‘Dracarys’ for all: TV series and experiential learning

Abstract

Film has been widely used for management learning, mostly with a focus on the story rather than on the film experience. This study draws on arts-based learning literature, film studies and data from learning interactions, and develops a taxonomy of experiential learning with film as a specific art form and emotional medium. The taxonomy includes three elements: making a film experience, processing the experience and cultural aesthetic reflexivity. This study provides process steps and teaching strategies to help move management learners along in the process towards specific learning outcomes. It introduces a film analysis tool as a method that can be used to overcome aesthetic muteness when reflecting on the film experience. The acclaimed and contested TV series Game of Thrones serves as a point of reference, and examples feature the female leader Daenerys Targaryen. The approach is transferable across films and TV series to integrate knowing, experience and emotions and to use popular culture’s critical potential for management learning.

Writing differently with film: An animated video on gender, leadership, and language

“…which adopts more open-ended discursive, reflective, and experiential approaches (Mabey, 2013), including activities of learning with film (Biehl, 2023).…”

“…The general approach to use the medium of film draws on and links to studies that have acknowledged its potential for academic theorizing and learning. Popular culture often is ideological, but also helps to expose gendered ideology and may inspire new ideas for management theory and practice (Bell & Sinclair, 2016; Biehl, 2023; Höpfl, 2003; Pullen & Rhodes, 2013). In this spirit, film was used as a leadership learning and developmental activity for individuals with a conference on International Women's Day with the title “Beyond Wonder Woman and Superman–New Forms of Leadership in Film and TV Series” organized by Brigitte Biehl, Jürgen Weibler, the Office for Equal Opportunities and Equal Opportunities Officer of FernUniversität in Hagen.…”

“…Our aim is to explore the potential of artistic forms to communicate research and to encourage viewers to reflect upon and possibly re‐imagine gender, leadership, and language. Film, as a distinct art form, does not only tell a “story”, but creates an “aesthetic experience” by addressing vision, hearing, and embodied perception, providing alternative opportunities to relate to, empathize with, and learn from what is presented (Biehl, 2023; Carreri, 2022). Its aesthetic form partly escapes the dilemma that we are using the medium of language to talk about language (Learmonth & Morrell, 2019, p. 57).…”

“…This is then followed by processing the experience and reflecting on it in more detail. Ideally, some of the experience is mobilized toward personal and professional insight and growth (Biehl, 2023), as a form of self‐directed learning or leadership development (Vogel et al., 2021) that in this case may be critical of organizational discourses (Mabey, 2013, p. 366). In the remainder of the paper, we offer an interpretation and more context to help you move through this process.…”

Book Review: Leadership in Game of Thrones

“…The objective of the book is to bring together popular culture with management research in order to present and discuss leadership styles, their emergence and evolution, and thereby provide the reader with examples that can be used to read contemporary leadership phenomena. The idea of using popular culture in leadership and management learning is not a new one (see Bell, 2020; Biehl, 2021b; Buchanan and Hällgren, 2019; Dahlstedt, 2022; Hassard and Holliday, 1998; Yu et al, 2022). Scholars, indeed, have understood the affective potential of these tools in fostering an aesthetic and affective understanding of management and leadership theories and concepts which, unlike an intellectual understanding, allows to better internalize them in an emotional and memorable way (Sutherland, 2013).…”