Using a master’s thesis on ‘Terrestrial Management’ as an example, this article uses Hannah Arendt’s concepts of storytelling and thinking to give an account of writing a thesis as a story. We read these concepts through ideas from post-qualitative inquiry and suggest that thinking through storytelling is important for giving birth to new concepts. We suggest that writing a thesis as a story is a practice of love with the intention of giving birth. This involves playful encounters with other thinkers and practitioners to engage in everyday theatres in the mind. Engaging with concepts from the margins of management, as well as a focus on the marginalized, allows for rearranging the field. Writing a thesis as a story combines deep engagement with stories as they emerge through the interconnectedness of people, places, and practices with artistic modes of writing and the authors’ ethical conversations with themselves while navigating unfamiliar territories. A storyteller manipulates fragmented material into a story while still keeping it open at its edges. Writing is true when it is grounded in people, places, and practices, when it allows for continuous curiosity and conversation, and when it discloses an ethical and political agent who cares about the world.

This paper addresses calls for developing eco-centric approaches to sustainable management learning that challenge the anthropocentric technocratic foci of established models. A growing concern is that despite declarations of climate emergencies, programs making a sustainable turn perpetuate rather than challenge the status-quo. A key issue is that they rely on an ontology of separateness which further detaches humans from nature. To propose an alternative approach that re-embeds human in nature through an ontology of relatedness, we develop the concept Gaia storytelling. It combines Arendt's notion of storytelling with Latour's notion of Gaia. Gaia storytelling dissolves the anthropocentric culture-nature binary that dominates current thinking by attuning itself to the politics of relations and how this politics performs the world through complex entanglements that involve multiple agencies. Storytelling for Gaia is seen as a way to give purpose and direction in life when this life is seen as interdependent on and created from multiple tangling agencies. Two stories that emerged from management learning exercises are discussed for developing Gaia storytelling: an auto-ethnography of a supermarket allows attuning to how our stories are affectively enacted into being through constant story selling; a storytelling workshop of regional sustainable development is used to discuss the possibilities for creating spaces of appearances that can work for Gaia. Finally, we discuss Gaia storytelling with reference to three principles: (1) natureculture, (2) common space, and (3) performativity.

Det er aldrig let at skulle afslutte en bog med meget varierede bidrag til organisatorisk læring. Der er forskellige måder at gøre det på. En måde er en opsummering af bidragene med en refleksion over, hvor vi bevæger os hen. En anden måde kunne være at forsøge at kortlægge, hvordan bidragene placeres indenfor det store komplekse og varierede felt, organisatorisk llring. Jeg har valgt at bruge en tredje form, en autobiografisk form til at reflektere over min rejse med og i feltet. Det er derfor en personlig fortølling om, hvad organisatorisk løring er for mig, og hvordan det udviklede sig over tid. Med inspiration fra Friedrich Nietzsche, stiller jeg spørgsm.let, hvordan jeg blev den, jeg er.

Workplace learning is the engine of professional growth, shaping how employees acquire, refine, and apply knowledge in dynamic organizational settings. This chapter explores workplace learning not as a fixed process, but as an evolving practice that thrives in both structured training programs and informal interactions. Leadership plays a pivotal role in fostering these learning environments, ensuring employees develop the skills, insights, and adaptability needed to navigate modern workplaces. Drawing on Polanyi’s concept of tacit knowing, the discussion highlights how much of what employees learn is experienced rather than explicitly taught—absorbed through observation, problem-solving, and social engagement. This unspoken knowledge, deeply embedded in professional routines, forms the backbone of expertise in organizations. Complementing this perspective is John Dewey’s pragmatic theories, which emphasize learning as an active, experiential process, shaped by real-world challenges and reinforced through reflection and practice. These ideas demonstrate that workplace learning is not passive—it is dynamic, hands-on, and continuously refined through experience. By linking these theories to human resource development, this chapter illustrates how organizations can strategically harness workplace learning to cultivate leadership, strengthen employee engagement, and enhance overall performance. A workplace that values continuous learning is not merely a site for work—it becomes a space for innovation, resilience, and long-term success.

This article engages with sustainability storytelling from the perspective of freedom. Freedom is discussed in relation to a politics of storytelling that can counter power. Freedom, it is argued, is enacted in genuine storytelling and is experienced between people. The conditions of the possibility of ethics in organisations are thus conditioned on the political framing of the spaces between people in terms of how they condition how people may appear in storytelling and how people together transform these spaces for future appearances. Arendt's ethics of freedom is contrasted with the concept of freedom embedded in neoliberal capitalism and related to sustainability. Genuine storytelling is to bring something new into existence from the condition of plurality and responsibility for the world. Storytelling presumes a space for plural political participation. Freedom therefore also forwards attention towards the material possibilities that allow people to participate and appear as unique subjects. The article ends by positioning Arendt's storytelling in relation to a storytelling model for transitioning to sustainability, which positions Latour's notion of Gaia as the centre of four storytelling cycles.

The purpose of this chapter is to reflect upon the challenges that future strategic challenges pose to human resource development (HRD). The purpose is furthermore to elaborate how narrative and storytelling can help understand and tackle these challenges. Finally, the purpose is to identify some storytelling methods for strategic HRD. The chapter thus explores the relations between narrative, storytelling, strategy, and learning. A case from management education is used to illustrate how to combine reflective and reflexive learning in practice. Finally, three different examples of working with reflexivity in organizations are discussed: genealogy, deconstruction, and carnivalesque storytelling. Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to reflect upon the challenges that future strategic challenges pose to human resource development (HRD). The purpose is furthermore to elaborate how narrative and storytelling can help understand and tackle these challenges. Finally, the purpose is to identify some storytelling methods for strategic HRD. The chapter thus explores the relations between narrative, story-telling, strategy, and learning. A case from management education is used to illustrate how to combine reflective and reflexive learning in practice. Finally, three different examples of working with reflexivity in organizations are discussed: gene-alogy, deconstruction, and carnivalesque storytelling.