Managing polyphony through organizational theatre

In this paper we analyze organizational theatre interventions as attempts at managing polyphony. A qualitative, longitudinal, single-case study helped us to track the polyphonic process of an organizational theatre event from its early development to its follow up phases. While organizational theatre is able to facilitate multivocal and diverse debates and interpretations of situations, the outcomes for individuals depended on their perceived power status, and the reactions of other audience members to the performance. As a consequence, the polyphonic processes of translation and deconstruction – which hitherto were assumed to be mutually exclusive – occurred in parallel among organizational members. The findings suggest that normative views on polyphony in organizations need to accommodate synoptic power relationships.