Performing the organization: Organization theatre and imaginative life as physical presence
Abstract
The so-called dramaturgical metaphor has been a popular and productive framework within which to analyse organizational and social life for some time. Whilst it has utilized two broad approaches – Kenneth Burke's (1945, 1969a, b) dramatism and Erving Goffman's work on dramaturgy (1959) – the great majority of this work has drawn on the latter framework with the consequence that the notion of theatre has been used metaphorically. Such a focus has resulted in a general failure to recognize that life is not liketheatre but that it is theatre.
This paper has been withdrawn.