Description
Organizational Study on Integrating Humanities into the Management Curriculum:- The total learning experience provided by a school. It includes the content of courses (the syllabus), the methods employed (strategies), and other aspects, like norms and values, which relate to the way the school is organized.
Organizational Study on Integrating Humanities into the Management Curriculum
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ABSTRACT
In this paper we argue for the role of the humanities in management education and viell' the use of literature and film treatments of organizational life as an important component of a broader curricula change strategy. The method we take is a confluenr approach to management development. whereby I~ integrat« qualitative/affective as well as quamttative/cognitive aspects of every leadership or management decision. We contend that even management curricula that employ traditional case studies and interdisciplinary capstone projects would benefit by combining traditional management studies with literature and film treatmenu of organizatio nal life. We encourage business students and-professors 10 lock beyond narrowly defined organizational problems /0 a more holistic analysis of their roles as leaders and managers.
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INTRODUCTION
The end product of business education is now conceived as a kind of manager-technician, who is equipped with all manner of techniques for mastering the uncounted mechanism comprising the business world, but little of itsflesh and blood management. =Mulligan, 1987
There is some general dissatisfaction on the part of corporate employers who employ business school graduates as potential managers. Complaints by employers about recent recruits' general lack of preparedness for business have been widely discussed in both the popular and professional literature for some time. A recent recruiter from a Fortune 500 company remarked, "Please don't send us any more proudly-entitled numbers types. We already know the difference between a debit and a credit. Send us some people prepared to work with people. That is where the real management issues lie -- making people count, not just the numbers." Business school and MBA graduates may be adept at analyzing spread sheets, measuring discounted cash flow, and making abstract financial decisions, but quantitative measuring devices like break-even analysis -although useful in reporting the success of an enterprise- do nothing per se to bring success about We contend that the inclusion of dramatic history, literature, and film treatments of work life can be used as a basis for organizational analysis in the management curriculum. Enhancing the affective (feelings, emotions, and values), as well as cognitive (thinking, ideas, and theories) components of managerial decision making, we hope to bring about real business success for both individuals and the organizations they serve. The aim of such a confluent curriculwn is to develop a new generation of leaders and managers capable of acting as whole persons when making decisions rather than simply as specialist/technicians following along from some management manual. Even though traditional role play and case study approaches to management studies attempt to overcome students' incapacity to deal with all the contextual factors involved, the use of literary and film treatments can surpass most academic cases in their ability to deal with the all-important affective elements of organizational life. As several recent studies have so eloquently argued, emotionality is a 'normal' and 'essential' element of organizational life (Hochschild, 1983; Martin, 1990; Mumby& Putnam, 1992) An inclusion of the humanities into the management curriculwn encourages students to think about their own lived experience and the ways each of us shapes, and is shaped by, the organizational dynamics we take part in on a .
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daily basis (Van Maanen, 1988). What we are arguing is not simply for the inclusion of film and literary references to illustrate particular aspects of organizational analysis, as the pages of the lournal of Management Education adequately attest, that point is clearly commonplace (Gallos 1993; Gamble and Gamble, 1994; Marx, lick and Frost, 1991; Serey 1992). We are arguing for a more fundamental reevaluation of the role of the humanities in management development, in which we see the use of film and literature as part of a broader orientation to a more holistic management curriculum. In this way, we hope to serve the needs of individuals and organizations, and to quell complaints by businesses that employ our graduates.
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ON THEROLE
OF THE HUMANITIES IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION
The word 'curriculum' has an interesting and suggestive history. Originally the word was the name of a racecourse for horses - deriving from a Latin verb meaning to run. Later it came to mean "a chariot drawn by two horses" (Gray 1968). This is reminiscent of Plato's Phaedrus-where he divides the soul into three parts: the bold charioteer straddling a balance between two sterling steeds. The one horse is obedient and tempered with modesty. The other is hotblooded and indignant- powerful but difficult to control. Might we not look at the management curriculum in a similar way? By coinbining ideas from the quantitative management sciences (e.g. finance, accounting, production) with affective qualities and feelings expressed through literature, philosophy, and film, might we strike a synergy between these two forces? And if so, in ways can we more closely resemble the real world of organizational leadership and management as we experience is, rather than some fantasy ideal?
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For their part, business recruiters and employers have begun to question whether or not existing graduate and undergraduate business school education is adequate to the task of preparing new generations of managers capable of dealing with people as well as with spreadsheets. Some believe that many college degrees are not so much a measure of management development as a 'union card' entitling the recipients to work in ready-made niches of middle-class business and society (Fussell, 1991). Unfortunately, they may be right. In recent years, despite some rear-guard action promoting even more specialized business and management functions (Donaldson, 1985.; Donaldson, 1996) questions have been raised about how narrowly focused within separate functional areas of specialization the study of management has already become. In academia, we have seen the development of competing management approaches and foci (Bell & Nkomo, 1992; Benson, 1977; Hearn, Sheppard, Tancred-Sheriff & Burrell, 1989; Morgan, 1996; Silverman, 1970; Smircich, 1985
; broad concerns with the direction of management theory (Porter & McGibbon, 1988; Porter, 1989; Ouchi, 1990; Rehder, Porter & Muller, 1988); and the dernarginalization of innovative subdivisions, for example, those specifically concerned with business ethics and women-in-management issues. All of which appears to call for a more broadened interdisciplinary approach to the management curriculum than commonly exists in our business schools at present. The most predominant pedagogical methodologies in the business school classroom to this day remain specialist, cognitive, and quantitative. Even in the manner of case study instructional strategies=the majority of a business student's time in school is spent on his or her seat learning short-term decision-making formulae they can refer to before the next exam. The human element of organization is superficially dealt with if at all. However, in the real world of organizational affairs, even the most technical of problems tend to be fused with the more generalist. affective, and qualitative aspects of doing business. The best management curricula, we believe, are not those which emphasize either specialist or generalist orientations, but rather combine or integrate both cultures. A truly confluent approach to management studies seeks to combine rational-emotive aspects of management experience rather than isolating each one separately. In other words, we view the liberal arts and management sciences as working together for the whole development of leaders, managers and organizations. To this end, we advocate affectively 'loading' or 'triggering' theoretical or conceptual lessons in the leadership and management of organizations, with references or associations to at least three sources: liberal arts, social sciences, and personal experience.
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OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO LIBERAL ARTS IN BUSINESS SCHOOL CURRICULA
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Perhaps what leaders and managers need most from the humanities is some insight into problems that are less subject to technical solutions than they are to personal experience, interpersonal skills, and issues of social or organizational responsibilities? Leadership is, after all about people mobilizing people, not just a balancing act of corporate assets and financial resources. To be effective, leaders and managers require skill and competence in both the humanities as well as the management sciences. Studies in the humanities leave distinctive marks on the mind that help to shape one's character. We gain, among other things, the ability to disentangle and interpret some of the complex human events surrounding every management decision. And yet, far too many business school curricula still appear to so strongly favor the study of management science to the near exclusion of the humanities. Why is that? The teaching of management is a relatively new academic discipline within the university community which. like all new disciplines, has had to contend with pressure to justify itself and to doubt as to its academic standing. In light of greater scrutiny from those who employ our graduates, as well as from other graduate and professional schools on campus, it is quite understandable that professors of organizational behavior have attempted to establish a set of paradigmatic principles which differ significantly from other social disciplines. In the process of legitimizing itself as a separate discipline, management behavior became identified more or less exclusively with 'the scientific method,' with a focus upon the needs of businesses (Gleeson, Schlossman, & Allen, 1993) rather than on a confluence of individual needs with business needs and those of society as a whole. This exclusive focus on business needs not only helped to create a distinct field of management inquiry but, inevitably, put some distance between business srudies, the humanities, and other social sciences (Burrell & Morgan, 1979). In order to re-integrate the various disciplines into a more comprehensive management curriculum than exists today, we propose that a confluent approach to the sciences and humanities. Putting the two together in the management classroom can go some way to revitalizing renewed goals of critical thinking, interpersonal communication, and self reflection in leadership and organizational development. Increasingly, the complexities of modem business require precisely those habits of critical thinking and selfreflection that a liberal education impresses upon people. Even though liberal education cannot substitute entirely for a solid management education, it can possibly provide a foundation for elevating lifelong learning to higher levels of thought and deeper levels of reflection. These skills are especially important to our MBA graduates once they are actually on the job and working their way up the 'corporate ladder'. A recent study by the National Centre for Management Research and Development [NCMRD]of Canadian university graduates, for example, found that liberal arts students are generally perceived by corporate employers as having stronger skills in 'communication', 'creativity', and 'adaptability' than students from business. engineering, or science. Although liberal arts graduates in the humanities face significant difficulties when competing with business and technology graduates for job interviews, they also possess important advantages for success and promotion in later years, once they are given the chance to prove themselves (Rush & Evers, 1993). A background in the humanities may be less important when you begin work, but it becomes more important over time-especially once you are promoted into executive management and leadership roles.
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THE CASE FOR A CONFLUENT MANAGEMENT CURRICULUM
Many first year MBA candidates report that a lot of what gets taught in business school does not appeal very much to their imagination. In many cases, the affective domain offeelings, attitudes, and values is almost completely ignored by the professors' instructional strategies. In order to get at students' individual and collective imagination we believe in 'loading' or attaching literary or cinematic themes or scenes to trigger a recognition of various management contexts they are likely to face. Some business school programs have dealt with the issue of curriculum breadth, depth, and integration through such methods as capstone projects and special event symposia. In a vain attempt to take charge of such large territory in one swoop, many capstone projects may be underestimating the human complexity of "management" as well as the pockets of resistance among threatened faculty who specialize in traditional, functional disciplines. The only core course in the curriculum not rooted in finance or statistics is organizational behavior. And judging from the
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Organizational Behavior Reading Lists and Course Outlines complied by Richard Schwindt in 1995, even that is still being taught in a kind of pseudo-scientific way that breeds intellectual incest and retards creativity. At first it might strike the reader as strange that we are confronting the staleness of what we do by merging our treatment of management theories and practices with lessons from the humanities and social sciences. A second look reveals that the two are closely related. Management educators seldom make the connection explicit, but one of the distinguishing features of literature and film treatments of organizational life is that they help us to recognize leadership as if we were experiencing it in real time. In other words, a confluent approach to management development keeps thinking and feeling together-as they are in the real life of individuals and organizations alike. If emotional responses. are left out of the decision making process, we are essentially asking students to think without their senses. But it is precisely because we can think with our senses, that we find the capacity to organize ourselves in such wondrously complex and productive ways. Merging feelings with thinking in classroom exercises makes a couple of things obvious. One, that this is precisely the way the world actually works. Second, that this is obviously a false dichotomy, since feeling and thinking are united in each of us almost constantly everyday (Brown, Yeomans, & Grizzard, 1976).
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ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS AT THE MOVIES
Why teach management through movies and novels in addition to cases and textbooks? A major factor in most dramatic film or fiction accounts of organizational life is the empathetic identification the reader or audience has with the central characters in the story. Identification with the protagonist is one of the core elements of literary and film experience. Fiction and film in particular can flesh-out the abstractions of organizational problems emotionally in ways that few traditional case studies are able to match. They can also stimulate critical faculties involved in thinking sorting, framing, and interpreting these dilemmas in ways that are often more real or lasting than typical case study/role play simulations. Thus they can provide access to a deeper level of meaning for practitioners and students alike. Many teachers of social and behavioral sciences and education have for some time recognized the value of literary materials in supplementing and personalizing psychological knowledge. Some social sciences curricula have developed courses that use essays and novels with considerable success and student acceptance (Gorman, 1984; Grant, 1987; Levine 1983; Schwartz, 1980; Williams & Kolupke, 1986). As such, there are many fine examples for us to draw upon for support of a confluent curriculum that combines the humanities with the management sciences. For example, there is a history of "Humanities and the Professions" executive programs at Brandeis University that was designed nearly 20 years ago. The first project at Brandeis was intended to revitalize burnt-out judges and lawyers, but comparable programs have since been conducted for many other professions. including business. Brandeis professor Sanford Lottor described their method as a "two-text method". One text is the classic literature, the other is what Lottor calls the "text of life". Similarly, professor John K. Clemens, founder and executive director of the Hartwick Humanities in Management institute has received much well-eamed attention for his Institute's work "Transforming Great Texts and Films Into Unforgettable Management and Leadership Lessons" (Clemens& Albrecht, 1995; Clemens& Mayer, 1987). The Humanities in Management program at Hartwick College began when Clemens and his colleagues first started Using classics such as Shakespeare's King Lear-taught alongside other books and films containing leadership lessons within them: Moby Dick. Billy Budd, or The Great Santini (Chiaramonte, 1989). Each of the dozens of classic cases developed by the Hartwick Institute for the Humanities focuses on personal and professional issues of change, charisma., crisis management. conflict. diversity, leader development, power and authority, team building, transformational leadership. and more. The lists of stories and management topics quite . literally go on and OD.Although they are not exactly what we would call 'cutting-edge,' the Hartwick film archives were expanded in 1996 to include such cases as these: Dead Poets Society [transformational vs. transactional leadership]; Flight of the Phoenix [emergent leadership]; Gandhi [ethics, vision, values]; The Hunt For Red October [power, challenge, authority]; as well as several others we are less familiar with.
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There are academics in traditional literary disciplines who object to the teaching of abridged versions of the classics, especially when they are taught by professors untutored in these disciplines. However, we do not see the Hartwick approach as causing any harm. On the contrary, the Hartwick Institute's success in producing and marketing its abbreviated leadership cases and teaching notes is proof of their value to many. We advocate the use of these and similar tools for all management education regardless of functional discipline studied or taught. In addition to classic fiction and film. we have begun using the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) network's Biography series in combination with other dramatic and documentary treatments of such leaders and circumstances. For example, portrayals of the lives of Alfred Sloan, Henry Ford, Harold Geneen, John Sculley, Bill Gates, Jack Welsh, John Delorean, Martin Luther King Jr., Keiko (the real-life killer whale who starred in the film Free Willy), Frank Serpico, Princess Diana, and Mother Teresa can be appropriately tailored for various audiences and topics of interest. Published biographies of business executives like Lee Iaccocca, Herb Kelleher, Henry Ford, and others can also be used to highlight leadership and management issues in far greater detail than the usual business case would allow or even aspire to. Since 1990, we have conducted informal surveys of over 400 full-time faculty in management or organizational behavior studies at Canadian and American universities-asking professors what films, biographies, histories, or novels they use in their course work to amplify organizational leadership issues as they define them. Roughly 20 percent have reported using "bits and pieces" of dramatic or theatrical material to supplement other more theoretical readings and course content. Certain film "classics" continue to show up year to year in the official course syllabi: Twelve 0' Clock High, Twelve Angry Men. Wall Street, Apollo 13, and one or the other of The Godfather trilogy. In a presentation made by one of the authors (Peter Chiaramonte) to 150 Marine Officers in the 3rd Civil Affairs Group at Camp Pendleton in 1996, it was not surprising to hear that the most common film clips used in military management training programs have been taken from Twelve 0' Clock High, starring Gregory Peck. It was surprising however, that the marines never recalled discussing the film in terms of the crises that resulted from the commander's unrelenting demands for maximum effort. All they could recall were scenes of power and images of authority which, it was suggested, they should seek to emulate and model for others. When their anention was refocused on different aspects of Peck's character-for instance, the Air Force general fmding himself amidst total organizational chaos in the war against Germany-the marine officers were surprised to witness the general's personal breakdown. The panic attack he suffered toward the end of the film takes a few minutes to digest. Many admitted they had never thought of leadership or the consequences of command in these terms before. Lessons in Leadership from' The Last Place On Earth' Among our personal favorites for teaching a vast array of leadership issues, management decisions. and organizational challenges is The Last Place On Earth. a text-and-film case we have developed with our colleagues Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer at the International Institute For Management Development [IMD] in Lausanne,· Switzerland. We have used various combinations of scenes (usually a series of 10 select six-to-IZ minute clips] taken from the over seven hours of dramatic footage available. (In-class use of copyrighted film and videotape held by a school library is permissible under normal classroom conditions.] We have written an overview to the 'Race to the Pole' to provide the context for the story-and we have selected clips as 'triggers' for examining everything from personal destiny issues to many other aspects of project leadership and change management. The Last Place On Earth is about the great race between British and Norwegian teams under the rival commands of polar explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen to be first to the South Pole in 1911-1912. Amundsen and his men reached the South Pole on December IS, 1911 and returned safely. Scott and his team reached the Pole 33 days later on January 17. 1912 but died on their return. The British perished just II miles short of One Ton Depot which, if it had been placed where it was originally intended, would have approximated the point at which they starved to death in their tent in a blizzard, still hundreds of miles from their base camp in McMurdo Sound. There are powerful contrasts and comparisons. to be made in the way each individual leader, team, and culture approached its goal. For example, we see the way Scott went about the business of polar exploration in a rather careless and haphazard way, seeking safety in big numbers, obedience to command, and untested new technology.
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His training at the naval academy in Dartmouth taught him to rely on the tradition of the British naval hierarchy to sort the whole thing out for him. Amundsen. on the other hand, was as meticulous in consulting his comrades on every matter of importance as he was in planning every detail of the journey carefully in advance. Whereas the British were all thrown together, more as a matter of protocol and ceremony than for any particular expertise in polar exploration. the Norwegians were familiar with similar terrain and conditions from previous explorations at high latitudes north and south. Each member of the Norwegian team was expert at skiing, navigation, and driving teams of dogs over ice and mountain. Few British knew much more than their scientific specialty, e.g. geology, chemistry, meteorology. or biology. There were few expert skiers, navigators. or dog drivers working under Scott's command. Not knowing these essential skills meant the British had lost the race before they ever left England's shores. There are literally dozens of leadership lessons and parallels to be gleaned from the triumphs and setbacks both expeditions lived through or died from. Here is just one example: After Scott's motor tractors failed and the Siberian ponies died, the British were forced to man-haul their supplies on sledges. Not only is this a painfully exhaustive mode of transport, Scott's men never knew how far they would have to march on any given day. Even if Scott gave an exact distance beforehand that was never any guarantee he would not change his mind later on and force a further march. Morale was low. Despite this, Scott continued issuing orders through intermediaries rather than making contact with his men directly. It was a clumsy performance, reminding those present of "a somewhat disorganized fleet" (Huntford, 1984). Contrast such scenes of Scott's cavalcade with the Norwegians. After turning for home from their victory at the South Pole-with the incessant southerly wind now at their backs--the Norwegians rigged their sledges with sails to capture its force. They also changed to night travel. in order to have the sun behind them. thus avoiding snowblindness. [Yet another detail overlooked by the British.] Olav Bjaaland, the fastest Norwegian skier, was made •forerunner for the journey back from the Earth's southem axis. Amundsen instructed him to keep a steady pace of 15 miles per day-even though at times they could have easily covered 20 miles or more. Why? Amundsen reasoned that the altitude [10,000 feet] called for restraint. Besides, this way each man knew exactly what was expected of him and could be confident in knowing that they would achieve their goal. By instituting a steady rhythm of 15 miles a day for four consecutive days, and resting on the fifth day, the Norwegians traveled 60 nautical miles-exactly one degree of latitude. This served several purposes. One of which was that the distance traveled could then be calibrated as definite progress on a map. By setting attainable, measurable, and specific goals, the Norwegians created a team environment in which everyone experienced something approaching a true sense of personal importance connected to the whole enterprise. Scott on the other hand, acted like a victim to the weather and his own men's incompetence. They in turn complained of their leader's impotence and the expedition's shortcomings. In fact, many of Scott's men predicted their own fate well in advance of the tragedy that befell them on the Ice Barrier. Regardless of the course or program topic, we have generally been able to find clips and segments of this story to suit a great many management content issues. By revisiting the dramatic race to the South Pole and re-examining the attitudes and decisions its central characters made, we hope to understand something more about ourselves as leaders and managers on our own explorations.
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FACT AND FICTION IN FILM
In Understanding Media (1964), Marshall McLuhan referred to movies as "the reel world." In th em he recognized the indestructible bond between print and film in terms of their power to represent 'the reality of our dreams' in the viewer's fantasies. The business of the novelist, screenwriter, or filmmaker, wrote McLuhan, "is to transfer the reader or viewer from one world, his own, to another" (Mcl.uhan, 1964: 249). In film and modem literature, he says, there is no more celebrated technique than that of the 'stream of consciousness'. Is this a form of leadership? Certainly this form of internal monologue permits the reader an extraordinary sense of identification with a wide range of characters and personalities with whom we can be said to 'follow along'. Here are just three examples of how we have used this 'sense of identification'.to get at leadership issues in our management classes:
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\. We sometimes begin our courses by showing a selection of film clips that present the audience with several different organizational scenarios. Usually we ask students to make comparisons or examine other conflicts they associate with some personal experience of their own. In the case of Charlie Chaplin's Modem Times, for example, Chaplin's clown presents a mime of elaborate incompetence. This is, after all, a satire on the fragmented character of modem tasks. Any specialist task, wrote Marshall McLuhan (I964), leaves out most of our faculties. Most students have ready associations with Chaplin's clown and they like to tell about their own experiences with short-term planning and specialist tasks. 2. Another example we have used to explore particular themes, such as the role of the manager-as-coach, is The Four Minute Mile-the story of British runners Roger Bannister, Chris Chataway, Chris Brasher, and [their coach} Franz Stampl's teaming together to break the "four minute barrier" for the mile. We have compared the coaching styles and profiles of Franz Stampl, for example, with other famous track coaches, e.g., Brutus Hamilton, Michaly Igloi, Percy Ceruny, and Bob Simmons. Next, we might ask students to look at the team and how they were formed? For what purpose? With what values or goals in mind, e.g., individual or team focused? Compare this with your own experience. Think of a time when you set out to perform beyond all expectations and succeeded in attaining your goal. Finally, we might ask how such models, stI3legies, and exemplars can be translated to other organizational settings. 3. At other times we might run through a sequence of clips tbIt compares or contrasts the management/leadership styles of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart, It's A Wonderful Life), Charles Foster Cane (Orson Wells, Citizen Kane), Preston Tucker (Jeff Bridges, Tucker), William Wallace (Mel Gibson. Braveheart), Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, Wall Street), Tess McGill and her female boss (Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver, Working Girl), Henry V (Lawrence Olivier or, more recently, Kenneth Branaugh) , or Malcolm X (Denzil Washington). Another way to use this particular block offilm clips in a series would be to show how leadership transcends race, class, and gender. In this regard, scenes involving famous speeches often serve as a prelude to serious and stimulating class discussions on the psychology of leadership and other related themes (Eccles, Nohria.& Berkeley, 1992; Gardner, 1995; Pearce, 1995).
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SELF SCIENCE AND REFLECTION
Any truly confluent approach to the subject of managemes will require a significant investment of time in self
science exercises and an examination of students' personal as weU as professional development. No one is likely to follow a leader who appears unaware of where they are headed or what is personally motivating their journey. To dramatize this point we have used excerpts from the movie Zelig (Woody Allen), for example, to tell the story of Leonard Zelig, a human chameleon who was so eager to please. so loathe to give offense, so willing to blend right in-that he took on all the social, intellectual, and even physical characteristics of the people he spent time with. Zelig has no self-identity of his own and.therefore no position to lead from. At other times, we have compared the self-reflective views of Lee Iaccocca (1984) with the self-destructive mind of Roberto Calvi (Kets de Vries, 1990) as departure poiDISfor an in-depth discussion of leadership and identity (see Chiaramonte & Mills, 1993). For this endeavor we highly recommend the work of Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, professor of management at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau, France. For example, we refer to Calvi in books by Kets de Vries and thm visually in a scene taken from the final act of The Godfather, Part III-in which a Calvi-esque Italian banker is found hanging upside down under Blackfriars Bridge in London. Since this is exactly what happened to Roberto Calvi himself, we have an excellent example of the consequences of the lack of self-reflection taken to its limit. Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" is recommended reading for leading a discussion of the potentially negative social and organizational outcomes a lack of self reflection can have on people. Although several other contemporary film choices also capture the activity of self reflection from a multitude of new perspectives, e.g. clips from Jerry McGuire, The Remains of the Day, Primary Colors, Dangerous Beauty, Good Will Hunting, Titanic, and so on. As a source book to other film classics containing leadership and management themes, we still prefer Frank Magill's Cinema. The Nove/Into Film (1980) and the Hartwick Institute's Film Catalogs over such sources as Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion(1990)-or any of the other so-called 'state-of-the-art' catalogs by VideoTrackers,
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Movies Unlimited. Metro Golden Memories, Sight and Sound Laser Disks, or The Knowledge Connection. At this point in time, we prefer cable television to the Internet as a source of additional material. If it's a finer-edge resource that you are after, you can usually find it in the stories your students tell each other once they share their personal and emotional connection with characters and issues in the films, novels, and each other's experience.
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GENDER ISSUES AND FICTION
As has been stated many times elsewhere (Hearn& Parkin, 1983; Hearn et al., 1989; Mills& Tancred, 1992), gender is a neglected area of management and organization studies. Should we care? Does the neglect of gender make any difference to the way we teach management? We say YES on both counts. There are at least three good reasons for including a focus on gender in the teaching of management. One, our student audiences are composed of almost equal nwnbers of males and females, and varying different types of males and females at that. If we want to engage their interest in a way that builds on their cognitive and affective experiences we need. among other things, to tap into that most fundamental of human experience - the experience of being a "man" or a "woman", Two, it hardly needs to be said that equity - is a continuing problem in the workplaces of today (witness the growth of the interest in diversity management for example - (e.g., Prasad. Mills, Elmes & Prasad, 1997). We have to prepare our students to deal with rather than to reflect the problems of inequity that they will surely have to face as managers and as individuals. Three, there is a vast literature to indicate that gender dynamics play an important role in the way that decision-making occurs in the workplace, affecting both men and women in different ways; whether it be discriminatory influences that restrict women from being hired or promoted to certain jobs (Ferguson, 1984; Kanter, 1977; Morgan, 1988), forms of masculinity that negatively impact on organizational outcomes (Maier & Messerschmidt, 1998) and organizational decisions that negatively impact on some men's sense of masculine identity (Livingstone & Luxton, 1989), or whether it is attitudes towards forms of femininity, masculinity and sexual orientation that inhibits all but an ideal typical form of heterosexual performance at work (Hall, 1989; Shilts, 1993). Conveying the problematic issue of gender to an audience that is basically still working through adolescence is difficult. For many, ifnot all, 'male' and 'female' are hard and fast categories; immutable, unquestionable. In short, it is a subject that has to be handled skillfully and delicately. We use film segments that manage to use humor to expose the fragile, changing and often discriminatory aspects of gendering. Woody Allen is particularly good at dealing with issues of sex and sexuality in a way that allows the audience to identify with the problem in a nonthreatening way. In particular, Play It Again Sam is useful for drawing attention to the fact that masculinity is a learned behaviour, that there are different and competing forms of masculinity, and that each have consequences for images of self and of others. There is a particular segment in the movie in which Allen (playing a recently divorced character) is preparing for a blind-date. We watch as AIlen attempts to decide what kind of man he should represent himself as, moving through various personas that include athlete, intellectual, interior designer, and harddrinking/hard smoking tough guy as he prepares for the moment when his date will arrive. Through humor the audience quickly learns that the presentation of self is learned and contextual (Allen, who appears comfortable in earlier interactions with friends, tries on different masculinities when faced with a stranger in a blind-date). Of
course, if they miss the point we are on hand with questions that ask the audience to identify the different forms of masculinity and associated constructions of femininity depicted in the film. The value of opening discussions of gender with the Play It Again Sam clip is that it disavows the audience up front from the notion that gender is strictly 'a woman's issue', It shows males and females alike that gendering is about male and female identity. We use the clip to get the audience to discuss masculinity and femininity as performance and, the implications of such performance for workplace relationships. It is a scene setter for more detailed reading of gender and management and the use of Mark Maier's excellent video on the causes of the Challenger disaster ("A Major Malfuncrion.;" The Story Behind the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. A Pedagogical Documentary about Organizational Politics, Ethics and Decision-Making: The Research Foundation of the State University of New York. Albany, NY) - which is used in varying degrees in our leadership and organizational behaviour courses. Other gender Benjamin, work, and film clips that we use to deal with gender include Tootsie and Some Like It Hot (to discuss the problems of identity and the learned characteristics of femininity and masculinity); 9 to 5, Working Girl, Private Courage Under Fire, and GI Jane (to discuss the kinds of problems faced by women professionals at how they resolve them), We have found that juxtaposing clips from Working Girl and Disclosure
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provides a way of stimulating debate about the nature of workplace discrimination and equity policies: while Working Girl plays to an expected script of the negative treatment of women at work Disclosure has the effect of shock by presenting a male as the victim of sexual harassment. encouraging some in the audience to speak more freely than if they felt expected to conform to a so-called "politically correct" discourse. Through sharp and open debate that engages both men and women the audience appear better placed to consider not only the need for workplace equity policies but also the problems of developing and applying such policies. Readings from Kanter (1977), Sheppard (1989) and the work of Virginia Schein (Brenner .Tornkiewicz, & Schein. I989;Schein. 1973. 1989) round off the process by providing insights into the link between structure. power and managerial position and perceptions of gender. Through this selection of films (and associated readings) our focus is not primarily on the types of problem that women may face as managers (though that is an element) but to encourage the development of selfesteem {for women} and respect (from men). In each case the film clips make the point that it is not some inherent female characteristics that have led to discrimination by prejudiced attitudes, behaviour and structures. In each case the central female characters in the film triumph through a realisation of self-respect and a corrunitment to succeed. Almost certainly the most difficult aspect of gendering to get across is that of sexual orientation. In our experience many of the traditionally-aged student body find discussions of sexual orientation difficult; some may fear exposure as homosexual; some may have doubts about their own sexuality. Films that deal with the subject in a sensitive and adequate way are few and far between and, for good reason, have tended to be deathly serious. Robert Wise's The Sergeant (1968) and William Wyler's The Children's Hour (1962) are rare attempts to deal. respectively, with male and female homosexuality. Regrettably, both films are somewhat heavy handed and difficult to extract relevant segments from. The more recent In and Out has come to the rescue with a film that takes a humorous look at the relationship between career and sexual orientation (the lead character is a "respected" school teacher before it is suggested that he is gay) in a way that challenges the audience to question heterosexist assumptions about workplace relations (at the end of the movie the lead character "discovers" that he really is gay). The moral of the story is threefold. First, that prejudiced attitudes about sexual orientation can damage a person's character and reputation and lead to the loss of a good colleague. Second, that a person's sexual orientation is his or her business and has little or no relationship to how well they perform hislher job. Third, that gay men and women should not have to hide their sexual orientation but should be allowed to express their feelings as well as their heterosexual colleagues and friends. Through segments of In and Out and selected readings we get our students to consider and discuss what they see as the relationship between sexual orientation and workplace expectations, and what, if anything, a manager should do to manage the issue of sexual orientation. What. if anything, would we expect students to gain from a study of gender? In a one semester class on understanding leadership or behaviour at work it would be foolish to believe that students will end with an in-depth understanding of gender dynamics at work. Nonetheless, what you can aim to do is to encourage (i) a sense of selfesteem, (ii) a respect for others, (iii) a questioning of discriminatory practices, (iv) an understanding of how to seek out the underlying causes of discrimination, and (v) a critical appreciation of the need and problems involved in developing and applying equity policy. Through carefully selected film clips and readings women and gay people can gain a sense of self that may be missing from both the text and subtext of management teaching (see Mills. 1997a, 1997b; Mills& Hatfield, 1998), and male students can understand something about their own feelings, that masculinities differ and that dominant forms of masculinity can be part of the problematic of inequity.
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PARADIGMS.
CREATIVITY
AND THE HUMANITIES
Within management and organizational studies Burrell & Morgan's (1979) work on paradigms and Morgan's (1986, 1996) work on organizational images provide excellent texts for challenging students to exercise critical thinking, for challenging future managers to avoid the paradigm trap, i.e., blinkered thinking. By showing students that there are different ways of viewing reality we can encourage them. as future managers, to seek other opinions. other viewpoints, before making crucial decisions that affect the Jives of different people. The challenge for the professor is to translate the notion of competing paradigms into something that is understandable and meaningful to the undergraduate. To this end, we have found that a key segment from the movie Norma Rae provides an invaluable focus for an in-class exercise. The exercise is based on a modified version of the Burrell and Morgan (1979) framework. with "radical humanism" and "radical structuralism" collapsed into a single
26 Chiaramontel
"Radical" paradigm, and the addition of three new paradigms - "Feminist", "Racioethnic", and "Post-modernist" - that reflect new and emerging communities of thought (Mills & Simmons, 1998). In preparation for the class exercise, students are divided into six groups, each to represent a different paradigm (the remaining two paradigms are "Managerialist", and "Actionalist"), and they are provided with written materials (including a brief overview of the paradigm. selected readings from associated authors, and a brief synopsis of the film clip). Each group is told that they will be shown a clip from Norma Rae and that, adopting the mind-set of their assigned paradigm. they will be asked to
describe the key events in the film clip and make suggestions for solving the identified problem. Following an initial showing of the film segment to the whole class, group members are given one week's preparation to familiarize themselves with the basic elements of their assigned paradigm. The selected movie scene centers on an attempt by the managers of a textile mill (in a Southern US state) to break a developing union by turning white against black members: a letter is pinned on the employee notice board warning that 'the blacks are trying to take over the union'. Norma Rae's attempt to take down the details of the letter (to help the union organizer to take legal action against the company) is met with management hostility and she is fired. Refusing to go quietly, Norma Rae stands on a work-bench and silently holds up a sign which boldly reads: •'UNION". One by one her fellow workers switch off their machines in an act of solidarity. The scene ends with the arrest ofNonna Rae and her removal from the mill. At the time of the exercise each group, in turn, reports their observations and recommendations to the class as a whole. This is followed by questions and comments from other groups who continue to act within the mind-set of their assigned paradigm. The resultant discussion usually ends with students identifying the fact that, in part, different organizational (e.g., management vs. employees) and socio-economic factors (including race and gender) encourage different mind-sets (particularly where there is a stress on those factors); and that different mind-sets influence perceptions of events, and associated problems and outcomes. The lessons learned include not only respect for other opinions but an understanding of the limitation of a narrowly-based viewpoint (e.g., the manager knows best) and the need, at times, to seek new and different solutions to perceived problems: (for a more detailed discussion, explanation and outline of the case see Mills, 1997b; Mills & Simmons, 1998).
•
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
In a 1990 article in the Journal of Business Communication, Martin Jacobi argued that management courses are an excellent place for including instruction in ethics. He urged those of us who teach the subject to revise old pedagogical habits and assumptions about the role of the humanities in management development programs. One of the old assumptions challenged was the idea that either business ethics or the humanities only be taught by expert faculty specializing in ethics or the classics. We reject these assumptions. Organizational leadership and management issues are never the exclusive domain of any subject area group in particular. The enterprise of management is so crucial to the success of contemporary organizations that we should seek knowledge about it from all possible sources (Waldo, 1968). Greater attention to the humanities in management curricula can, we believe, enrich the emotional and intellectual basis upon which individual and organizational success rests. Recognizing that business schools are by their very nature interdisciplinary, the confluence of management sciences with a study of the humanities in management offers business students a broader view of the personal and social implications of every leadership decision they will ever make. Perhaps what a confluent approach to the study of management through literature and film portrayals does best is to restore the concrete and affective experiences that most of the traditional management literature tends to slight or miss completely .
•
REFERENCES
Bell, E.•& Nkomo, S. (1992). Re-Visioning women managers'lIves. In A J. Mills & P. Tancred (Eds.), Gendering organizational analysis (pp. 235-247). Newbury Park, CA.: Sage. Benson, J, K.( 1977). Organizations - a dialectical view. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22. 1-21. Brenner. 0 C. Tomkiewicz, J., & Schein, V. E. (1989). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics revisited. The Academy of Management Journal, 32(3), 662-9.
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Brown. G.1., Yeomans, T. & Grizzard. L. (1976) Tile live classroom: Innovation through confluent education and Gestalt. NY: Viking Press. Burrell. G.,& Morgan, G. (1979). Sociological paradigms and organizationai aAnalysis. London: Heinemann. Chiaramonte. P. (1989) Ancient advice for modem managers. Aurora. Volume 13. Number l. Chiaramonte, P.,& Mills, A. J.( 1993). Counselling self-reflection as an instrument in organizational learning. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling. 21(2), 145-/55. Clemens, J.K. and Mayer, D.F. (1987) Tile classic touch, Homewood. II: Dow Jones Irwin. Clemens. J.K. & Albrecht, S. (1995) The timeless leader. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Media Corp. Donaldson. L. (1985). Indefence 0/ organization theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donaldson, L. (1996). For positivist organization theory, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Eccles. R.G, Nohria, N.,& Berkley, lD. (1992). Beyond tire Irype. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. Ferguson, K. E. (1984). The feminist case against bureaucracy. Philadelphia, Penn: Temple University Press. Fussell. P. (1991). Bad: On tile dumbing 0/ America. NY: Summit Books. Gallos. J. V. (1993). Teaching about reframing with films and videos. Education, 17( I), 127-132. Gamb le, T..& Gamble. M. (1994). Literature alive: Tile art 0/ oral interpretation. Lingranwood, Ill.: NTC Gardner, H. (1995). Leading minds. NY: Basic Books. Gleeson. R. E., Schlossman, S.,& Allen, D. G. (1993). Uncertain ventures: The origins of graduate management Education at Harvard and Stanford, 1908-1939. Selections (Spring), 9-36. Gorman, M. E. (1984). Using the Eden Express to teach introductory psychology. Teaching of Psychology, II, 3940. Grant, L. (1987). Psychology and literarure: A survey of courses. Teaching QfPsvchology, 14(2), 86~88. Gray, J. G. (1968). The promise of wisdom: A pllilosop"y of education. New York: lB.Lippincott. Hall, M. (1989). Private experiences in the public domain: Lesbians in organizations. In J. Hearn. D. L. Sheppard, P. Tancred-Sheriff, & G. Burrell (Eds.), Tile sexuality 0/ organization (pp. 125-138). London: Sage. Hearn, J.,& Parkin, P. W. (1983). Gender and organizations: A selective review and a critique ofa neglected area. Organization Studies. 4(3), 219-42. Hearn, J., Sheppard, D., Tancred-Sheriff P., & Burrell, G. (Eds.). (1989). The sexuality 0/ organization. London: Sage. Hochschild, A. R. (1983). Tile managed heart. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Humford, R. (1984). The Last Place on Earth. New York: Atheneum .. Iacocca, L. (1984). Iacocca - An autobiography. New York: Bantam. Jacobi, M. (1990) Using the enthymeme to emphasize ethics in professional writing courses. Journal of Business Communication, 27, (3) 273-92. Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books. Kets de Vries, M. F. R. (1990). Leaders on the Couch: The case of Roberto Calvi. In Clinical Approaches to the Study of Managerial and Organizational Dynamics Symposium. Ecole des Hautes Commerciales de Montreal. Levine. R. V. (1983). An interdisciplinary course studying psychological issues through literature. Teaching of Psychology, 10,214-16. Livingstone. D. W., & Luxton, M. (1989). Gender consciousness at work: modifications of the male breadwinner norm among steelworkers and their spouses. The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 26(2),240-75. Magill, F.N. (1980) Cinema: The novel Into film. Pasadena, CA: Salem Press. Maier. M.& J. W. Messerschmidt (1998) Commonalities, conflicts, and contradictions in organizational Masculinities: Exploring the gendered genesis of the challenger disaster. The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 35:2. Marrin, J. (1990). Rethinking Weber: A feminist search for alternatives to bureaucracy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, San Francisco. Marx, R., lick, T.D.,& Frost. PJ. (1991). Management live: The video book. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Mcl.uhan, M. (1964). Understanding media. NY: McGraw Hill. Mills. A. J. (1997a). Business Education as Gendered Discourse. Proceedings of the Women in Management
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Division of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada. 18(11), 22-32. Mills, A. 1. (1997b). Gender, bureaucracy and the business curriculum. Education, 21 (3), 325-342. Mills, A. J.,& Helms Hatfield, J. C. (1998, in press). From imperialism to globalization: Internationalization and the management text. In S. R. Clegg, E. Ibarra, & L. Bueno (Eds.), Theories of the management process: Making sense through difference Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mills, A. J., & Simmons, T. (1998). Reading organization theory (2nd ed.) Toronto: Garamond Press .. Mills, A. J., & Tancred, P. (Eds.). (1992). Gendering organizational analysis. Newbury Park. CA: Sage. Morgan, G. (1986). Images 0/ organization. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Morgan, G. (1996). Images 0/organizotion.(2nd ed.) Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Morgan, N. (1988). Tile equality game: Women in tilefederal public Service (1908-1987). Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women. Mulligan. T (1987). The two cultures in business education. Academv of Management Review, 12(4), 593-99. Mumby, D. K., & Putnam, L. L. (1992). The politics of emotion: A feminist reading of bounded rationality. Academy of Management Review., 17(3), 465-486. Ouchi, W. (1990). Interview (with William Ouchi). Selections (Spring), 38. Pearce, T. (1995). Leading out Loud. San francisco: Jossey Bass. Porter, L. W. (1989). Business school faculty as constructive critics of business. Selections. 27-3 I. Porter, L. W., & McGibbon, L. E. (1988). Management education and development: Drift or thrust into tile l1s Century? New York: McGraw-Hill. Prasad, P., Mills. A. J., Elmes, M., & Prasad, P. (Eds.). (1997). Managing tile organizational melting pot: Dilemmas of workplace diversity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rehder, R. R., Porter, J. L..& Muller, H. J. (1988). Unfreezing the anachronistic business school. Selections (Autumn), 19-29. Rush, J.,& Evers, F. (1993). The basis of competence. Paper presented at London, Canada NCRD, University of Western Ontario. Schein, V. E. (1973). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics among female managers. Journal of Applied Psychologv, 57,89-105. Schein, V. E. (1989). Sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics past, present and future. National Centre for Management Research and Development, Working Paper (NC 89-26, November). Schwartz, L. L (1980). Tying it all together: Research, concepts and fiction in an introductory psychology course. Teaching of Psychology, 7, 192-3. Schwindt, R. (1995). Organizational Behavior. Chapel Hill, NC: Eno River Press. Serey, T. T. (1992). Carpe Diem: Lessons about life and management. Education, 16(3), 374-38\. Shilts, R. (1993). Conduct unbecoming, Gays and lesbians in the U.S. military. New York: St.Martin's Press. Silverman, D. (1970). Tile theory of organitations. New York: Basic Books. Smircich, L. (1985). Is the concept of culture a paradigm for understanding organizations and ourselves? In P. J. Frost, L. F. Moore, M. R. Louis, C. C. Lundberg,& J. Martin (Eds.), Organizational culture (pp. 55-72). Beverley Hills, CA: Sage. Van Maanen, J. (\988). Tales of the fleld. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press .. Waldo, D. (1968). Tile novelist on organizatlon and administration: An inquiry into tile relationship between two worlds. Berkeley, CA: UC Institute of Governmental Studies. Williams, K. G., & Kolupke, J.(l986). Psychology and literature: An interdisciplinary approach to the liberal curriculum. Teaching of Psvchology, 13, 59-61.
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Peter Chiaramonte, Ph.D. is associate professor of organizational leadership at Chapman University, San Diego. Dr. Chiaramonte is a graduate of the University 0/ Toronto and the University 0/ California at Santa Barbara. While at Teacher's College at the University of Toronto. he spent a great deal of time sitting in courses for which he was not officially enrolled-classes such as The Silence of God-the films of Ingmar Bergman '; the philosophy of aesthetics; films of Federico Fellini, and so on. He also coached track andjield - serving as an assistant coach with the 1976 Canadian Olympic team. Coaching is still one of Dr. Chiaramonte's key interests and the dramatic film
~.
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version of Roger Bannister's 'The Four Minute Mile' is still one of his favorite classroom exercises. He has taught in MBA and executive leadership and management programs at the University of Western Ontario, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has guest-taught at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is co-author of the textbook. Face-To-Face: Interpersonal communication in tile workplace (199.+). Albert J. Mills, Ph.D. is Professor of Management at St. Mary's University, Halifax. Nova Scotia, Canada. Alben J. Mills is an avid film buff. Casablanca (a story about social commitment) has long been his favorite movie and he continues to draw inspiration from 'Spartacus', 'Singing in the Rain', and 'Best Years of Their Lives'. Dr. Mills considers 'Its A Wonderful Life' the best management morality tale of the Twentieth Century, but recommends 'The Last Place on Earth' as a visual exercise in best and worst management practice: As a Professor of Management at Saint Mary's Univeristy (Nova Scotia, Canada,) he models himself on a mixture of the integrity of Peter O'Toole in 'Goodbye Mr. Chips, the intellectual skepticism of Michael Cane in 'Educating Rita', and the teaching style and compassion of Robin Williams in, respectively, the 'Dead Poets Society' and 'Good Will Hunting'. He incorporates race/ethniciry and gender in his teaching of organizational behaviour - drawing on 'Malcolm X' and 'Norma Rae' to educate and inspire students. Although seriously failing to reproduce the crisp writing style of Dashiel Hammett, Dr. Mills has managed to author a monograph - Worker occupations and the Nonh East Experience (1976), coauthored two books - Organizational ru/es.( OU Press. 1991, with Steve Murgatroyd) and Reading organization theory (Garamond Press, 1995 and 1998, with Tony Simmons), and co-edited a further two books - Gendering organization analysis ( Sage, 1992, with Peta Tanced) and Managing tile organizational melting pot ( Sage, 1997, with Pushie and Anshu Prasad and Mike Elmes). Sometimes he even gets published injoumals.
doc_853012856.docx
Organizational Study on Integrating Humanities into the Management Curriculum:- The total learning experience provided by a school. It includes the content of courses (the syllabus), the methods employed (strategies), and other aspects, like norms and values, which relate to the way the school is organized.
Organizational Study on Integrating Humanities into the Management Curriculum
•
ABSTRACT
In this paper we argue for the role of the humanities in management education and viell' the use of literature and film treatments of organizational life as an important component of a broader curricula change strategy. The method we take is a confluenr approach to management development. whereby I~ integrat« qualitative/affective as well as quamttative/cognitive aspects of every leadership or management decision. We contend that even management curricula that employ traditional case studies and interdisciplinary capstone projects would benefit by combining traditional management studies with literature and film treatmenu of organizatio nal life. We encourage business students and-professors 10 lock beyond narrowly defined organizational problems /0 a more holistic analysis of their roles as leaders and managers.
•
INTRODUCTION
The end product of business education is now conceived as a kind of manager-technician, who is equipped with all manner of techniques for mastering the uncounted mechanism comprising the business world, but little of itsflesh and blood management. =Mulligan, 1987
There is some general dissatisfaction on the part of corporate employers who employ business school graduates as potential managers. Complaints by employers about recent recruits' general lack of preparedness for business have been widely discussed in both the popular and professional literature for some time. A recent recruiter from a Fortune 500 company remarked, "Please don't send us any more proudly-entitled numbers types. We already know the difference between a debit and a credit. Send us some people prepared to work with people. That is where the real management issues lie -- making people count, not just the numbers." Business school and MBA graduates may be adept at analyzing spread sheets, measuring discounted cash flow, and making abstract financial decisions, but quantitative measuring devices like break-even analysis -although useful in reporting the success of an enterprise- do nothing per se to bring success about We contend that the inclusion of dramatic history, literature, and film treatments of work life can be used as a basis for organizational analysis in the management curriculum. Enhancing the affective (feelings, emotions, and values), as well as cognitive (thinking, ideas, and theories) components of managerial decision making, we hope to bring about real business success for both individuals and the organizations they serve. The aim of such a confluent curriculwn is to develop a new generation of leaders and managers capable of acting as whole persons when making decisions rather than simply as specialist/technicians following along from some management manual. Even though traditional role play and case study approaches to management studies attempt to overcome students' incapacity to deal with all the contextual factors involved, the use of literary and film treatments can surpass most academic cases in their ability to deal with the all-important affective elements of organizational life. As several recent studies have so eloquently argued, emotionality is a 'normal' and 'essential' element of organizational life (Hochschild, 1983; Martin, 1990; Mumby& Putnam, 1992) An inclusion of the humanities into the management curriculwn encourages students to think about their own lived experience and the ways each of us shapes, and is shaped by, the organizational dynamics we take part in on a .
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Chiaramontel
daily basis (Van Maanen, 1988). What we are arguing is not simply for the inclusion of film and literary references to illustrate particular aspects of organizational analysis, as the pages of the lournal of Management Education adequately attest, that point is clearly commonplace (Gallos 1993; Gamble and Gamble, 1994; Marx, lick and Frost, 1991; Serey 1992). We are arguing for a more fundamental reevaluation of the role of the humanities in management development, in which we see the use of film and literature as part of a broader orientation to a more holistic management curriculum. In this way, we hope to serve the needs of individuals and organizations, and to quell complaints by businesses that employ our graduates.
•
ON THEROLE
OF THE HUMANITIES IN MANAGEMENT EDUCATION
The word 'curriculum' has an interesting and suggestive history. Originally the word was the name of a racecourse for horses - deriving from a Latin verb meaning to run. Later it came to mean "a chariot drawn by two horses" (Gray 1968). This is reminiscent of Plato's Phaedrus-where he divides the soul into three parts: the bold charioteer straddling a balance between two sterling steeds. The one horse is obedient and tempered with modesty. The other is hotblooded and indignant- powerful but difficult to control. Might we not look at the management curriculum in a similar way? By coinbining ideas from the quantitative management sciences (e.g. finance, accounting, production) with affective qualities and feelings expressed through literature, philosophy, and film, might we strike a synergy between these two forces? And if so, in ways can we more closely resemble the real world of organizational leadership and management as we experience is, rather than some fantasy ideal?
;
For their part, business recruiters and employers have begun to question whether or not existing graduate and undergraduate business school education is adequate to the task of preparing new generations of managers capable of dealing with people as well as with spreadsheets. Some believe that many college degrees are not so much a measure of management development as a 'union card' entitling the recipients to work in ready-made niches of middle-class business and society (Fussell, 1991). Unfortunately, they may be right. In recent years, despite some rear-guard action promoting even more specialized business and management functions (Donaldson, 1985.; Donaldson, 1996) questions have been raised about how narrowly focused within separate functional areas of specialization the study of management has already become. In academia, we have seen the development of competing management approaches and foci (Bell & Nkomo, 1992; Benson, 1977; Hearn, Sheppard, Tancred-Sheriff & Burrell, 1989; Morgan, 1996; Silverman, 1970; Smircich, 1985
; broad concerns with the direction of management theory (Porter & McGibbon, 1988; Porter, 1989; Ouchi, 1990; Rehder, Porter & Muller, 1988); and the dernarginalization of innovative subdivisions, for example, those specifically concerned with business ethics and women-in-management issues. All of which appears to call for a more broadened interdisciplinary approach to the management curriculum than commonly exists in our business schools at present. The most predominant pedagogical methodologies in the business school classroom to this day remain specialist, cognitive, and quantitative. Even in the manner of case study instructional strategies=the majority of a business student's time in school is spent on his or her seat learning short-term decision-making formulae they can refer to before the next exam. The human element of organization is superficially dealt with if at all. However, in the real world of organizational affairs, even the most technical of problems tend to be fused with the more generalist. affective, and qualitative aspects of doing business. The best management curricula, we believe, are not those which emphasize either specialist or generalist orientations, but rather combine or integrate both cultures. A truly confluent approach to management studies seeks to combine rational-emotive aspects of management experience rather than isolating each one separately. In other words, we view the liberal arts and management sciences as working together for the whole development of leaders, managers and organizations. To this end, we advocate affectively 'loading' or 'triggering' theoretical or conceptual lessons in the leadership and management of organizations, with references or associations to at least three sources: liberal arts, social sciences, and personal experience.•
OVERCOMING RESISTANCE TO LIBERAL ARTS IN BUSINESS SCHOOL CURRICULA
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Perhaps what leaders and managers need most from the humanities is some insight into problems that are less subject to technical solutions than they are to personal experience, interpersonal skills, and issues of social or organizational responsibilities? Leadership is, after all about people mobilizing people, not just a balancing act of corporate assets and financial resources. To be effective, leaders and managers require skill and competence in both the humanities as well as the management sciences. Studies in the humanities leave distinctive marks on the mind that help to shape one's character. We gain, among other things, the ability to disentangle and interpret some of the complex human events surrounding every management decision. And yet, far too many business school curricula still appear to so strongly favor the study of management science to the near exclusion of the humanities. Why is that? The teaching of management is a relatively new academic discipline within the university community which. like all new disciplines, has had to contend with pressure to justify itself and to doubt as to its academic standing. In light of greater scrutiny from those who employ our graduates, as well as from other graduate and professional schools on campus, it is quite understandable that professors of organizational behavior have attempted to establish a set of paradigmatic principles which differ significantly from other social disciplines. In the process of legitimizing itself as a separate discipline, management behavior became identified more or less exclusively with 'the scientific method,' with a focus upon the needs of businesses (Gleeson, Schlossman, & Allen, 1993) rather than on a confluence of individual needs with business needs and those of society as a whole. This exclusive focus on business needs not only helped to create a distinct field of management inquiry but, inevitably, put some distance between business srudies, the humanities, and other social sciences (Burrell & Morgan, 1979). In order to re-integrate the various disciplines into a more comprehensive management curriculum than exists today, we propose that a confluent approach to the sciences and humanities. Putting the two together in the management classroom can go some way to revitalizing renewed goals of critical thinking, interpersonal communication, and self reflection in leadership and organizational development. Increasingly, the complexities of modem business require precisely those habits of critical thinking and selfreflection that a liberal education impresses upon people. Even though liberal education cannot substitute entirely for a solid management education, it can possibly provide a foundation for elevating lifelong learning to higher levels of thought and deeper levels of reflection. These skills are especially important to our MBA graduates once they are actually on the job and working their way up the 'corporate ladder'. A recent study by the National Centre for Management Research and Development [NCMRD]of Canadian university graduates, for example, found that liberal arts students are generally perceived by corporate employers as having stronger skills in 'communication', 'creativity', and 'adaptability' than students from business. engineering, or science. Although liberal arts graduates in the humanities face significant difficulties when competing with business and technology graduates for job interviews, they also possess important advantages for success and promotion in later years, once they are given the chance to prove themselves (Rush & Evers, 1993). A background in the humanities may be less important when you begin work, but it becomes more important over time-especially once you are promoted into executive management and leadership roles.
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THE CASE FOR A CONFLUENT MANAGEMENT CURRICULUM
Many first year MBA candidates report that a lot of what gets taught in business school does not appeal very much to their imagination. In many cases, the affective domain offeelings, attitudes, and values is almost completely ignored by the professors' instructional strategies. In order to get at students' individual and collective imagination we believe in 'loading' or attaching literary or cinematic themes or scenes to trigger a recognition of various management contexts they are likely to face. Some business school programs have dealt with the issue of curriculum breadth, depth, and integration through such methods as capstone projects and special event symposia. In a vain attempt to take charge of such large territory in one swoop, many capstone projects may be underestimating the human complexity of "management" as well as the pockets of resistance among threatened faculty who specialize in traditional, functional disciplines. The only core course in the curriculum not rooted in finance or statistics is organizational behavior. And judging from the
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Chiaramonte!
Organizational Behavior Reading Lists and Course Outlines complied by Richard Schwindt in 1995, even that is still being taught in a kind of pseudo-scientific way that breeds intellectual incest and retards creativity. At first it might strike the reader as strange that we are confronting the staleness of what we do by merging our treatment of management theories and practices with lessons from the humanities and social sciences. A second look reveals that the two are closely related. Management educators seldom make the connection explicit, but one of the distinguishing features of literature and film treatments of organizational life is that they help us to recognize leadership as if we were experiencing it in real time. In other words, a confluent approach to management development keeps thinking and feeling together-as they are in the real life of individuals and organizations alike. If emotional responses. are left out of the decision making process, we are essentially asking students to think without their senses. But it is precisely because we can think with our senses, that we find the capacity to organize ourselves in such wondrously complex and productive ways. Merging feelings with thinking in classroom exercises makes a couple of things obvious. One, that this is precisely the way the world actually works. Second, that this is obviously a false dichotomy, since feeling and thinking are united in each of us almost constantly everyday (Brown, Yeomans, & Grizzard, 1976).
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ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS AT THE MOVIES
Why teach management through movies and novels in addition to cases and textbooks? A major factor in most dramatic film or fiction accounts of organizational life is the empathetic identification the reader or audience has with the central characters in the story. Identification with the protagonist is one of the core elements of literary and film experience. Fiction and film in particular can flesh-out the abstractions of organizational problems emotionally in ways that few traditional case studies are able to match. They can also stimulate critical faculties involved in thinking sorting, framing, and interpreting these dilemmas in ways that are often more real or lasting than typical case study/role play simulations. Thus they can provide access to a deeper level of meaning for practitioners and students alike. Many teachers of social and behavioral sciences and education have for some time recognized the value of literary materials in supplementing and personalizing psychological knowledge. Some social sciences curricula have developed courses that use essays and novels with considerable success and student acceptance (Gorman, 1984; Grant, 1987; Levine 1983; Schwartz, 1980; Williams & Kolupke, 1986). As such, there are many fine examples for us to draw upon for support of a confluent curriculum that combines the humanities with the management sciences. For example, there is a history of "Humanities and the Professions" executive programs at Brandeis University that was designed nearly 20 years ago. The first project at Brandeis was intended to revitalize burnt-out judges and lawyers, but comparable programs have since been conducted for many other professions. including business. Brandeis professor Sanford Lottor described their method as a "two-text method". One text is the classic literature, the other is what Lottor calls the "text of life". Similarly, professor John K. Clemens, founder and executive director of the Hartwick Humanities in Management institute has received much well-eamed attention for his Institute's work "Transforming Great Texts and Films Into Unforgettable Management and Leadership Lessons" (Clemens& Albrecht, 1995; Clemens& Mayer, 1987). The Humanities in Management program at Hartwick College began when Clemens and his colleagues first started Using classics such as Shakespeare's King Lear-taught alongside other books and films containing leadership lessons within them: Moby Dick. Billy Budd, or The Great Santini (Chiaramonte, 1989). Each of the dozens of classic cases developed by the Hartwick Institute for the Humanities focuses on personal and professional issues of change, charisma., crisis management. conflict. diversity, leader development, power and authority, team building, transformational leadership. and more. The lists of stories and management topics quite . literally go on and OD.Although they are not exactly what we would call 'cutting-edge,' the Hartwick film archives were expanded in 1996 to include such cases as these: Dead Poets Society [transformational vs. transactional leadership]; Flight of the Phoenix [emergent leadership]; Gandhi [ethics, vision, values]; The Hunt For Red October [power, challenge, authority]; as well as several others we are less familiar with.
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There are academics in traditional literary disciplines who object to the teaching of abridged versions of the classics, especially when they are taught by professors untutored in these disciplines. However, we do not see the Hartwick approach as causing any harm. On the contrary, the Hartwick Institute's success in producing and marketing its abbreviated leadership cases and teaching notes is proof of their value to many. We advocate the use of these and similar tools for all management education regardless of functional discipline studied or taught. In addition to classic fiction and film. we have begun using the Arts and Entertainment (A&E) network's Biography series in combination with other dramatic and documentary treatments of such leaders and circumstances. For example, portrayals of the lives of Alfred Sloan, Henry Ford, Harold Geneen, John Sculley, Bill Gates, Jack Welsh, John Delorean, Martin Luther King Jr., Keiko (the real-life killer whale who starred in the film Free Willy), Frank Serpico, Princess Diana, and Mother Teresa can be appropriately tailored for various audiences and topics of interest. Published biographies of business executives like Lee Iaccocca, Herb Kelleher, Henry Ford, and others can also be used to highlight leadership and management issues in far greater detail than the usual business case would allow or even aspire to. Since 1990, we have conducted informal surveys of over 400 full-time faculty in management or organizational behavior studies at Canadian and American universities-asking professors what films, biographies, histories, or novels they use in their course work to amplify organizational leadership issues as they define them. Roughly 20 percent have reported using "bits and pieces" of dramatic or theatrical material to supplement other more theoretical readings and course content. Certain film "classics" continue to show up year to year in the official course syllabi: Twelve 0' Clock High, Twelve Angry Men. Wall Street, Apollo 13, and one or the other of The Godfather trilogy. In a presentation made by one of the authors (Peter Chiaramonte) to 150 Marine Officers in the 3rd Civil Affairs Group at Camp Pendleton in 1996, it was not surprising to hear that the most common film clips used in military management training programs have been taken from Twelve 0' Clock High, starring Gregory Peck. It was surprising however, that the marines never recalled discussing the film in terms of the crises that resulted from the commander's unrelenting demands for maximum effort. All they could recall were scenes of power and images of authority which, it was suggested, they should seek to emulate and model for others. When their anention was refocused on different aspects of Peck's character-for instance, the Air Force general fmding himself amidst total organizational chaos in the war against Germany-the marine officers were surprised to witness the general's personal breakdown. The panic attack he suffered toward the end of the film takes a few minutes to digest. Many admitted they had never thought of leadership or the consequences of command in these terms before. Lessons in Leadership from' The Last Place On Earth' Among our personal favorites for teaching a vast array of leadership issues, management decisions. and organizational challenges is The Last Place On Earth. a text-and-film case we have developed with our colleagues Andy Boynton and Bill Fischer at the International Institute For Management Development [IMD] in Lausanne,· Switzerland. We have used various combinations of scenes (usually a series of 10 select six-to-IZ minute clips] taken from the over seven hours of dramatic footage available. (In-class use of copyrighted film and videotape held by a school library is permissible under normal classroom conditions.] We have written an overview to the 'Race to the Pole' to provide the context for the story-and we have selected clips as 'triggers' for examining everything from personal destiny issues to many other aspects of project leadership and change management. The Last Place On Earth is about the great race between British and Norwegian teams under the rival commands of polar explorers Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen to be first to the South Pole in 1911-1912. Amundsen and his men reached the South Pole on December IS, 1911 and returned safely. Scott and his team reached the Pole 33 days later on January 17. 1912 but died on their return. The British perished just II miles short of One Ton Depot which, if it had been placed where it was originally intended, would have approximated the point at which they starved to death in their tent in a blizzard, still hundreds of miles from their base camp in McMurdo Sound. There are powerful contrasts and comparisons. to be made in the way each individual leader, team, and culture approached its goal. For example, we see the way Scott went about the business of polar exploration in a rather careless and haphazard way, seeking safety in big numbers, obedience to command, and untested new technology.
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Chiaramonte!
His training at the naval academy in Dartmouth taught him to rely on the tradition of the British naval hierarchy to sort the whole thing out for him. Amundsen. on the other hand, was as meticulous in consulting his comrades on every matter of importance as he was in planning every detail of the journey carefully in advance. Whereas the British were all thrown together, more as a matter of protocol and ceremony than for any particular expertise in polar exploration. the Norwegians were familiar with similar terrain and conditions from previous explorations at high latitudes north and south. Each member of the Norwegian team was expert at skiing, navigation, and driving teams of dogs over ice and mountain. Few British knew much more than their scientific specialty, e.g. geology, chemistry, meteorology. or biology. There were few expert skiers, navigators. or dog drivers working under Scott's command. Not knowing these essential skills meant the British had lost the race before they ever left England's shores. There are literally dozens of leadership lessons and parallels to be gleaned from the triumphs and setbacks both expeditions lived through or died from. Here is just one example: After Scott's motor tractors failed and the Siberian ponies died, the British were forced to man-haul their supplies on sledges. Not only is this a painfully exhaustive mode of transport, Scott's men never knew how far they would have to march on any given day. Even if Scott gave an exact distance beforehand that was never any guarantee he would not change his mind later on and force a further march. Morale was low. Despite this, Scott continued issuing orders through intermediaries rather than making contact with his men directly. It was a clumsy performance, reminding those present of "a somewhat disorganized fleet" (Huntford, 1984). Contrast such scenes of Scott's cavalcade with the Norwegians. After turning for home from their victory at the South Pole-with the incessant southerly wind now at their backs--the Norwegians rigged their sledges with sails to capture its force. They also changed to night travel. in order to have the sun behind them. thus avoiding snowblindness. [Yet another detail overlooked by the British.] Olav Bjaaland, the fastest Norwegian skier, was made •forerunner for the journey back from the Earth's southem axis. Amundsen instructed him to keep a steady pace of 15 miles per day-even though at times they could have easily covered 20 miles or more. Why? Amundsen reasoned that the altitude [10,000 feet] called for restraint. Besides, this way each man knew exactly what was expected of him and could be confident in knowing that they would achieve their goal. By instituting a steady rhythm of 15 miles a day for four consecutive days, and resting on the fifth day, the Norwegians traveled 60 nautical miles-exactly one degree of latitude. This served several purposes. One of which was that the distance traveled could then be calibrated as definite progress on a map. By setting attainable, measurable, and specific goals, the Norwegians created a team environment in which everyone experienced something approaching a true sense of personal importance connected to the whole enterprise. Scott on the other hand, acted like a victim to the weather and his own men's incompetence. They in turn complained of their leader's impotence and the expedition's shortcomings. In fact, many of Scott's men predicted their own fate well in advance of the tragedy that befell them on the Ice Barrier. Regardless of the course or program topic, we have generally been able to find clips and segments of this story to suit a great many management content issues. By revisiting the dramatic race to the South Pole and re-examining the attitudes and decisions its central characters made, we hope to understand something more about ourselves as leaders and managers on our own explorations.
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FACT AND FICTION IN FILM
In Understanding Media (1964), Marshall McLuhan referred to movies as "the reel world." In th em he recognized the indestructible bond between print and film in terms of their power to represent 'the reality of our dreams' in the viewer's fantasies. The business of the novelist, screenwriter, or filmmaker, wrote McLuhan, "is to transfer the reader or viewer from one world, his own, to another" (Mcl.uhan, 1964: 249). In film and modem literature, he says, there is no more celebrated technique than that of the 'stream of consciousness'. Is this a form of leadership? Certainly this form of internal monologue permits the reader an extraordinary sense of identification with a wide range of characters and personalities with whom we can be said to 'follow along'. Here are just three examples of how we have used this 'sense of identification'.to get at leadership issues in our management classes:
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\. We sometimes begin our courses by showing a selection of film clips that present the audience with several different organizational scenarios. Usually we ask students to make comparisons or examine other conflicts they associate with some personal experience of their own. In the case of Charlie Chaplin's Modem Times, for example, Chaplin's clown presents a mime of elaborate incompetence. This is, after all, a satire on the fragmented character of modem tasks. Any specialist task, wrote Marshall McLuhan (I964), leaves out most of our faculties. Most students have ready associations with Chaplin's clown and they like to tell about their own experiences with short-term planning and specialist tasks. 2. Another example we have used to explore particular themes, such as the role of the manager-as-coach, is The Four Minute Mile-the story of British runners Roger Bannister, Chris Chataway, Chris Brasher, and [their coach} Franz Stampl's teaming together to break the "four minute barrier" for the mile. We have compared the coaching styles and profiles of Franz Stampl, for example, with other famous track coaches, e.g., Brutus Hamilton, Michaly Igloi, Percy Ceruny, and Bob Simmons. Next, we might ask students to look at the team and how they were formed? For what purpose? With what values or goals in mind, e.g., individual or team focused? Compare this with your own experience. Think of a time when you set out to perform beyond all expectations and succeeded in attaining your goal. Finally, we might ask how such models, stI3legies, and exemplars can be translated to other organizational settings. 3. At other times we might run through a sequence of clips tbIt compares or contrasts the management/leadership styles of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart, It's A Wonderful Life), Charles Foster Cane (Orson Wells, Citizen Kane), Preston Tucker (Jeff Bridges, Tucker), William Wallace (Mel Gibson. Braveheart), Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, Wall Street), Tess McGill and her female boss (Melanie Griffith and Sigourney Weaver, Working Girl), Henry V (Lawrence Olivier or, more recently, Kenneth Branaugh) , or Malcolm X (Denzil Washington). Another way to use this particular block offilm clips in a series would be to show how leadership transcends race, class, and gender. In this regard, scenes involving famous speeches often serve as a prelude to serious and stimulating class discussions on the psychology of leadership and other related themes (Eccles, Nohria.& Berkeley, 1992; Gardner, 1995; Pearce, 1995).
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SELF SCIENCE AND REFLECTION
Any truly confluent approach to the subject of managemes will require a significant investment of time in self
science exercises and an examination of students' personal as weU as professional development. No one is likely to follow a leader who appears unaware of where they are headed or what is personally motivating their journey. To dramatize this point we have used excerpts from the movie Zelig (Woody Allen), for example, to tell the story of Leonard Zelig, a human chameleon who was so eager to please. so loathe to give offense, so willing to blend right in-that he took on all the social, intellectual, and even physical characteristics of the people he spent time with. Zelig has no self-identity of his own and.therefore no position to lead from. At other times, we have compared the self-reflective views of Lee Iaccocca (1984) with the self-destructive mind of Roberto Calvi (Kets de Vries, 1990) as departure poiDISfor an in-depth discussion of leadership and identity (see Chiaramonte & Mills, 1993). For this endeavor we highly recommend the work of Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, professor of management at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) in Fontainebleau, France. For example, we refer to Calvi in books by Kets de Vries and thm visually in a scene taken from the final act of The Godfather, Part III-in which a Calvi-esque Italian banker is found hanging upside down under Blackfriars Bridge in London. Since this is exactly what happened to Roberto Calvi himself, we have an excellent example of the consequences of the lack of self-reflection taken to its limit. Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" is recommended reading for leading a discussion of the potentially negative social and organizational outcomes a lack of self reflection can have on people. Although several other contemporary film choices also capture the activity of self reflection from a multitude of new perspectives, e.g. clips from Jerry McGuire, The Remains of the Day, Primary Colors, Dangerous Beauty, Good Will Hunting, Titanic, and so on. As a source book to other film classics containing leadership and management themes, we still prefer Frank Magill's Cinema. The Nove/Into Film (1980) and the Hartwick Institute's Film Catalogs over such sources as Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion(1990)-or any of the other so-called 'state-of-the-art' catalogs by VideoTrackers,
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Chiaramontel
Movies Unlimited. Metro Golden Memories, Sight and Sound Laser Disks, or The Knowledge Connection. At this point in time, we prefer cable television to the Internet as a source of additional material. If it's a finer-edge resource that you are after, you can usually find it in the stories your students tell each other once they share their personal and emotional connection with characters and issues in the films, novels, and each other's experience.
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GENDER ISSUES AND FICTION
As has been stated many times elsewhere (Hearn& Parkin, 1983; Hearn et al., 1989; Mills& Tancred, 1992), gender is a neglected area of management and organization studies. Should we care? Does the neglect of gender make any difference to the way we teach management? We say YES on both counts. There are at least three good reasons for including a focus on gender in the teaching of management. One, our student audiences are composed of almost equal nwnbers of males and females, and varying different types of males and females at that. If we want to engage their interest in a way that builds on their cognitive and affective experiences we need. among other things, to tap into that most fundamental of human experience - the experience of being a "man" or a "woman", Two, it hardly needs to be said that equity - is a continuing problem in the workplaces of today (witness the growth of the interest in diversity management for example - (e.g., Prasad. Mills, Elmes & Prasad, 1997). We have to prepare our students to deal with rather than to reflect the problems of inequity that they will surely have to face as managers and as individuals. Three, there is a vast literature to indicate that gender dynamics play an important role in the way that decision-making occurs in the workplace, affecting both men and women in different ways; whether it be discriminatory influences that restrict women from being hired or promoted to certain jobs (Ferguson, 1984; Kanter, 1977; Morgan, 1988), forms of masculinity that negatively impact on organizational outcomes (Maier & Messerschmidt, 1998) and organizational decisions that negatively impact on some men's sense of masculine identity (Livingstone & Luxton, 1989), or whether it is attitudes towards forms of femininity, masculinity and sexual orientation that inhibits all but an ideal typical form of heterosexual performance at work (Hall, 1989; Shilts, 1993). Conveying the problematic issue of gender to an audience that is basically still working through adolescence is difficult. For many, ifnot all, 'male' and 'female' are hard and fast categories; immutable, unquestionable. In short, it is a subject that has to be handled skillfully and delicately. We use film segments that manage to use humor to expose the fragile, changing and often discriminatory aspects of gendering. Woody Allen is particularly good at dealing with issues of sex and sexuality in a way that allows the audience to identify with the problem in a nonthreatening way. In particular, Play It Again Sam is useful for drawing attention to the fact that masculinity is a learned behaviour, that there are different and competing forms of masculinity, and that each have consequences for images of self and of others. There is a particular segment in the movie in which Allen (playing a recently divorced character) is preparing for a blind-date. We watch as AIlen attempts to decide what kind of man he should represent himself as, moving through various personas that include athlete, intellectual, interior designer, and harddrinking/hard smoking tough guy as he prepares for the moment when his date will arrive. Through humor the audience quickly learns that the presentation of self is learned and contextual (Allen, who appears comfortable in earlier interactions with friends, tries on different masculinities when faced with a stranger in a blind-date). Of
course, if they miss the point we are on hand with questions that ask the audience to identify the different forms of masculinity and associated constructions of femininity depicted in the film. The value of opening discussions of gender with the Play It Again Sam clip is that it disavows the audience up front from the notion that gender is strictly 'a woman's issue', It shows males and females alike that gendering is about male and female identity. We use the clip to get the audience to discuss masculinity and femininity as performance and, the implications of such performance for workplace relationships. It is a scene setter for more detailed reading of gender and management and the use of Mark Maier's excellent video on the causes of the Challenger disaster ("A Major Malfuncrion.;" The Story Behind the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster. A Pedagogical Documentary about Organizational Politics, Ethics and Decision-Making: The Research Foundation of the State University of New York. Albany, NY) - which is used in varying degrees in our leadership and organizational behaviour courses. Other gender Benjamin, work, and film clips that we use to deal with gender include Tootsie and Some Like It Hot (to discuss the problems of identity and the learned characteristics of femininity and masculinity); 9 to 5, Working Girl, Private Courage Under Fire, and GI Jane (to discuss the kinds of problems faced by women professionals at how they resolve them), We have found that juxtaposing clips from Working Girl and Disclosure
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provides a way of stimulating debate about the nature of workplace discrimination and equity policies: while Working Girl plays to an expected script of the negative treatment of women at work Disclosure has the effect of shock by presenting a male as the victim of sexual harassment. encouraging some in the audience to speak more freely than if they felt expected to conform to a so-called "politically correct" discourse. Through sharp and open debate that engages both men and women the audience appear better placed to consider not only the need for workplace equity policies but also the problems of developing and applying such policies. Readings from Kanter (1977), Sheppard (1989) and the work of Virginia Schein (Brenner .Tornkiewicz, & Schein. I989;Schein. 1973. 1989) round off the process by providing insights into the link between structure. power and managerial position and perceptions of gender. Through this selection of films (and associated readings) our focus is not primarily on the types of problem that women may face as managers (though that is an element) but to encourage the development of selfesteem {for women} and respect (from men). In each case the film clips make the point that it is not some inherent female characteristics that have led to discrimination by prejudiced attitudes, behaviour and structures. In each case the central female characters in the film triumph through a realisation of self-respect and a corrunitment to succeed. Almost certainly the most difficult aspect of gendering to get across is that of sexual orientation. In our experience many of the traditionally-aged student body find discussions of sexual orientation difficult; some may fear exposure as homosexual; some may have doubts about their own sexuality. Films that deal with the subject in a sensitive and adequate way are few and far between and, for good reason, have tended to be deathly serious. Robert Wise's The Sergeant (1968) and William Wyler's The Children's Hour (1962) are rare attempts to deal. respectively, with male and female homosexuality. Regrettably, both films are somewhat heavy handed and difficult to extract relevant segments from. The more recent In and Out has come to the rescue with a film that takes a humorous look at the relationship between career and sexual orientation (the lead character is a "respected" school teacher before it is suggested that he is gay) in a way that challenges the audience to question heterosexist assumptions about workplace relations (at the end of the movie the lead character "discovers" that he really is gay). The moral of the story is threefold. First, that prejudiced attitudes about sexual orientation can damage a person's character and reputation and lead to the loss of a good colleague. Second, that a person's sexual orientation is his or her business and has little or no relationship to how well they perform hislher job. Third, that gay men and women should not have to hide their sexual orientation but should be allowed to express their feelings as well as their heterosexual colleagues and friends. Through segments of In and Out and selected readings we get our students to consider and discuss what they see as the relationship between sexual orientation and workplace expectations, and what, if anything, a manager should do to manage the issue of sexual orientation. What. if anything, would we expect students to gain from a study of gender? In a one semester class on understanding leadership or behaviour at work it would be foolish to believe that students will end with an in-depth understanding of gender dynamics at work. Nonetheless, what you can aim to do is to encourage (i) a sense of selfesteem, (ii) a respect for others, (iii) a questioning of discriminatory practices, (iv) an understanding of how to seek out the underlying causes of discrimination, and (v) a critical appreciation of the need and problems involved in developing and applying equity policy. Through carefully selected film clips and readings women and gay people can gain a sense of self that may be missing from both the text and subtext of management teaching (see Mills. 1997a, 1997b; Mills& Hatfield, 1998), and male students can understand something about their own feelings, that masculinities differ and that dominant forms of masculinity can be part of the problematic of inequity.
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PARADIGMS.
CREATIVITY
AND THE HUMANITIES
Within management and organizational studies Burrell & Morgan's (1979) work on paradigms and Morgan's (1986, 1996) work on organizational images provide excellent texts for challenging students to exercise critical thinking, for challenging future managers to avoid the paradigm trap, i.e., blinkered thinking. By showing students that there are different ways of viewing reality we can encourage them. as future managers, to seek other opinions. other viewpoints, before making crucial decisions that affect the Jives of different people. The challenge for the professor is to translate the notion of competing paradigms into something that is understandable and meaningful to the undergraduate. To this end, we have found that a key segment from the movie Norma Rae provides an invaluable focus for an in-class exercise. The exercise is based on a modified version of the Burrell and Morgan (1979) framework. with "radical humanism" and "radical structuralism" collapsed into a single
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"Radical" paradigm, and the addition of three new paradigms - "Feminist", "Racioethnic", and "Post-modernist" - that reflect new and emerging communities of thought (Mills & Simmons, 1998). In preparation for the class exercise, students are divided into six groups, each to represent a different paradigm (the remaining two paradigms are "Managerialist", and "Actionalist"), and they are provided with written materials (including a brief overview of the paradigm. selected readings from associated authors, and a brief synopsis of the film clip). Each group is told that they will be shown a clip from Norma Rae and that, adopting the mind-set of their assigned paradigm. they will be asked to
describe the key events in the film clip and make suggestions for solving the identified problem. Following an initial showing of the film segment to the whole class, group members are given one week's preparation to familiarize themselves with the basic elements of their assigned paradigm. The selected movie scene centers on an attempt by the managers of a textile mill (in a Southern US state) to break a developing union by turning white against black members: a letter is pinned on the employee notice board warning that 'the blacks are trying to take over the union'. Norma Rae's attempt to take down the details of the letter (to help the union organizer to take legal action against the company) is met with management hostility and she is fired. Refusing to go quietly, Norma Rae stands on a work-bench and silently holds up a sign which boldly reads: •'UNION". One by one her fellow workers switch off their machines in an act of solidarity. The scene ends with the arrest ofNonna Rae and her removal from the mill. At the time of the exercise each group, in turn, reports their observations and recommendations to the class as a whole. This is followed by questions and comments from other groups who continue to act within the mind-set of their assigned paradigm. The resultant discussion usually ends with students identifying the fact that, in part, different organizational (e.g., management vs. employees) and socio-economic factors (including race and gender) encourage different mind-sets (particularly where there is a stress on those factors); and that different mind-sets influence perceptions of events, and associated problems and outcomes. The lessons learned include not only respect for other opinions but an understanding of the limitation of a narrowly-based viewpoint (e.g., the manager knows best) and the need, at times, to seek new and different solutions to perceived problems: (for a more detailed discussion, explanation and outline of the case see Mills, 1997b; Mills & Simmons, 1998).
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THE MORAL OF THE STORY
In a 1990 article in the Journal of Business Communication, Martin Jacobi argued that management courses are an excellent place for including instruction in ethics. He urged those of us who teach the subject to revise old pedagogical habits and assumptions about the role of the humanities in management development programs. One of the old assumptions challenged was the idea that either business ethics or the humanities only be taught by expert faculty specializing in ethics or the classics. We reject these assumptions. Organizational leadership and management issues are never the exclusive domain of any subject area group in particular. The enterprise of management is so crucial to the success of contemporary organizations that we should seek knowledge about it from all possible sources (Waldo, 1968). Greater attention to the humanities in management curricula can, we believe, enrich the emotional and intellectual basis upon which individual and organizational success rests. Recognizing that business schools are by their very nature interdisciplinary, the confluence of management sciences with a study of the humanities in management offers business students a broader view of the personal and social implications of every leadership decision they will ever make. Perhaps what a confluent approach to the study of management through literature and film portrayals does best is to restore the concrete and affective experiences that most of the traditional management literature tends to slight or miss completely .
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REFERENCES
Bell, E.•& Nkomo, S. (1992). Re-Visioning women managers'lIves. In A J. Mills & P. Tancred (Eds.), Gendering organizational analysis (pp. 235-247). Newbury Park, CA.: Sage. Benson, J, K.( 1977). Organizations - a dialectical view. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22. 1-21. Brenner. 0 C. Tomkiewicz, J., & Schein, V. E. (1989). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics revisited. The Academy of Management Journal, 32(3), 662-9.
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• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Peter Chiaramonte, Ph.D. is associate professor of organizational leadership at Chapman University, San Diego. Dr. Chiaramonte is a graduate of the University 0/ Toronto and the University 0/ California at Santa Barbara. While at Teacher's College at the University of Toronto. he spent a great deal of time sitting in courses for which he was not officially enrolled-classes such as The Silence of God-the films of Ingmar Bergman '; the philosophy of aesthetics; films of Federico Fellini, and so on. He also coached track andjield - serving as an assistant coach with the 1976 Canadian Olympic team. Coaching is still one of Dr. Chiaramonte's key interests and the dramatic film
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version of Roger Bannister's 'The Four Minute Mile' is still one of his favorite classroom exercises. He has taught in MBA and executive leadership and management programs at the University of Western Ontario, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and has guest-taught at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is co-author of the textbook. Face-To-Face: Interpersonal communication in tile workplace (199.+). Albert J. Mills, Ph.D. is Professor of Management at St. Mary's University, Halifax. Nova Scotia, Canada. Alben J. Mills is an avid film buff. Casablanca (a story about social commitment) has long been his favorite movie and he continues to draw inspiration from 'Spartacus', 'Singing in the Rain', and 'Best Years of Their Lives'. Dr. Mills considers 'Its A Wonderful Life' the best management morality tale of the Twentieth Century, but recommends 'The Last Place on Earth' as a visual exercise in best and worst management practice: As a Professor of Management at Saint Mary's Univeristy (Nova Scotia, Canada,) he models himself on a mixture of the integrity of Peter O'Toole in 'Goodbye Mr. Chips, the intellectual skepticism of Michael Cane in 'Educating Rita', and the teaching style and compassion of Robin Williams in, respectively, the 'Dead Poets Society' and 'Good Will Hunting'. He incorporates race/ethniciry and gender in his teaching of organizational behaviour - drawing on 'Malcolm X' and 'Norma Rae' to educate and inspire students. Although seriously failing to reproduce the crisp writing style of Dashiel Hammett, Dr. Mills has managed to author a monograph - Worker occupations and the Nonh East Experience (1976), coauthored two books - Organizational ru/es.( OU Press. 1991, with Steve Murgatroyd) and Reading organization theory (Garamond Press, 1995 and 1998, with Tony Simmons), and co-edited a further two books - Gendering organization analysis ( Sage, 1992, with Peta Tanced) and Managing tile organizational melting pot ( Sage, 1997, with Pushie and Anshu Prasad and Mike Elmes). Sometimes he even gets published injoumals.
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