Session Summary

Session Number:753
Session ID:S6
Session Title:Lessons from Theater: Beyond Metaphor
Short Title:Lessons from Theater
Session Type:Division Symposium
Hotel:Hyatt East
Floor:LL2
Room:Columbus A
Time:Wednesday, August 11, 1999 10:40 AM - 12:00 PM

Sponsors

ODC  (Rami Shani)ashani@calpoly.edu (805) 756-1756 

General People

Chair Taylor, Steven S. Boston College taylorsj@bc.edu 510 849 9375 
Chair Boje, David M. New Mexico State U. Dboje.nmsu.edu 505-646-2391 

Submissions

Tamara and Other Postmodern Theatric(s) 
Presenter Boje, David M. New Mexico State U. Dboje.nmsu.edu 505-646-2391 
Theater in Management: An Analysis of the Modern Play of Management 
Presenter Hatch, Mary Jo Cranfield U. m.j.hatch@cranfield.ac.uk 44 (0)1234 754356 
Commonalities between Off-Off Broadway Theatre and Contemporary Organizational Consulting: Manifestations of Postmodernism -- A Social Gestalt Perspective 
Presenter Saner, Raymond  Center for Socio-Economic Development saneryiu@csend.org (41-22) 731 9207 
Actors and Organizational Development Consultants: Parallel Skill Sets 
Presenter Jacques, Leslie Stager U. of Otago Lstager@commerce.otago.ac.nz 64-3-479-8062 

Abstract

This symposium will push beyond the idea of theater as a metaphor for organizational life and apply the material tools of the theater to the problem of management. We start with an analysis of the Academy of Management as a piece of postmodern theater that multiplies and destabilizes meanings to become schizophrenia, a grand spectacle of Academic progress and an assemblage of little narrative theater productions. We follow with an analysis of the Harvard Business Review "An Interview With" feature, as theatrical performances and the executives not only as their stars, but also as directors and playwrights. The executives each perform differently, they have their own styles, their unique metaphors and vocabularies, their own understandings of themselves and their organizations, and the roles they and their organizations play in the marketplace and society. We then turn to a comparison of off-off-Broadway Theater and off-off-Wallstreet consulting. We close by looking at the working theater and the similarities of the skills of OD consultants and actors.