Introduction to the Trilogy: Mythologies of Organizational Everyday Life

Abstract

Myths about organizations and about organizational actors are powerful stories that touch something profound in the reader or listener. They can help us see and understand many important phenomena that are invisible to the rational instrumental mind. This is not universally acknowledged, perhaps due to a large extent to the dominance of that instrumental mind for the past decades and centuries. Furthermore, myths stem from the sacred realm of experience and many people consider business and work organizations as emphatically profane — for an exploration of the distinction between sacred and profane see Eliade (1961) and Armstrong (2005). However, there are times where these two realms meet, for example in ethnographic stories of organizations, where the actors draw on the realm of shared spiritual experience when referring to values and important events. Myths provide a language for these accounts, as well as ideas which people relate to when dealing with the most vital questions.