Emotions, performance and entrepreneurship in the context of fringe theatre

Abstract

Through a study of small scale independent theatre companies, generally known as ‘fringe’, this article explores how passion is drawn on and activated as company founders seek an outlet for their work. Drawing on a social constructionist approach to emotions, we highlight the multiplicity of passion through its positive and negative dimensions as well as how these may intersect. Further, by positioning passion within a set of power relations we point to its performative role in reflecting and reinforcing contextually specific discursive regimes. We contribute to the literature on the social and emotional performance of entrepreneurialism and to understandings of passion that characterize the affective entrepreneurial condition.

The Individual-Care Nexus: A Theory of Entrepreneurial Care for Sustainable Entrepreneurship

“…The role of emotions has been overlooked in studies on sustainable entrepreneurship [42], despite it being described as an intrinsically emotional endeavor [62]. While the performative effect of positive affect on entrepreneurial practice, such as entrepreneurial passion, has been recognized, negative and neutral emotions such as frustration, anger, and anxiety have been marginalized [53][54][55]94]. In the individual-care nexus emotions are seen as the results of caring actions [24], but also as the basis on which reasoned action is enacted and evaluated [26,95].…”

“…The role of for example emotions has recently been highlighted in conventional entrepreneurship research, often however, with an exclusive focus on emotions related to the strong, positive affect of entrepreneurial passion [50][51][52]. The role of negative emotions is often marginalized [53][54][55]. This exclusive focus on positive affect and emotions can be derived from an overly optimistic view of entrepreneurship in mainstream research [56].…”

Entrepreneurship Unleashed: Understanding Entrepreneurial Education outside of the Business School

“…Likewise, theory implies that EP can, and often does trigger greater effort by the entrepreneur to resolve the task at hand, as well as proving her the confidence to influence key stakeholders, a prerequisite for opportunity exploitation (Ma and Tan ). For example, Simpson and her colleagues () found that founders of small scale independent theater companies who demonstrated high levels of passion were able to exploit “fringe” prior work to great acclaim. The importance of passion in motivating entrepreneurs to act is likely to carry over to a classroom setting, where the combination of intensive technical skill building is married with sufficient entrepreneurial training (Bechard and Gregoire ).…”

Theatricalization of enterprise education: A call for “action”

“…Using imagination to mindfully play out a process, reflecting on experiences, and having certain inner values tends to provide the unique mix needed for the development of ideas (e.g. Simpson et al., 2015). Acting theories help to create metaphors that bridge theatrical performances with the challenges found within organizations (e.g.…”

“…Theatrical scripts are therefore loaded with varied emotions that need to be expressed at different stages throughout the performance. From our perspective, it is not too far a stretch to point out the striking similarity between a theatrical performance and the entrepreneurial process (Simpson et al., 2015). Just like in the theatre, different phases of an entrepreneurial journey are laden with strategic checkpoints where the management and/or conveyance of a certain kind of emotion will play a key role in determining the outcome.…”