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Management as Performance and Theatrical Events

This paper concerns a certain way of approaching and analysing the practice of management in terms of performance and theatrical events. It discusses a ‘theatrical’ mode of communication, and aims at exploring the dividing line between public/private within managerial practices and procedures. A manager presents him or her self in public. Here some concepts and insights are brought from the discipline of theatre studies, and analogously, management is regarded as ‘performative’ acts and as managerial styles are becoming expressed through series of actions. A priority of academic theatre studies has been the analyses of live theatrical performances, and such studies have in most cases aimed at gaining a wider understanding of stage performances. But the researcher is then often considered as a spectator and an all-knowing observer of the actors and what is taking place on stage. On the contrary, actors and spectators are here regarded within an inter-active framework of a so-called ‘theatrical event’ (Sauter, 2000). Such an event is a ‘theatrical communication’ that is taking place within a cultural historical context. The researcher has to deal with encoded modes of communication, such as tradition, conventions or professional characters. The events also embrace notions of the past, the present and the future, i.e. memory. Experiences and actions are being expressed through form (lat. per formam). The aim of the paper is first and foremost to discuss a methodological framework for applying theatre studies to management research (for example, costume design, lighting effects, dramaturgy of events), and to discuss some illustrating examples.