Anne Pässilä

Collective voicing as a reflexive practice

This article focuses on the co-construction of a reflexive practice in a public health-care organisation. We study how the reflexive methods of applied drama and theatre facilitate ‘collective voicing’, specifically in the context of dental health-care professionals’ reflections on their own practices in perplexed situations. Our emphasis is on research-based theatre as a way by which the employees of an organisation can become more reflexive in their relationship with customers. This study makes use of the research-based theatre approach, illustrating how various voices – even those of young customers – are expressed, heard and discussed in order to interpret the status quo of perplexed situations and relationships and to imagine possible choices for disentangling the perplexity. Our study demonstrates the value of post-Boalian applied drama and theatre practices and presents a path for collective voicing as a learning process enabling reflexive practice in organisations.

The Role of Reflection, Reflection on Roles: Practice-Based Innovation Through Theatre-Based Learning

A key issue for practice-based innovation is: how can organisations generate innovation in the midst of action? In order to answer this question, this chapter discusses the relationship between learning, reflection, and practice-based innovation. Reflection is seen as an important organisational process that can create spaces for generative learning. The authors demonstrate how theatre-based learning can offer an effective strategy for the creation of reflective spaces that reveal the dynamics of innovation, both in terms of what promotes and what prevents innovative behaviour and practice. Through research and intervention in three organisations, the authors show that viewing roles and relations ‘acted out’ in theatre helps to reduce the unconscious acting out of entrenched emotional and political dynamics in practice. The struggle to create innovation in the midst of action can be seen in the reflexive tension between the radical possibility of such interventions and the political purpose they may serve for established power relations. There will always be a tension in organisations between dynamics that support innovation and dynamics that undermine it.

Creating Dialogue by Storytelling.

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to develop practice and theory from Augusto Boals dialogue technique (Image Theatre) for organisational use. The paper aims to examine how the members in an organisation create dialogue together by using a dramaturgical storytelling framework where the dialogue emerges from storytelling facilitated by symbolic representations of still images.Design/methodology/approach – The study follows the lines of participatory action and art‐based research. The data are collected from 13 dramaturgical work story storytelling sessions in four different organisations. The research design belongs to the tradition of research‐based theatre, which implies artful inquiry, scripting and performance in research.Findings – The paper presents a model for organisational dialogue. The model illustrates the dramaturgical storytelling of work story which influences problem shifting in a positive way.Research limitations/implications – The limitations of this study are related to the scope ...

Research-based Theater as a Facilitator of Organizational Learning

The authors address key questions: whether polyphonic learning space can be constructed by combining theater techniques and applying them to that space, and what kind of knowledge creation process might arise from that endeavor. In polyphonic learning spaces a key element of change and organizational events is seen as a continuous, emergent process. This perspective makes learning a collective and interpretive action process in which the members of an organization construct meanings together and change itself is a pattern of endless modifications in day-to-day work and social practices. By means of aesthetic distancing, which posits that narratives encourage engagement, the authors demonstrate how to focus on the social infrastructure of an organization. The study and intervention presented in this chapter show that it is possible to gain knowledge by interpreting personal experiences. The role of management thereby changes from the setting of goals to the shaping of directions.

Beyond Text: the co-creation of dramatised character and iStory

Purpose In exploring the impact of reflective and work applied approaches, the authors are curious how vivid new insights and collective “Eureka” momentums occur. These momentums can be forces for work communities to gain competitive advantages. However, the authors know little of how learning is actively involved in the processing of creating new insights and how such a turning to learning mode (Passila and Owens, 2016) can be facilitated. In the light of cultural studies and art education, the purpose of this paper is to explore how the method of dramatising characters (DC) in a specific innovation culture can be facilitated. In this viewpoint, the authors are suggesting one approach for this type of turning to learning which the authors call Beyond Text, outlining its theoretical underpinnings, its co-creative development and its application. Design/methodology/approach In this Beyond Text context, the authors are introducing the method of DC and the method of iStory both of which are the authors’ own design based on the theory of the four existing categories of a research-based theatre. Findings The findings of this viewpoint paper are that both iStory as well as DC methods are useful and practical learning facilitation processes and platforms that can be adopted for use in organisations for promoting reflexivity. Especially they can act as a bridge between various forms of knowing and consummate the other knowledge types (experiential, practical and propositional) in a way that advances practice-based innovation. Originality/value The originality and value of iStory and DC is that they can be utilised as dialogical evaluation methods when traditional evaluation strategies and pre-determined indicators are unusable.

Learning Jam: An evaluation of the use of arts based initiatives to generate polyphonic understanding in work based learning

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise “Learning Jam” as a way of organising space, time and people through arts-based pedagogies in work-based learning. This form of encounter originated in Finland to challenge functional silo mentality by prioritising polyphony. Through the use of a “kaleidoscopic pedagogy”, arts-based initiatives are used to collectively and subjectively reconsider practice. Design/methodology/approach – The research design is grounded in one of a series of Learning Jams co-created by practitioners from the field of arts and arts-based consultancy and academics from the field of arts, arts education, innovation and management, learning and development. The focus was on exploring the value of each participants work-based learning practice through the lens of an Arts Value Matrix. Ranciere’s critical theory was used to frame the exploration. The research questions asked; what are the ingredients of this creative, transformative learning space and in what ways can the polyphonic understandings that emerge in it impact on work-based learning? Findings – Findings of this study centre around alternative ways of being in a learning setting where we do not defer to the conventional figures of authority, but collectively explore ways of organising, where the main idea is to lean on something-which-is-not-yet. Research limitations/implications – A key research implication is that teaching in this context demands reflexive and dialogical capabilities for those who hold the role of organising and facilitating spaces for learning and transformation. The main limitation is in stopping short of fully articulating detailed aspects of these capabilities. Originality/value – The originality and value of the practice of Learning Jam is that managers and artists explore the potential of operating as partners to develop new ways of working to realise organisational change and innovation.

Arts and Business Oriented Thinking: The Problematic When Bringing Together Two Different Worlds

The realm of arts and the use of arts and arts-based methods (ABM) in management education, training and practices have recently attracted much interest. The growing demand in the academy for criti...