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1 – 10 of over 5000Peter Totterdill and Rosemary Exton
This paper aims to discuss how Interactive Theatre can be implemented and it also gives examples of it in action with feedback from clients. Unlocking employee creativity is one…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to discuss how Interactive Theatre can be implemented and it also gives examples of it in action with feedback from clients. Unlocking employee creativity is one of the key challenges of implementing organisational change to improve performance and enhance working life.
Design/methodology/approach
Interactive Theatre is a dynamic event that helps to release employee inhibitions that prevent them from expressing their views while engaging them in critical reflection and creative thinking through facilitated dialogue and collaboration.
Findings
Using theatre to dramatise the issues and situations created by poor work organisation, inadequate skills and ineffective management practice encourages employers and employees alike to take action. Drama reveals all the tensions and problems that can exist in the business, while at the same time being fun and captivating. As a result, people are more likely to have an open mind about the need for change and to become actively involved in its design and implementation.
Originality/value
This paper discusses how Interactive Theatre can be implemented and gives examples of it in action with feedback from clients.
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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which forum theatre interventions can support non-hierarchical approaches to learning, development and change management…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the extent to which forum theatre interventions can support non-hierarchical approaches to learning, development and change management initiatives in organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were carried out with theatre consultancies, actors/facilitators, commissioners and participants in two forum theatre events. The data were analysed through thematic coding using template analysis.
Findings
The findings show that the impact of forum theatre interventions was constrained by the need for practitioners to meet the requirements of their organizational clients. There was a lack of clarity by the facilitators about how they can carry out the role effectively and meet the expectations of their own managers, organizational clients and participants. The paper concludes that without explicit acknowledgement of these competing expectations or the facilitators ' beliefs and attitudes, the impact of such interventions may be reduced or diminished.
Research limitations/implications
The study is relatively small-scale and there is a need for research across a wider range of theatre-based interventions to develop understanding of the ways in which such events can enable the development of non-hierarchical learning spaces.
Practical implications
The paper highlights the need for consultancies offering forum theatre interventions to understand the dilemmas of facilitators and provide a more pro-active approach to their learning and development needs.
Originality/value
There has been limited exploration of the facilitator ' s role in managing learning and development events in general and forum theatre in particular. This paper highlights the challenges to consultancies and HRD practitioners in implementing more democratic approaches to learning, development and change management initiatives.
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J. Waring, R. McDonald and S. Harrison
Current thinking about “patient safety” emphasises the causal relationship between the work environment and the delivery of clinical care. This research draws on the theory of…
Abstract
Purpose
Current thinking about “patient safety” emphasises the causal relationship between the work environment and the delivery of clinical care. This research draws on the theory of normal accidents to extend this analysis and better understand the “organisational factors” that threaten safety.
Design/methodology/approach
Ethnographic research methods were used, with observations of the operating department setting for 18 month and interviews with 80 members of hospital staff. The setting for the study was the Operating Department of a large teaching hospital in the North‐West of England.
Findings
The work of the operating department is determined by inter‐dependant, “tightly coupled” organisational relationships between hospital departments based upon the timely exchange of information, services and resources required for the delivery of care. Failures within these processes, manifest as “breakdowns” within inter‐departmental relationships lead to situations of constraint, rapid change and uncertainty in the work of the operating department that require staff to break with established routines and work with increased time and emotional pressures. This means that staff focus on working quickly, as opposed to working safely.
Originality value
Analysis of safety needs to move beyond a focus on the immediate work environment and individual practice, to consider the more complex and deeply structured organisational systems of hospital activity. For departmental managers the scope for service planning to control for safety may be limited as the structured “real world” situation of service delivery is shaped by inter‐department and organisational factors that are perhaps beyond the scope of departmental management.
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The first aim of this paper is to bring empirical evidence from an atypical organizational setting to the debate surrounding the currency of business process re‐engineering, which…
Abstract
The first aim of this paper is to bring empirical evidence from an atypical organizational setting to the debate surrounding the currency of business process re‐engineering, which some commentators have dismissed as a damaging “fad”. The second aim is to suggest how the process orientation advocated by re‐engineering can facilitate a creative visualization of organizational process and a participative approach to redesign. The paper is based on the experience of an acute teaching hospital seeking to reduce patient delays affecting the work of the operating theatres department. The project began towards the end of 1994, was overseen by a hospital steering committee, was conducted by a small internal project team (with researcher as member), and was based initially on a process mapping exercise. The elective surgical in‐patient process (one of the hospital’s “core processes”), from referral to discharge, was mapped using the knowledge of project team members, interview and survey data from 39 respondents, informal discussions with over 50 other hospital staff, and from a photo‐documentation and photo‐elicitation procedure. Interviews, survey questionnaires, informal discussion and the photo‐elicitation sessions were also used to develop a wide series of recommendations from staff with respect to redesigning the patient process and reducing theatre delays.
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The paper draws extensively from Aristotle’s Poetics, a classical work on the aesthetics of drama. Drawing from symbolic and thematic elements from folklore and mythology, this…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper draws extensively from Aristotle’s Poetics, a classical work on the aesthetics of drama. Drawing from symbolic and thematic elements from folklore and mythology, this paper aims to illustrate how the Poetics can be referenced as an allegorical device in the design of culture-building strategies and interventions.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory paper examines Aristotle’s “Poetics” and the range of creative expression this literature provides as a conceptual design framework for the development of a culture map in creating a distinctive organisational mythology. The Poetics articulates an Aristotelian perspective on theatre which infuses itself as a new language in offering structural and archetypical plot devices in the development of an organisational narrative.
Findings
Findings from this explorative study can provide a creative roadmap to culture practitioners and leaders, to be used as a determining reference point in developing culture maps and change management interventions.
Practical implications
Poetics has its detractors, notably Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal. Boal examines how Poetics promotes a narrative that suppresses free thinking and encourages a cult of feudal personality, therefore encouraging industrial and cultural oppression, which he rebelled against through the development of his “Theatre of the Oppressed”. This new kind of theatre discarded the Aristotelian model of thinking. Ideas proposed in the Poetics may also lend verisimilitude to the propagation of obsessive consumerism through the definitive symbolism it offers in the development of institutionalised personality cults.
Originality/value
The Poetics as a creatively driven reflexive study provides a forward movement in the study of culture design templates. Its definitive allegorical devices and metaphors act as action principles through which an enterprise culture and its value system can be examined and developed.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine organizational practice to investigate what insights could be gained to support and extend existing theory.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine organizational practice to investigate what insights could be gained to support and extend existing theory.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopts a clinical approach, e.g. not a priori or an academic one where data are mangled to fit a theoretical stance.
Findings
Data analysis reveals four interconnected learning cycles and the enabling structures put in place to facilitate them. The practice‐based themes support many organization learning theories; in addition, the findings augment the systems perspective.
Research limitations/implications
Challenges traditional logical‐deductive (theory driven) stances. Findings do not pretend to be generalizable or definitive, but more evocative.
Practical implications
The paper discusses practical implications in how firms might implement enabling structures for organizational learning; and what accompanying changes in management practices and leadership would be required in implementing these facilitative structures.
Originality/value
This paper provides value to all organizations, in that it outlined how personnel at all organization levels can think, plan, innovate, process information and coordinate in working together. In adopting the perspective of praxis within an unconventional organizational context, the empirical findings support and reinforce some theories of organizational learning, extend or refute others and add new insights.
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The survival and sustainable growth of Cai Luong (Renovated Theatre) theatre companies as well as Cai Luong theatrical art in Vietnam necessitate the sharing of acting and singing…
Abstract
Purpose
The survival and sustainable growth of Cai Luong (Renovated Theatre) theatre companies as well as Cai Luong theatrical art in Vietnam necessitate the sharing of acting and singing skills between generations of actors. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of theatre members’ perception of psychological contract in predicting their sharing of knowledge. Another research purpose is to assess if corporate social responsibility (CSR) of theatre companies can activate the effect chain through psychological contract to knowledge sharing. The last research purpose sheds light on the moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) for the relationship between psychological contract and knowledge sharing among members of Cai Luong theatre companies in Vietnam setting.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-sectional data for SEM-based analysis was collated from 226 respondents of Cai Luong theatre companies in Vietnam.
Findings
Research results unveil the predicting role that CSR played on the relationship between psychological contract and knowledge sharing among members in Cai Luong theatre companies. This relationship was also found to be moderated by EO.
Originality/value
Research results extend knowledge management literature through the inclusion of CSR and psychological contract as antecedents of knowledge sharing.
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C. Potter, P. Morgan and A. Thompson
Describes an action research project to improve quality in threehospital departments including operating theatres, X‐ray, and medicalrecords. The approach combined quality…
Abstract
Describes an action research project to improve quality in three hospital departments including operating theatres, X‐ray, and medical records. The approach combined quality assurance (QA) or audit methods with those of continuous quality improvement (CQI) or TQM. The intention was to bring about improved organizational performance through an emphasis on bottom‐up rather than top‐down methodology, and to assess the relative effectiveness of different quality strategies being used within the hospital. Baseline studies of organizational climate and of patient perceptions enabled evaluation of effectiveness. Provides a description of the background to various health‐care quality strategies, and argues that several perspectives are required if all stakeholders (e.g. policy makers, professionals, patients, and managers) are to be satisfied. Describes the responses of staff, superiors and professionals and recommendations offered for more effective quality strategy implementation.
Irena Descubes and Tom McNamara
The purpose of this paper is to explore post-Bolian reflexive theatre-based learning (TBL) theory and practice, in conjunction with meta-language and learning from experiences to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore post-Bolian reflexive theatre-based learning (TBL) theory and practice, in conjunction with meta-language and learning from experiences to address the gaps and silos between top-level macro strategy planning and operational micro-management on-going challenges in a contemporary new public management (NPM) major organizational change context.
Design/methodology/approach
An investigation was carried out over three months at a major French utility in a praxis-related action research context (PRAR). TBL formats, i.e. “improvisational wrestling” and “improvisational cabaret”, were adapted and put into practice.
Findings
A reflective process in which participants developed an enhanced sense of ownership and interest in the targeted organizational structure was developed. It allowed for collectively created contextual in-house knowledge, innovative practices and tools that supported the change initiative.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of this research is that it is case-based, restricting the generalizability of its findings. Future research could examine the general validity of improvisational TBL forms and the way they can contribute to the creation of participatory innovation oriented corporate cultures. Also, an interesting research question would be to investigate how organizations, once having undertaken NPM initiatives, can continue nurturing a collaborative practice-based organizational culture over the long-haul, showing a clear need for longitudinal studies.
Practical implications
The present initiative and case study was deemed as successful by all stakeholders, and the programme of engaged change management sustainable and self-reinforcing.
Originality/value
This study extends the knowledge of the role of arts in enhancing organizational reflection. To the best of the knowledge, the TBL formats employed have never been used previously in PRAR. The paper builds links between organizational management, knowledge creation and micro-level organizational innovation. It fills a research gap concerning the content and the practices enabling innovation processes. Last but not the least, this study builds an actionable and replicable (yet not generalizable) framework based on reflexive theatre techniques as a novel learning approach in knowledge production in public sector enterprises undergoing a major organizational change.
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Deborah E. Swain and Patrick Roughen
This paper aims to describe how knowledge management (KM) in planning can support the sustainability of innovation in a hybrid, joint-use facility. The case study research studies…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to describe how knowledge management (KM) in planning can support the sustainability of innovation in a hybrid, joint-use facility. The case study research studies ImaginOn, a 15 year-old children’s library and theater for young people in Charlotte, NC.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used KM model analysis of qualitative data about tacit-explicit knowledge, intellectual capital (IC) and cognitive modes of collaboration. Both historic documents and primary data (from field study observations, interviews and a questionnaire) were analyzed for informal KM practices. Semi-structured and unstructured interview questions about innovation were used.
Findings
This study found evidence of tacit knowledge sharing, the growth of IC and the operationalization of collaboration to promote innovation. Although traditional KM terms were not used by staff, an integrated model framework demonstrates how KM practices promote innovation in planning joint-use facilities.
Practical implications
Although a study of a diverse cultural collaboration rather than two libraries, the KM practices that supported innovation and collaboration in this hybrid, joint-use facility might be applied to libraries. Future KM model research on joint-use organizations could investigate merged businesses, government programs and non-profits.
Social implications
The library and theater institutions in ImaginOn impact the lives of children and parents in meaningful ways that support community understanding, art, diversity and social interaction.
Originality/value
Research on joint-use libraries began in the 1960s. This case study provides unique model analysis of KM practices in a hybrid, joint-use facility (a library and theater). The innovative success and sustainability of ImaginOn illustrates the application of KM for strategic planning and aligning IC and business assets.
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