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Dramaturgical awareness of consultants through the rhetoric and rituals of cooperation

Carole Lalonde (Department of Management, University Laval, Quebec, Canada)
Marie-Hélène Gilbert (Department of Management, University Laval, Quebec, Canada)

Journal of Organizational Change Management

ISSN: 0953-4814

Article publication date: 4 July 2016

870

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how rhetoric of cooperation is expressed and constructed during rituals of consultation and how this rhetoric is integrated into the consultant’s dramaturgical awareness that incorporates both impression management and the expression of self.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses a discursive approach and semi-structured interviews with directors and consultants working in the healthcare sector, a sector that routinely employs consultants to accompany directors in organizational change management. Rhetoric is constructed around four narrative lines that also constitute the four ritualized phases of the consulting process.

Findings

The mantra of “respect rituals of passage and avoid breaking frames” is an integral part of the consultant’s dramaturgical awareness throughout the process, so as not to infringe upon the order of the interaction established with the directors. Moreover, the development of cooperative relations with other members of the organization is based largely on a rather vast repertoire of action resources that the consultant will have to deploy to face four areas of uncertainty in the rites of interaction; namely, anticipation, interpretation, delegation and adherence. Furthermore, this cooperation is far from definitively acquired and must be reflected upon along the way to maintain control over the definition of the situation. This study expands upon the interrelations between the strategic actor and the reflective practitioner in a consultant’s dramaturgical awareness.

Practical implications

Practical implications are highlighted using the notion of reflective contract (Schön, 1983) for managers as clients, the transcendental precepts of authenticity put forward by Coghland (2008) for consultants as practitioners, and progressive forms of critical theory performativity as suggested by Spicer et al. (2009) and Wickert and Schaefer (2015) for researchers.

Originality/value

The concept underlying this study is dramaturgical awareness. It is a concept but sparingly explored in the literature, yet nonetheless present among advocates who promote organizational dramaturgy based on the work of Goffman. This concept is linked to Crozier and Friedberg’s theory of the strategic actor and Schön’s theory of the reflective practitioner.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Prior version of this paper was presented during the Academy of Management, sponsored by the Healthcare Management Division (August 2015). The authors thank all the interviewees for their time as well as the company Essentiel for the translation. The authors also wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments. This research received a funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and has been formally approved by the Research Ethics Committee of University Laval (CERUL).

Citation

Lalonde, C. and Gilbert, M.-H. (2016), "Dramaturgical awareness of consultants through the rhetoric and rituals of cooperation", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 630-656. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-11-2015-0205

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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