Case Theory – Dramaturgical Analysis with Burke’s Pentad

“Life is not like a drama. Life is a drama''

(Walker & Monin, 2001)

The idea of analyzing different players in the context of organization is not new. Goffman (1956) developed the idea that play is at the very foundation of organization. His dramaturgical paradigm perceives organizations as institutionalized performances of 'actors' engaging in 'dramatic roles' (Kavanagh et al., 2011). The individuals learn to wear a 'mask', or different 'masks', in harmony with the diverse set of social and organizational parts which they play. For example, an architect who is also a single mother, a passionate sourdough baker, a writer for

a design magazine and, a weekend lesbian within Berlin's underground and hedonistic subculture – all wear these different masks, and many besides, at their appropriate time.

With departure in Andersen's (2009) concept of an 'Organization at Play' - an organization which is played into existence – we aim to use Burke's Pentad analysis as the Pentad "provides a system of perspectives from which reality may be viewed" (Kneupper, 1979, p. 133). Thus, we aim to investigate the individual actor's role as well as the underlying meaning of their action taken in the act of playing the organization into existence. We are thereby applying knowledge from the theater in the context of organizational theory just like multiple prior studies which have captured the dramatic aspects of organizations (Czarniawska-Joerges & Wolff, 1991;

Mangham, 1990; Mangham & Overington, 1987; Jackson, 1999; Austin & Devin, 2003).

The same way as in a theater performance, in which actors play their part and act upon it according to a particular interpretation (may it be the director's interpretation or their own), interpretivists see humans as 'social actors' playing a part on the stage of human life, interpreting our "everyday social roles in accordance with the meaning we give to these roles"

(Saunders et al., 2006, p. 106). However, not only our own roles but also the roles of others are interpreted "in accordance with our own set of meanings" (Ibid., pp. 106-107). "This is a crucial point because, as each organization creates discourses about itself [through its individuals], this enables us to see more clearly the organizational influence on individual behavior" (Campbell, 2000, p. 19). In contrast to searching for patterns of similarity, interpretivists are thus looking for an understanding of a situation within context, to "[…] arrive at causal explanations of its cause and effects" (Bryman, 2016, p. 29). We, therefore, question how things happen rather than what is happening to result in the explanation of action.

Social science indeed is a debate, in which all of our prior knowledge and experiences affect how we interpret and view reality. Although we try to be as objective as possible throughout our research, we are aware of this science's strong subjective moment. In fact, we see this not only as negative bias but rather essential in order to find and answer the 'how' in the discourse that builds up and constitutes our social world.

The Theory

Burke (1945) initially introduced the Pentad theory as a method for speakers to persuade others of their reality (in Tracy, 2013). He sees human drama as a natural human condition (Tracy, 2013), which always consists of the following five elements, all of which help us to see the individual's motives of their actions and to see them in a broader organizational context.

Figure 3: Burke's Dramatistic Pentad, own illustration based on Tracy, 2013, p. 211

Burk emphasized the value looking into what he called 'dramatic ratios' – the relationship between any of two elements of his Pentad, to get an understanding of motive from different perspectives. If we take an example of a car accident where a young new driver drives his car off a damaged road. One perspective of motive could be the actor-to-act ratio, which in our example could say that the actor (the young driver) caused the act (the accident) because of his inexperience with driving. Taking a different perspective from the scene-to-act ratio, we could argue that a damaged road (scene) caused the act (the accident). The ratios offer us different perspectives to interpret the event.

How We Make Use of Burke’s Pentad

For the analysis and interpretation of our 'case stories', we make use of the 'dramatic ratios' to describe how the relationship between elements of Burke's Pentad (act, agency, scene, purpose, agent) may affect each other, and in some instances change the nature of the elements. We thereby do not use the ratios to determine motive but rather to look at our stories from different angles and identify how, for example, a scene may change an act and vice versa.

We thereby look at the stories holistically, and the ratios help us understand how the interplay between the Pentad's elements influences the story itself (a change in scene may lead to a new act). A perspective where the interplay between these elements represents the play undertaken in our stories. The more the ratios are allowed to affect each element, the more we may say the case organization is 'at play'.

The ratios thereby shed light on how an 'Organization at Play' may be understood as played into existence by the dramatic ratios - the interplay of the Pentad's five elements. An 'Organization at Play' is thereby an organization in which the elements of the Pentad are fluid rather than static, and open to be influenced by each other - the 'dramatic ratios.'

This means that our analysis does not consist of assigning our cases' data to specific elements in the Pentad but seeks to tell different stories about ratios that showed interesting connections which we would identify as play. We therefore make use of naming the elements for each case in order to tell the story and make our argument on where we see play – according to our 'Colors of Play' – happening.

In order to see these stories in a larger organizational context, we will thus make use of Burke's Dramatism Pentad theory as an analytical framework to guide us in our analysis of the stories we have collected and to help us map out our interview data. This will also help to elucidate the complex connections and interactions "of causal processes in this very specific situations or contexts" (Maxwell, 2004, p. 256 in Tracy, 2013, p. 219).

By looking at the interplay of the elements (or what Burke calls 'ratios') and how these affect each other, we try to tell a story about the individuals in the community they are part of.

Carefully expressed, we use Burke's Dramaturgical Pentad to understand these aspects of 'greater life' (Sandelands, 2010) that are 'in play', and how these aspects shape each case's story. We think of every individual's 'communal life', as the center of a community. This communal life is, therefore, what we aim to analyze with the help of Burke's Pentad theory, which helps us to interpret an 'Organization at play' as a community played into existence by the interplay of the Pentad's elements.

Aligned with our philosophical point of view, that all individual understandings are social, we, therefore, see this theory as a fitting approach in order to tell, analyze, and interpret the stories about play. Departing in our analysis with our ‘Colors of Play', which we will introduce in the following (section 4.1.1), we want to look out for 'Organizations at Play' (Andersen, 2009), how the individuals are playing and how they are played (Sandelands, 2010, p.73).