media and technology literacy. Both the teachers and their students offer suggestions to future teachers taking on digital storytelling projects. The dissertation ends with a discussion of future scholarship in educational uses of digital storytelling. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2011