This study reviews organizational storytelling practices as a construct for analyzing strategy implementation, identifying critical elements of narrativity, and the ways leadership storytelling narratives impact performance. Employing a sequential exploratory mixed-method design, the qualitative phase adopts a Straussian grounded theory approach to inform the development of a narrative framework (NAFRA ). This framework comprises narrative types and functions where narrative types represent distinct stylistic or thematic categories of stories, providing insight into their nature and framing. The narrative functions signify the broader goals and intentions behind storytelling, revealing why certain stories are told and their intended outcomes. Successfully verified, the NAFRA was then applied in the quantitative content analysis of leadership speeches within a case study. It was speculated that leadership speeches containing NAFRA elements would have an impact on organizational performance, profit, and revenue, and that there are two possible trajectories between two events, organizational performance outcomes before and performance after the public speaking engagement. Furthermore, the study delves into the helical nature of storytelling interactions, enhanced by automation, and deeply embedded in organizational and leadership dynamics. The financial impact of leadership storytelling on organizational performance is explored, addressing a gap in the literature. Notably, the study highlights the underrepresentation of diverse demographics in narrativity, emphasizing the need for inclusive scientific inquiry. Understanding the unique voices in the modern work environment is crucial for relevance to practitioner communities. To contextualize strategy discourse, the study draws on semiotics and semantics within a social constructivist framework. This framework is critical for interpreting oral storytelling and understanding its impact on behavior and judgment, especially for stakeholders responsible for strategy implementation.

Utilizing an exploratory sequential mixed-method design grounded in communication theories, particularly narrative paradigm theory (NPT), this study sheds light on how storytelling influences performance.

Keywords: narratives, storytelling, leadership, organizational, performance

This dissertation delves into organizational storytelling practices, dissecting key narrativity elements to analyze strategy implementation. Employing a sequential exploratory mixed-method design with a Straussian grounded theory approach, the study pioneers a narrative codebook framework, validated through a quantitative content analysis of leadership speeches. A distinctive contribution is the introduction of NAFRA, a narrative network that correlates leadership narratives and stories. This correlation is established through an exhaustive examination of a population sample of n = 20 leaders. The study explores the dynamic relationship between leadership narratives and organizational performance, profit, and revenue. Emphasizing the helical nature of storytelling within organizational interactions, augmented by emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, the research unravels financial impacts, particularly in the realm of leadership storytelling, addressing gaps in the existing literature. Moreover, the study introduces 19 narrative types (NTs), 8 narrative functions (NFs), and additional sub-narrative functions, and propounds an emergent theory titled CI-X, the communication information helix (Cooper, 2023).

1. Narrative Networks and Social Issues: Investigate the impact of narrative networks on human behavior and communication concerning social issues like climate change and polarization.

2. Intersection of Narratives and Consciousness: Explore the intersection between narratives and consciousness, unraveling the dynamics that influence perception, interpretation of time and future events.

3. Entropy in Communication and AI Systems: Further explore emergent theories at the intersection of communication entropy, AI systems, and narrative theories to provide a multifaceted perspective on human-AI interactions.

4. Narrative Networks: Impact to prescriptive analytics, determination and identification of risk indicators.