Business is Show Business: Management Presentations as Performance

While there is continual scholarly interest in the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor, extant dramaturgical perspectives limit the ability to account for aesthetic experiences in theatrical situations. This study provides a different methodological lens for looking at ‘theatre’ in organizations and illustrates that an inclusion of performance theory can be particularly valuable for understanding aesthetic techniques which are increasingly employed in organizations. Responding to calls for aesthetic studies, this article analyses large-scale management presentations such as annual general meetings, press conferences, and analyst meetings ‘as performance’ instead of re-labelling them as if they were drama. Drawing on the latest theatre theory and introducing a tool for performance analysis, the study accounts for the aesthetic experience and describes the complex interplay of scenography, lighting, clothing, managers' performance style, rhetoric, and audience interaction, showing that these organizational events are co-created and contested theatrical performances with a potential for resistance and possible change as well as for persuasion.