The recognitions of the functions of rhetoric and narratives in epistemology, methodology and research activities is associated to new views of the notion of science, the debate between modernity and post-modernity and the use of interpretative methods.

The legitimation of rhetorical and narrative methods is based on the development of phenomenology, sociology, historiography and cognitive psychology.

The linguistic turn in philosophy introduced a conceptual framework in which the rhetorical turn and the narrative turn emerged.

The focus of management studies on creating meanings and sensemaking opens an important role of rhetoric and narratives as the main instruments for performing these operations.