Culture and Organization, September 2005, Vol. 11(3), pp. 195–208 ISSN 1475-9551 print; ISSN 1477-2760 online © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd DOI: 10.1080/14759550500203151 Fiction and Humor in Transforming McDonald’s Narrative Strategies DAVID BOJE *,a , MICHAELA DRIVER b and YUE CAI a a Department of Management, MSC3DJ, New Mexico State University, P.O. Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001, USA; b Department of Management and Marketing, East Tennessee State University, Box 70625, Johnson City, Tennessee 37614-0625, USA Taylor and Francis Ltd GSCO120298.sgm 10.1080/14759550500203151 Culture and Organization 1475-9551 (print)/1477-2760 (online) Original Article 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd 11 3 000000September 2005 DavidBoje Department of Management, MSC3DJNew Mexico State UniversityP.O. Box 30001Las CrucesNM 88003-8001USA +1 (505) 646-1201 +1 (505) 646-1372 dboje@nmsu.edu The article builds on and expands a narrative perspective on strategy. Specifically, we develop a more Bakh- tinian model in which corporate fiction and humor serve the firm’s strategic dialogic imagination. We develop this model through an analysis of the McDonald’s corporation. Through the grotesque humor of its fictitious Ronald McDonald world, McDonald’s develops its dialogic imagination and transforms its strategic narratives. That is, strategic transformation is enacted narratively in and through its corporate fiction regener- ating and revitalizing existing strategic narratives. Implications for research on McDonald’s in particular and strategy in general are discussed. Key words: INTRODUCTION The view that strategy is a type of narrative seems to have arrived in mainstream organization research (Barry and Elmes, 1997). Since then linguistic and discursive analyses of strategy have been undertaken. For example, Rindova, Becerra and Contardo (2004) analyzed the language games of competitive wars and Starkey and Crane (2003) examined environmental strategy relative to narrative constructions of firm identity. These studies seem to validate Barry and Elmes’ (1997) view on strategy in which multiple voices, such as authors and read- ers, co-create narrative fiction, which then can be examined, like fiction, in terms of various genres and attributes of success, such as credibility and novelty. Building on this narrative perspective and particularly the Bakhtinian view, that strategy is a dialogical rather than a monological narrative, that is, a co-construction of various voices rather than one singular voice of some strategist for example (Barry and Elmes, 1997), we examine one voice that seems to be missing from the strategy discourse to date and that is the voice of corporate fiction and humor. While Bakhtin’s theory has been applied in manage- ment studies of humor before, for example in Rhodes’ (2001) study of carnivalesque grotesque humor in Homer Simpsons’ popular culture and Boje’s (2001) study of activist carnivalesque street theatre of resistance to Nike Corporation, we do not focus on humor as mocking, degrading debasement of corporations (nuclear power plant in Simpsons; Nike by the activists), but rather focus on the positive force of self-renewal and self-regeneration in fiction and humor and the role this plays for strategy. * Corresponding author. Tel: + (505) 646-1201; Fax: + (505) 646-1372; E-mail: dboje@nmsu.edu GSCO120298.fm Page 195 Tuesday, July 19, 2005 3:25 PM