Journal ArticleDOI
Managing as a Performing Art
TLDR
In this article, the authors consider the activities of senior managers as isomorphic with those of actors and argue that the way to become a management star, it is suggested, is to do managing, not simply to be audience for academic stars.Abstract:
SUMMARY
This paper considers the activities of senior managers as isomorphic with the activities of actors. It takes performing as not a matter of metaphor, but a matter of form; life at the top of an organization is intrinsically theatrical; each of us is blessed or cursed with histrionic sensibility. Proceeding by way of a comparison of Edmund Kean and Lee lacocca it touches upon matters of text and interpretation, rehearsal and performance and the importance of individuation. The argument – such as it is – is that both Kean and lacocca perform themselves, the former's Richard III, the latter's Chrysler being the fullest realizations of that which was, hitherto, inchoate and emergent. The final part of the paper is concerned with the implications of this perspective for education, training and development; current management education appears geared to reduce rather than to promote individuality. Techniques are imposed and answers are provided and the entire educational performance revolves around teachers as performers rather than managers as performers. The way to become a management star, it is suggested, is to do managing, not simply to be audience for academic stars.read more
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Posted Content
Finding Form: Looking at the Field of Organizational Aesthetics
Steven S. Taylor,Hans Hansen +1 more
TL;DR: A review of organizational aesthetics in terms of content and method can be found in this article, where the authors suggest four broad categories of organizational aesthetic research: intellectual analysis of instrumental issues, artistic form used to look at instrumental issues; artistic analysis of aesthetic issues; and artistic form applied to aesthetic issues.
Journal ArticleDOI
Understanding Arts-Based Methods in Managerial Development
Steven S. Taylor,Donna Ladkin +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify four processes that are part of arts-based methods in organizational development and change and identify four steps that are involved in each of these four processes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Critical review – Outsourcing: a paradigm shift
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Journal ArticleDOI
Enacting the ‘true self’: Towards a theory of embodied authentic leadership
Donna Ladkin,Steven S. Taylor +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that although authentic leadership may be rooted in the notion of a true self, it is through the embodiment of that true self that leaders are perceived as authentic or not.
Journal ArticleDOI
Telling Tales: Management Gurus' Narratives and the Construction of Managerial Identity
Timothy Clark,Graeme Salaman +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the reasons for the apparently powerful impact of management gurus' ideas (i.e., guru theory) on senior managers and highlight the importance of the socioeconomic and cultural context within which guru theories emerge and become widely adopted.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Paradigms, Metaphors, and Puzzle Solving in Organizational Theory.
TL;DR: In this paper, the metaphorical nature of theory and the implications of metaphor for theory construction are examined. And a theoretical and methodological pluralism which allows the development of new perspectives for organizational analysis is suggested.
Journal ArticleDOI
Performance and Rehearsal: Social Order and Organizational Life*
TL;DR: In this article, the authors take social order as an alternation between performing and rehearsing in which social actors may be treated as "possessed" by their roles and the limits on performance located.