Fictional narratives are increasingly analyzed by scholars to improve our understanding of the ‘human condition’, because fiction gives access to the deeply personal experiences, perceptions, and struggles of individuals. This methodological literature review explores current fiction-based research practices in organization and management studies, identifies methodological shortcomings, and finds emerging methodological conventions. After searching for fiction-based research in 26 leading organization and management journals, I found 69 articles that used fictional narratives. My analysis demonstrates that fiction is increasingly used by scholars to make theoretical contributions to six research themes: organizational life, leadership and resistance, change, ethics, gender and race, and organizational analysis. Fictional narratives are treated both metaphorically and as representations of organizational reality. The article shows recurring shortcomings in the literature and formulates recommendations for future fiction-based research. Specifically, scholars are encouraged to justify their selection of fictional sources, use multiple fictional narratives, consider including other (qualitative) data, describe the data analysis procedure, and provide longer passages or direct access to present their (fictional) data. While this review focuses on organization and management studies, it aims to be of use to the broad range of scholars in the social sciences and humanities by showing recent developments in fiction-based research and by offering tools to experiment with this innovative method, so that fictional narratives might inspire their work and enrich their research.

中文翻译：

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探索人类状况：基于小说的研究的方法论文献综述

学者们越来越多地分析虚构叙事，以提高我们对“人类状况”的理解，因为小说让我们能够深入了解个人的经历、看法和斗争。这篇方法论文献综述探讨了组织和管理研究中当前基于小说的研究实践，找出了方法论的缺陷，并发现了新兴的方法论惯例。在搜索 26 种领先的组织和管理期刊中基于虚构的研究后，我发现了 69 篇使用虚构叙述的文章。我的分析表明，学者们越来越多地利用小说为六个研究主题做出理论贡献：组织生活、领导力和抵抗、变革、伦理、性别和种族以及组织分析。虚构的叙述既被视为隐喻，又被视为组织现实的代表。该文章展示了文献中反复出现的缺陷，并为未来基于小说的研究提出了建议。具体来说，鼓励学者证明他们选择虚构来源的合理性，使用多种虚构叙述，考虑包括其他（定性）数据，描述数据分析程序，并提供更长的段落或直接访问来呈现他们的（虚构）数据。虽然这篇综述的重点是组织和管理研究，但它旨在通过展示基于小说的研究的最新发展并提供实验这种创新方法的工具，对社会科学和人文学科的广泛学者有所帮助，以便虚构的叙述可能会激发他们的工作并丰富他们的研究。