Business students might not remember theory. But they hold on to a story.

In my classroom, the sound of soft rain replaces chatter. A group of students stand at the front and transport us to a railway platform in 1912, where wealthy passengers lift monogrammed trunks on to the train that will carry them to the Titanic.

“It’s 10 April 1912,” one student announces as the lights dim, and old black-and-white railway photographs appear on the screen behind them. Rich travellers hurry past with their luggage, buzzing with excitement. The rain grows louder.

Then the tone shifts. Scenes from James Cameron’s film about the ocean liner’s fateful voyage wash across the walls: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, rising panic, icy water.

Then the twist. More than 1,500 people died that night, yet a Louis Vuitton trunk belonging to Titanic passengers was recovered intact – a symbol of endurance and brand power.

For a few minutes, the entire class is captivated. No theory. No bullet points. No brand-value frameworks. A story has made the lesson unforgettable.

Why storytelling matters in business education

Business students need storytelling skills to persuade and influence others. Whether leading teams, pitching to executives or managing crises, they will need the ability to shape meaning and move an audience. This is why employers consistently rank communication and persuasion as core capabilities for graduates.

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Stepping inside a story and bringing others along can teach students that influence, and connection, do not follow from overwhelming audiences with slides. And with generative artificial intelligence, even hesitant students can craft rich, imaginative presentations that convey something people feel and remember.

For educators, too, the value is simple: storytelling cuts through disengagement. Instead of passively absorbing theory, students practise it. This works across disciplines and cultures, and helps students live the subject matter, rather than reading it. Storytelling is the foundation; GenAI accelerates the ability to tell compelling stories.

How a story-based presentation task works in practice

Although storytelling has long existed in business education, the updated element is in who creates the stories and how they are produced. What is new is that students themselves become the storytellers. 

Storytelling forms part of my assessment package, and GenAI has made the storytelling process faster, more accessible and less intimidating. 

The assessment is a 10-12 minute, in-class team storytelling presentation suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate business students from across disciplines. They research an organisation and craft a business story, with a clear beginning, turning point and insights. GenAI is used at the brainstorming stage to generate framing options, metaphors or opening hooks, but the final product must be the students’ own. 

Creating their own story, rather than simply reading a case study, brings theory to life and connects students more deeply with the content. 

Here is the step-by-step set-up for the exercise:

1. Model the output of the assessment

First, I model the final output of the assessment with a short business story. This is a demonstration, not the exercise itself. The story highlights the importance of intangibles (such as a firm’s reputation, organisational culture or ethics) or it exposes the human consequences of managerial decisions. 

I use the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol crisis of the early 1980s to illustrate this.

“It’s Chicago, September 1982…

“Autumn leaves are scattered on the sidewalks. Families are settling in for the night. And somewhere in the city, people reach for this [I hold up a packet of paracetamol], what they believe is a simple pain reliever.”

But the story shifts quickly. I explain that someone had injected Tylenol capsules with cyanide and returned them to pharmacy shelves. People died.

I ask: how did the manufacturers Johnson & Johnson respond?

“They recalled every Tylenol capsule from every shelf, in every store, across the entire world. Johnson & Johnson put people before profit.”

The demonstration shows how a story can reveal a deeper lesson while giving students complete freedom to craft their own version of stories in whatever form feels authentic to them. 

2. How students use GenAI to research and plan the story

In the assessment, students are free to choose any organisation for their story (and groups are encouraged to choose different companies to broaden the takeaways for the class). They use GenAI to create a starting point, although the focus remains on their own voice, analysis and research and the lesson they want to leave with the audience. 

Teams select a story type – a good-news story, a bad-news story or a tragedy. These categories help students give GenAI a clear brief. GenAI produces a rough outline that students refine through research, including first-person accounts (such as Susan Fowler’s report of harassment at Uber). Students may also use GenAI to suggest opening hooks, rhetorical questions, metaphors or simple visual cues. 

They then transform these ideas into a story told in their own voice, revealing the human side of organisational decisions. 

3. Students bring the story to life

Students use visual and emotional elements such as props, sound, video, metaphor and role play to bring their story to life. These tools help to make abstract ideas concrete. A leaking bucket patched with a sticking plaster, for instance, can represent HR “quick fixes”, while music or lighting shifts can build tension or signal a turning point in the story, the moment when the twist is coming.

4. Presentation assessment and peer feedback

The primary feedback comes from the instructor because this is an assessed task. My feedback, both verbal and written, centres on the clarity of ideas, the depth of theoretical understanding, and how effectively students have used visual or symbolic elements to communicate the management concepts embedded in their story. 

Students offer light peer feedback (“I liked…”, “What if…”), which keeps contributions constructive and psychologically safe.

A staged assessment design makes learning visible. Earlier low-stakes presentations give students room to experiment and refine their skills before the final assessment task, providing clear evidence of their progress.

The impact of storytelling

Engagement is visible when these stories are told: the classroom quietens, and students stop glancing at their devices. Even those who struggle with English are engaged because visual and auditory elements give them multiple ways to connect with the narrative. 

As one student wrote: “The storytelling made it very worthwhile spending a Friday afternoon in class.” 

It’s these moments of immersion that make theory real – and memorable. Storytelling makes theory stick. When students tell stories, theory comes alive – and learning lasts. In business and in education, the best story wins.

Natalie Cummins is a lecturer in the Business School at the University of Technology Sydney.

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