"Managerial storytelling": how we produce managerial and academic stories in qualitative B2B case study research

With a focus on case study research methods, this study continues the epistemological debate about qualitative research approaches in the IMP literature by reconsidering the reliance on managerial interviews as a primary empirical source in the production of knowledge claims. In this empirical approach, researchers seem to often treat the interview process and the analysis and reporting of research findings in a manner that generally gives situational credence to the veracity and factuality of the interview data. In line with several epistemological approaches that have already surfaced in IMP literature, this study further emphasizes the context-dependent, ephemeral and ultimately unstable nature of managerial "truths" imparted in the interviews. We argue that the data should be empathically and reflexively understood as the production of stories and their reporting as a form of academic storytelling of pragmatic academic and managerial value.