Negotiating narratives of ‘good’: A model of public value adaptation in a grand challenge intervention

At the core of each grand challenge is a society that is thought to have a need and organisations with an ambition to address that need. This article explores the necessary negotiations between organisations and society as they address a grand challenge involving an ambitious programme of change. Using Narrative Inquiry, we analyse 78 interviews conducted with organisations and society in rural Sarawak (Borneo) to understand the process of negotiating narratives of public value when intervening in the societal grand challenge of rural electrification. We found that organisations and society amplified and attenuated narratives of public value through a boundary object (electrical energy) where they pushed out, and pulled in, viewpoints to adapt narratives of the intervention’s public value. The paternal nature of the organisation’s management of the intervention created conflict about what its perceived and real benefits were. The model we develop explains how conflicting narratives of public value are negotiated and adapted using boundary objects. In illustrating this process, we provide a theoretical model that management research can use to assess the boundary objects, narratives, and public values that organisations apply when they seek to do good, and understand the conflict and negotiation with society where they intervene.