Selling the story: the role of narrative in business

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As part of its high-level skills agenda, the AHRC has highlighted that the fundamental importance of understanding narrative as an essential business skill, of using the creative and communication skills that narrative entails, and of becoming an expert in the use of language has been overlooked. The failure by key stakeholders, and policy makers in particular, to recognise the skills offered by the Humanities (defined broadly) is a real concern. The core skillset relevant to business is that of narrative creation, transmission, understanding, and reception. This skillset is taught broadly across almost all disciplines within the Humanities, but it is rarely described in these terms. Moreover, none of the many initiatives to promote the Humanities has explicitly focused on this angle. Doing so is potentially a powerful and novel way of communicating why the Humanities are relevant to business and, more broadly, to STEM subjects, government, education, and society itself. This proposal, therefore, outlines a project to examine how narrative skills are understood, deployed, and valued within business contexts. A rapid interview study will be undertaken with CEOs from a diverse range of businesses and organisations to produce a report that the AHRC will be able to use across its networks to raise the profile of the Arts and Humanities. A high-profile steering group has been put together to ensure unprecedented access to key business leaders and that the report has maximum impact in the media as well as business and policy contexts.