Storytelling pedagogy: overcoming red herrings in sustainability challenges. Lessons from the Fanyatu project for management education

Purpose This paper aims to explore whether and why storytelling can serve as a catalyst for transformative learning and can foster a participatory learning environment. It further discusses the potential of storytelling to inspire student action and create a positive faculty-wide impact. Design/methodology/approach The paper analyses how storytelling can be a transformative learning pedagogy that stimulates students’ engagement in a participatory context. The focus is on red herrings and societal challenges, mainly related to environmental issues. Red herrings as fallacy are starting to dominate data about sustainability. They are often used to minimize the urgency of, for example, global warming. This way of communicating influences how we act: either we do not act or we stop seeing the urgency of acting. Although red herrings are also used in storytelling, an argument is made to how another way of storytelling can be used as a strategy against red herrings to stimulate students’ engagement. This argument is supported by the Fanyatu case which was used in a course on corporate social responsibility at the Faculty of Economics and Business, KU Leuven. Findings The Fanyatu case confirmed key elements in storytelling that contribute to participatory approaches in fostering action that can be effectively used in management education to counter the distraction of red herrings. It concerns internal coherence and external fidelity, the inclusion of emotional aspects and reflection and the collective action process. The Fanyatu case study introduced additional dimensions to storytelling. Effective storytelling must be genuine and not manipulative, focus on positive change and inspire tangible action. Originality/value Exploring storytelling as a strategy against red herrings related to climate change is valuable because the research has shown that authentic stories can encourage students to engage in a participatory context. Students regain hope when they can listen to and contribute to a shared story through collective efforts aimed at reducing carbon emissions. In this project, the most impactful initiative was the planting of a forest in the Congo Basin as a sustainable keepsake of the master’s graduation ceremony.