Organizational Communication as Cultural Performance: Some Managerial Considerations.

Abstract

This essay uses the metaphor of “performance” from an interpretive perspective as a guide to understand the nature of managerial communication. As developed from an interpretive perspective, “performances” are conceptualized not in the “bottom line” sense of organizationally productive behavior but in the “dramaturgical” and “cultural” sense of those situationally variable interactions in which managers and other members construct senses of organizational identity and reality. This essay develops three managerial performances of “rationality” “sociability,” and “authority” and illustrates these processes with observational data taken from a field study of managerial communication.