Search results

Sociodrama is a form of learning from action. Participants gain knowledge of themselves and their work situations, with the focus placed on group problems rather than individual problems. While the process is similar to role plays, there is greater opportunity to expose a wider range of role attributes.

This paper describes the use of sociodrama action methods within a design thinking workshop created to support marketing planning for a new product innovation. Participants were a digital sector SME and researchers within a UK university knowledge transfer programme. The paper (1) discusses the theoretical foundations of design thinking and sociodrama; (2) presents a detailed case study of workshop co-development and delivery; and (3) reports the impacts for the client and the university. The authors assert that the discourse of design thinking enhances innovative, collaborative problem solving that improve exploration of possibilities for new product and service development as well as improved organizational business processes. Sociodrama methods assist facilitators by incorporating psychological, linguistic and biological elements to design thinking, leading to superior outcomes than simply from setting up a creative problem solving activity.

The older generation are often portrayed as being a ‘problem’ for society. This case study describes two theatre projects in which elder participants develop their creativity, explore issues to do with the ageing process and confront many of the stereotypes about growing old and then take their efforts out into the wider community.

The School of Training for Trainers is a national programme for training managers, training advisers, training administrators, training officers and training consultants. It is a user‐pays institution, open to training professionals in the private and public sectors. As well as comprising a comprehensive, flexible, modular training programme, it is practical, skills based, and features action method as its basic methodology.

While it is generally well known that nonviolent collective action was widely deployed in the US southern civil rights movement, there is still much that we do not know about how that came to be. Drawing on primary data that consist of detailed semistructured interviews with members of the Nashville nonviolent movement during the late 1950s and 1960s, we contribute unique insights about how the nonviolent repertoire was diffused into one movement current that became integral to moving the wider southern movement. Innovating with the concept of serially linked movement schools – locations where the deeply intense work took place, the didactic and dialogical labor of analyzing, experimenting, creatively translating, and resocializing human agents in preparation for dangerous performance – we follow the biographical paths of carriers of the nonviolent Gandhian repertoire as it was learned, debated, transformed, and carried from India to the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and Howard University to Nashville (TN) and then into multiple movement campaigns across the South. Members of the Nashville movement core cadre – products of the Nashville movement workshop schools – were especially important because they served as bridging leaders by serially linking schools and collective action campaigns. In this way, they played critical roles in bridging structural holes (places where the movement had yet to be successfully established) and were central to diffusing the movement throughout the South. Our theoretical and empirical approach contributes to the development of the dialogical perspective on movement diffusion generally and to knowledge about how the nonviolent repertoire became integral to the US civil rights movement in particular.

Whatever diverse aims and objectives company training policy may have, there tends to be a general agreement on the need to ensure that any new ideas, skills, knowledge or attitudes which are presented to trainees on training courses are actually transferred back into their work situations. As a result of the author's research, we now know more about the key factors which influence the transfer of training. A great deal of this research has focused on variables in the trainee's own work situation which appear to influence training transfer. The research has stressed the need for the returning course member to have developed interpersonal transfer skills, so as to enable him to act as an individual change agent. The results have also emphasised the important role played by the trainee's immediate boss with respect to the application of the learning within the organisation.

This paper describes and critically evaluates the use of Arts‐Based Training (ABT) by exploring a case involving the use of improvisational theatre techniques as an element of management development. Claims that these techniques can be an effective means of achieving management development, as they succeed in involving managers in exploring problems and developing solutions to them at a deep rather than superficial level, while also motivating managers to “sort out” problems following development experiences, are investigated using a case study. The validity of improvisational theatre techniques, as an example of ABT in practice, needs to be balanced with a more critical appreciation of the limitations of such approaches.

As the need is rife for today's leaders to make swift and perfect decisions, they need to learn critical thinking and interpersonal skills as quickly as they can. The traditional pedagogical techniques of training lack the potentiality to make these happen. Not only are they rigorous, and less dynamic, but also they are less learner‐centered, less experiential, and often predispose learners to evaluation anxiety situations. The method of role‐playing differs in many unique ways. Its ability to induce participants to quick understanding notwithstanding, it also has the potential to transform theoretical concepts into an experiential format. In all the scenarios presented in this paper, role‐playing has presented itself as one of the most promising training techniques today. This paper attempts to reflect on the efficacy of role‐playing as an effective pedagogical technique. Implications for practice and research are also discussed.

Discusses that the only true source of sustainable competitive advantage seems to be by building learning organizations. Says that, in order to ensure the survival of their organizations, managers need to focus on individual and organizational learning, the development of a shared vision, an awareness of the internal environment and the external context, and that a key requirement in this process is the ability to surface and test the mental models of people throughout the organization. Also one of the ways of testing mental models is within the context of action. States that exploration of effective action is examined using the Rosenthal stage. Uses an action‐based method using a miniature stage. The Rosenthal stage involves a five‐step process of surfacing, externalizing, reflecting, revealing, and active dialogue of people’s perceptions of their organization. Presents a case study which demonstrates the surfacing of a mental model of a senior manager in a multinational communications organization. The power of the Rosenthal stage enabled this manager, after one session, to gain contextual insight into the breadth of his organization, and the value of his contribution.

This paper discusses the concept of training trainers in the skills they need to perform competently as trainers, and how they follow up their skills mastery with discussion on their new theoretical insight. The focus is on skills mastery first and then theory acquisition as a consequence.