Glossary of Metatheatre Terms

GLOSSARY OF METATHEATRE TERMS

Antenarrative is a pre-narrative bet that a story can be told that will enroll stakeholders in ways that transform the world of action. Antenarrative dynamics includes the plurivocal (many voiced), polysemous (rich in multiple interpretations) and dispersed pre-narrations that interpenetrate wider social contexts.

Bureaucracy, for example, is a narrative and theatric frames, which scripts our character roles, dialogs, and sets up the themes, rhythms, and strategic plots we work within.

Chaos and Complexity is a narrative/theatrical frame, which is becoming increasingly popular as an alternative to bureaucracy. There are many quests to transform bureaucracy into the flexible, self-designing, multi-skilled, team patter that can exploit the near-to-chaos patterns of work organizations that are hallmark of the 21st century enterprise.

Concentrated Spectacles – The first six SEPTET elements (frames, themes, dialogs, characters, rhythms, & plots) are constitutive of concentrated spectacles, the Metatheatrics of the enterprise. From bureaucracy to democratic firms, there are ideological frames, themes of dominations, more or less dialog, character roles, rhythms, and plots.

Diffuse Spectacles - As a firm establishes markets around the world, their theatrics plays on the global stage. The Metatheatre of a multinational corporation, for example, includes the public image, the faciality, and starring characters in a global drama.

Frames are ideological viewpoints (mind sets) that become translated into advertising, speeches to shareholders, the training of leaders and workers, and inform the strategic plans (plots) of the firm. Boje (2001a) and Gardner (2002) have theorized and studied the multiplicity of frames (what they call the hybridity of frames) in complex organizations.

Integrated Spectacles – Integrated equals concentrated plus diffuse spectacle in synergistic combination.

Interpenetrateis a term used by Mary Parker Follett to show how two elements typically thought to be separate and oppositional, such as capital and labor or management and union – can be retheorized as interpenetrating. Follett believed, for examples, that managers and workers could reach peaceful understanding about a conflict, by doing a joint analysis of the situation. In the Metatheatre Intervention method, interpenetration of dualities such as Social and Economic, and particularly Organization and Theatre is critical to this manual.

Leadership is theatre. Effective leaders do stage craft; Executives are directors who line up characters (human and non-human alike), in an antenarrative (Boje, 2001a).

Management in its earliest definitions in France meant to be the head of an Entertainment Company (Peron, 2002).

Megaspectacle – Some firms, form time to time, enact a theatric performance that collapses into Scandal, such as Enron. Over a thousand press articles described Enron as a colossal scandal.

Metascripts is defined as the multiplicity of scripts, mostly unwritten ones, that constitute the micro and macro structure, behavior, social dysfunctions, and hidden costs/performance potential of complex organizations. Metascript is a multiplicity of scripts that define the field of actions, where strategies are plotted, rhythms find their time patters, characters get trained in their lines, and many feel con-scripted and imprisoned in their character roles and dialog; there are themes of working conditions for on and off stage performers, and some of the mindsets are incommensurate with other mindsets; a mess of directors, script editors, and characters learning and refusing their scripted lines compete for time on the center stage.

Metatheatre - a multiplicity of theatres (formal, informal, off and on stage) simultaneous in a TAMARA of sites; with starring and supporting cast of characters who (1) affect the quality of products and services, (2) enhance or lower productivity, and (3) constitute the concentrated and diffuse spectacles of theatrical performances experienced by employees, investors, customers and vendors. Metatheatre is defined here as the multiple and contending theatres that constitute organizations. The Metatheatre can be defined as a network of simultaneous, TAMARA-esque stage performances. In your organization you can never see all the theatre performed; it is occurring simultaneously on different stages; some you see and perform, but other acts you hear about from colleagues, vendors, and customers.

Metatheatre Intervention Method is designed to be a companion to the SEAM (Socio-Economic Approach to Management) Method (Savall, 1974, 2000; Savall, Zardett & Bonnet, 1999).

Postmodern Organizations comes in a variety of narrative/theatrical frames. Some are just flexible complexity networks, others seek more democratic governance of the firm, and still others are striving for sustainable organizing that is conscious of where Earth resources come from and how to distribute products and services that are less toxic to human, plant, and animal life.

Quests are narrative/theatrical frames, which are journeys to transform the enterprise, by recruiting helpers, and finding some holy grail that will make the old form into something healthier and more economically effective. For example, most organizations go on a series of quests (sometimes one each year) to transform their bureaucratic metatheatre into something more post-bureaucratic (network, flexible production, participative democracy, chaos organization, and even a postmodern organization). Most often the quest is never fully implemented and real-ized.

Rhythm is defined here, as the interaction of order and chaos, flowing, symmetry and asymmetry, improvisation and repetitive recurring patterns. Rhythm can be (1) seasonal, cyclical, periodic; (2) linear, with sequential alterations and durations; (3) display patterns that are more chaotic.

SEAMstands for Socio-Economic Approach to Management. SEAM is defined as a method for diagnosing hidden costs and untapped revenue potential that through researcher-intervention with organization members can lead to a healthier relation between Socio dysfunctions (in working conditions, work organization, communication-coordination-cooperation [3Cs], time management, job training, and strategic initiative) with Economic domains (Overworked people, time wasted, wasted resources, lack of production, non-creation of revenues, risks to survival and growth, and non-sustainable ecology practices).

SEPTETmeans seven elements of Metatheatrics. The seven elements are: (1) Frames, (2) Themes, (3) Dialogs, (4) Characters, (5) Rhythms, (6) Plots, and (7) Spectacles.

Socio-Economic SPECTACLES– “The spectacle is the moment when the commodity has attained the total occupation of social life” (Debord, 1967: #42). There are four spectacle types combining in organizations: (1) concentrated (internalized), (2) diffuse (externalizing), (3) integrated (concentrated + diffuse), and (4) megaspectacle (scandals dancing on the public stage). Spectacles are composed of the first six of the SEPTET elements of Metatheatre

Spectaclescan be defined as the Metatheatre of late modern and postmodern capitalisms where concentrated and diffuse corporate spectacles integrate on the global stage, but can veer into megaspectacle scandals, becoming the stuff of popular culture (e.g. all those new E-words and E-jokes after the Enron collapse turn into megascandals).

TAMARA, Los Angeles' longest-running play, a dozen characters unfold their stories before a walking, sometimes running, audience. The organization is metatheatric; there are multiple theatres in any organizations; some are front stages, others backstage; some play in one office, while others happen at the same time in other offices, other factories, and other countries. The Metatheatre is a network of theatres, a TAMARA.

Strategic PLOTS – There are multiple plots, and people subscribe to different ones; some are implemented, most are not. Plots are strategic plans, part of the narrative (and we think theatrical) strategy of the firms (Barry & Elmes, 1997). Plots are defined as the grasping together of characters, actions, rhythms, themes and frames, with dialog that affect the organization in the spectacle of Metatheatre. We are interested in the pattern of relations between plots, what we call “inter-plot,” and is known more widely as “intertextuality” (Boje, 2001a). We assume the organization has many plots, some central, and others on the margins, some new ones and collective memory of ghosts of prior plots.

Themes - Freire proposes a thematic methodology that future studies can adapt to the investigation of Metatheatre spectacles. Each spectacle is a “thematic universe” in what Freire (1970: 86) defines as a complex of “generative themes.”

Theme Analysis is a dialectical decoding and re-coding process to get a holistic graphic image of the theme fan and branch process. After the thematics has been codified and graphically prepared, the SEAM team feeds script transcript quotes back to participants in the Mirror Effect intervention.

3C’s DIALOG - (communication-coordination-cooperation).

Working Conditions THEMES– There is no better theme analysis than the Freire’s (1970) thematic fans. Freire proposes a thematic methodology that future studies can adapt to the investigation of Metatheatre spectacles. Each spectacle is a “thematic universe” in what Freire (1970: 86) defines as a complex of “generative themes.”

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