Essay on Enron
One of innovative approaches to studying organizational conflict and to analyzing cases involving many characters, organizations and situations is dramaturgical theory, based on the approach of symbolic interactionism. This approach states that actions of major actors depend on such factors as place, time, and audience, and that leadership represents a special form of theatre. Dramaturgical analysis commonly includes such elements as the performance itself, backstage, audience and teams. McCormick (2007) has developed a very effective concept of stagehands, which helps to convey the performance to the spectators. These are commonly mass media such as radio, TV, local newspapers and Internet. Organizational conflict can be viewed as a performance, and traditional theatric relations between the main objects can be witnessed in the context of an organization as well.
The case of Enron is a very appropriate object for analysis using dramaturgical theory. Boje, Rosile, Durant and Luhman (2004) combine postmodern theories and critical theory and shape the critical dramaturgy approach to Enron case. There are several distinct features of this approach. First of all, critical dramaturgy focuses on legitimating and rationalization of organizational spectacle, and according to this approach the public is assigned a passive role of the spectator. Secondly, this approach shapes the role and perception of theory of public relations and the impact of proscenium in the form of corporate management and image on the nature of public relations. In the course of Enron performance, public relations (stagehands) are focused at the creation of relationships; meanwhile, the proscenium represents a barrier and hinders these relationships.
Boje, Rosile, Durant and Luhman (2004) have developed an understanding of different types of spectacles: diffused, integrated, concentrated and megaspectacle. The scandalous Enron case is considered as the breakdown of a megaspectacle into fragments, each of these can be considered as a separate performance (e.g. the scandal related t Valhalla rogue traders, rivalry of Skilling and Mark, situation with Gas Bank etc.). Boje, Rosile, Durant and Luhman (2004) have conducted intertextual analysis of each of these fragment and have identified that they shape a tragic megaspectacle worth of stages of Ancient Greece.
The effect of analysis basing on dramaturgical theory allows to consider the marginalized scandal stories related to Enron from a different point of view, and to see the mechanisms behind the stage of all fragments. The perception of fraudulent actions as of a plot gives perspectives for identifying and resisting such “enronian” organizational practices. Dramaturgic theory shows that the success of Enron and its reputation were strongly shaped by its masterly dramaturgy. The echoes of Enron story (the catharsis) and implications of the megaspectacle are still influencing public relations and the public itself.
In a preceding work called “Enron Whodunit?” Roje and Rosile (2002) considered ten emplotments including different chronologies and characters, and identified intertextual relationships of these plots. This plot-based approach was the basis of teh concept of megaspectacle and the formation of critical dramaturgy approach. Boje and Rosile have considered the megaspectacle and the ten plots forming this performance from a inside and outside paradigm, with analysis on micro and macro level, with each quadrant of level and paradigm representing a separate metaplot. Such analysis is important from a political and economical perspective since it allows to view the whole picture, to estimate the scale of the events and to trace the actions at the backstairs which have such a profound effect on the spectators.
