The art of stage-craft: A dramaturgical perspective on strategic change

Abstract

<jats:p> This article contributes to our understanding of how organisations change the set of practices and practitioners involved in strategising, what we term the ‘strategy arrangement’. Drawing on insights from a qualitative study of the introduction and subsequent removal of a new strategy team, we develop a dramaturgical theory of the practices involved in changing strategy arrangements. First, we conceptualise the relationship between the frontstage performances where impressions are generated and the backstage work that takes place to craft and control those impressions. Second, we distinguish between preventive practices designed to ‘stage the show’, where foresight is used to imagine the impressions of the audience and inform the design of the show, and corrective practices designed to ‘save the show’, where the desired impression has been discredited and repair is needed to restore the desired impression. Third and finally, we distinguish between the more innocuous backstage practice of rehearsing, the ‘behind the scenes’ work that involves taking up the roles of actor, playwright, director, audience and critic to craft the show, and the less innocuous practice of conspiring, where team members work ‘behind the backs’ of the audience to construct false impressions. In so doing, we seek to advance strategy-as-practice research by developing a dramaturgical theory of practice that captures the theatrical dynamics of strategic change. </jats:p>

A Qualitative Method Proposal for the Study of Strategy as Practice

“…At the same time, the ethnographic method sheds light on the microlevel of strategizing by allowing researchers to investigate the "'behind the scenes' work and follow its consequences for the unfolding dynamics of changes to strategy arrangements" (Whittle, Gilchrist, Mueller, & Lenney, 2020, p. 4). The backstage can be accessed by a systematic observation and actors' narratives (see Whittle et al, 2020). Narratives can be used to capture the actors' stories about how they manipulate these strategic artifacts in their organizational daily lives.…”

Lifting the curtain: Strategic visibility of human labour in AI-as-a-Service

“…Although Goffman’s (1959) theory initially referred only to face-to-face interactions with co-present actors, research has extended it to online (Kilvington, 2020) and organisational settings (Manning, 2008; Whittle et al., 2020). As such, we can observe how organisations conceal processes and information in their ‘backstage’, while performing impression management to shape idealised self-presentations on the ‘frontstage’ (Ringel, 2019).…”

“…As an example of this, Laguecir and Leca (2019) explain how the organisational backstage can be used to conceal misconduct. To quote Whittle et al. (2020), the ‘frontstage is conceptualised as the place where a more anodyne and sanitised version of the organisation is presented, a version that is detached from the messy and sometimes ‘dirty’ reality’ (5).…”

Communicative Perspectives on Strategic Organization

“…The next two papers by Bencherki et al, (2021) and by Whittle et al, (2021) focus on key processes and practices of strategy-making. Bencherki et al, (2021) address an important question that is at the heart of strategy work: how specific issues become strategic issues (for an alternative view, see Gond et al, 2018).…”

“…By so doing, their analysis helps to elucidate the communicative foundations of strategy-as-practice research more generally. Whittle et al, (2021) in turn offer an illuminating analysis of the front-and back-stage practices of strategy-making. They focus on a change in the 'strategy arrangement,' i.e.…”