Academic Journal

Inspiring innovation: the power of storytelling in the workplace.

Λεπτομέρειες βιβλιογραφικής εγγραφής
Τίτλος: Inspiring innovation: the power of storytelling in the workplace.
Συγγραφείς: da Silva, Juliano Domingues1 (AUTHOR) jdomingues8@gmail.com, Rodrigues, Rafaela Serdan1 (AUTHOR)
Πηγή: Innovation: Organization & Management. May2026, Vol. 28 Issue 2, p275-288. 14p.
Θεματικοί όροι: *White collar workers, *Employee motivation, *Organizational behavior, *Communication in management, Storytelling, Inspiration, Originality, Creative thinking
Περίληψη: Researchers and professionals recognise that managers' use of storytelling can increase employees' innovative work output (IWO). However, the psychological mechanisms that explain this relationship remain unexplored. To address this gap, this study investigates the mediating role of inspiration in the link between storytelling and IWO. Drawing on the transmission model of inspiration, we propose that storytelling activates two sequential mechanisms: being inspired by (a passive state of idea reception) and being inpired to (an active state of motivation to act on the idea), which together foster tangible innovative outcomes. Across three studies — including two experiments and a field survey with technology-sector professionals — we demonstrate that storytelling consistently enhaces IWO. In study 1 (an experiment with students) storytelling enhaced IWO, particularly in complex tasks like idea categorization, with inspiration mediating this effect. Study 2 (an experiment with professionals) replicated these findings and revealed that inspiration fully mediates the relationship when IWO is measured through creative problem-solving tasks. Study 3 (survey) generalized these results by showing that both the frequency and effectiveness of managerial storyteling predict IWO through the same serial mediation process. Our findings advance theory by unpacking the process of inspiration (from passive reception to execution) and validating its role in transfoming narratives into innavation. For practitioners, this research highlights the importance of training managers to craft compeling, relatable stories that ignite inspiration an drive employee innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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