J MARITZ
J. J. DE BEER
H. W. DU PLESSIS
Department of Human Resource Management

Abstract

Introduction

Learning via theatrical methods addresses a multiple of developmental disciplines relating to educating, training and development. Sandra Prinsloo (Trump1994: 21), an acclaimed actress in South Africa, describes the use of theatre in this regard by stating: "There is simply nothing like the immediacy of live theatre to get people talking, interacting and exchanging ideas." The old Chinese proverb which states "You cannot understand another man until you have walked a mile in his shoes" provides a further practical point of view concerning the learning process when relating to issues such as change, culture and skill requirements.

Theatre is a widely used tool to stir emotive responses. Viewers project themselves into the situation sketched by the cast through suspending their disbelief (Kruger et al 1997: 5). For the individual to truly become a part of the plot, thus partaking and enjoying the emotional triggering, the viewer has to identify with one or more of the characters or relate to a given situation in general. According to Robbins (1998:141) people, as they develop through life, model their behaviour and attitude on others they admire, respect or even fear. Deeper levels of identifying with characters correlates with deeper levels of emotional response, which serves as explanation for the high following for 'soap' opera's on Television (Kruger et al 1997: 5). The Jungian theory of archetypes states that there are pre-supposed character traits in specific types of people. By clearly defining and developing different character traits and personalities in characters on stage, it becomes easy for the viewer to identify with some of them (Jung Vol9). Further then, via constant emotional sensitizing, characters become part of one's daily life where the viewer can be lead to believe virtually anything, as they are guided through often very complex emotional journeys.

The principle of mentorship goes hand in hand with identifying with a character in a play, as care is taken by an experienced person to guide a learner to consciously challenge their own attitude, behaviour and methods for the purpose of growth and learning. According to Louw (1993: 818) it is generally accepted that attitudes have to change before change in behaviour can occur. Attitudes are lasting and not momentary of nature, therefore if change can be brought about in an individuals attitude, the possibility exist for a long lasting change in behavioural manifestations rather than sporadic changes (Zimbardo et al 1977: 53). In terms of organizational learning, highly identifiable characters sketched in a similar scenario as in which the viewing group may find themselves, can lead the viewer to ponder on key areas where learning could be required for change, as to enable problem solving, performance improvement or character development. Once sensitized a follow-up initiative would find the viewer more responsive and open to new ideas, challenging already set patterns of behaviour and the general status quo. To sensitize a person could however take more than just a process of merely identifying and sharing experiences with a character on stage. To challenge the human nature of desiring stability, it often requires a multitude of emotional stimuli's to guide one to see and evaluate their own habitual behaviour (Kruger et al 1997: 6). Here theatre allows for easy introduction of emotional stimuli to sensitize and guide the viewer into opening themselves to change. These stimuli range from remorse, sadness and grief to light-heartedness, exuberance, appreciation and team spirit, covering all fields of occupational functioning.

The confrontational nature of theatre challenges the audiences' beliefs and assumptions by continually testing their reactions toward different scenarios. Inherently this allows for the viewer to step outside their comfort zone, but doing so within a safe and protected environment (Kruger et al 1997: 7). Here vulnerability isn't seen as weakness, but rather invited and praised as a good form of involvement. Robbins (1998: 140-141) says that a person's attitude exists out of three distinct components namely:

• cognitive (thought-) component,
• affective (emotional-) component, and the
• connative (behavioral-) component.

These components are inherent to any attitude and are all aimed to be utilized by the theatrical learning. Attendees have knowledge regarding the theme of the Industrial Theatre (cognitive), each have a certain feeling toward that theme (affective) and except or reject certain elements thereof as compared to their own behaviour (connative) (Heaven 1982: 8-10).

To introduce different levels of learning, variations of the Industrial Theatre or Corporate Theatre are created by adding 'facilitation of learning' to the theatrical production (Kruger et al 1997: 8). By initializing interaction with the viewers, inviting their views and opinions on the right and wrong portrayed in the play, one can identify the level of awareness in a group, as well as easily reinforce a specific behaviour. This interaction within the theatre learning process introduces the first variation, namely Interactive Theatre^Ò. A second variation is the Facilitated Theatre®). This method introduces more direct interaction with attendees by adding facilitators to lead small working groups in discussion after viewing the play or a piece thereof. This way more personal experiences are extracted from all attending, which can then be related back to the work place with guided focus. Finally, Participative Experiential Theatre^Ò, which is uniquely South African, sees an addition to the facilitator in the form of an actor joining each of the small working groups. Personal experiences of the working group members are used to construct a short play where after the members together with the actor then act out their personalized play. This invariably increases the emotional effect and reinforcement of the tool as one is personally and subjectively involved from step one. Rationally it also boosts their awareness of the actions and attitudes creating negative or positive environments as the members are required to act these out themselves and therefore must comprehend the effect it has. The facilitator then steps in to extract learning from the highly personalized scenarios created and acted by the group, always directly relating it to the work environment.

Higher involvement in the process of learning creates ownership of learning, wherewith the partakers identify issues that need to be addressed themselves, as well as portraying what it is that truly influences their working environments. Anita Rowe (2002: 2), a diversity consultant, states that employees should feel they're included in their work environments and that their concerns are taken into consideration. Bearing this in mind, the variations in the Industrial Theatre truly allow employees to voice their concerns and partake in the development of solutions, as their opinions and ideas are fed back to management for consideration. This way the theatre attempts to increase the commitment and work satisfaction of employees as these considerations are adhered to. Many firms face high turnover costs due to low commitment from employees caused by unmanaged change in the work environment (Cohen 2002: 1). As one of the focus implementation areas of the Industrial Theatre is change management, it could prove a handy tool to minimize these costs.

• 100% of them agreed that the live actor demonstrations are more attention captivating.
• 97% felt they learnt more effectively from these live actor demonstrations.
• Finally 90% thought they learned more effectively with actor/participant skill practicing than traditional peer-to-peer role playing.

This clearly reports the success perceived by partakers in the instrument.

Method

Research Design
For the purpose of this study survey research was done as part of an ex post facto field study (Dooley 1990: 129). The advantage of this method is the ease of how it is administered and that its scientific fundament allows for the study of perceptions people develop toward work related manifestations. It is not without disadvantage however, some of the items might have been interpreted in radically different ways as the researcher was not present during completion of the questionnaires to clarify its meaning or significance. This issue will be addressed at a later stage in more detail.

Sample Description
The managerial staff of organizations who have implemented the Industrial Theatre or who considered Industrial Theatre as an intervention served as the target population. These include managers from all fields of practice within modern organizations

A random 15% of the initial 750 people responded from the various companies allowing the researcher only 49 respondents on whom to base his research. The biographical data was obtained through nominal scale measurement where both set categories (e.g. gender) and ordering (e.g. length of service) of categories (De la Rey 1978: 12).

• 55,1% specialized in Human Resources, the remainder consisted of an even spread over all other managerial fields.
• 65,3% were male.
• The majority, 59.1%, were above the age 40.
• Although the home languages of the respondents included 7 different languages, only two were well represented namely Afrikaans and English.
• 55,1% of the respondents were in top- or senior management.
• 49% had been with their respective companies for more than 10 years.
• Finally 81,6% had obtained qualifications equal to or higher than a tertiary degree.

Measuring Instrument
The researcher (I.e. The Learning Theatre Organisation) arbitrarily chose 22 items which they believed would accurately measure perception in this scenario as no effective existing questionnaire could be found (Dooley (1990: 114). Two questions pertaining to how the respondent viewed themselves were added to the 22 items to ascertain whether there is a difference in response from people who view themselves as people vs. task oriented and highly emotional vs. highly rational. This could shed light on what type of person tends to benefit more from the Industrial Theatre and how they generally respond to it.

The 22 general perception items were placed into 4 dimensions being: A-Impact of the Environment; B-Perceptions about measurable outcomes; C-Perceptions about price and value added; D-Perceptions about application opportunities. These dimensions mainly direct the aim of the study. This was however not done via item- and factor-analysis as Cooper and Emory (1995: 181) confirms that questionnaires can be set up arbitrarily while still allowing for trust worthy deductions to be made after the application thereof.

The items were presented in a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 'disagree strongly' to 'agree strongly'. It is worthy to note that a number of the questions were posed in the negative, influencing the reliability of the questionnaire. For this reason 5 of the initial 22 items were removed from the questionnaire and Cronbachs Alpha proved to nearly double to 0.617, only then delivering an acceptable reliability for the questionnaire (Smit 1991: 49). These 5 items therefore did not measure what the questionnaire set out to measure (De la Rey (1978: 31). This was however only done after all 49 respondents had already responded to those 5 items as they were then still included. According to the researcher some of these omitted items formed the essence of the questionnaire and would therefore be expected to be more reliable in testing perceptions accurately in regard to the purpose of the questionnaire. As this was contradicted by the increase of the reliability after their omission, it could be validated by stating that these items could have been interpreted differently by each of the respondents. Thus not delivering a consistent tendency in how they were answered. According to Neuman (1997: 162) the use of the Likert type scale may also add to this phenomenon, seeing that a limitation of its use is that some people tend to respond to a large amount of items in the same way due to laziness or even a psychological predisposition. Therefore some of these items may have been the target of little care taken when answered.

The remaining 17 items' answers were analyzed to identify mainly which items supplied reason for attention as well as differences between groups on the use of the instrument. Perceptions that were compared between groups included that of gender, home language, level of position, length of service, emotional vs. rational and task- vs. people oriented.

Procedure
The questionnaire sent to all managerial participants via Electronic-Mail (e-mail) where they were clearly reminded that they could voluntarily part take in the study. After completion of the questionnaire they were requested to e-mail the results back to the researcher where after the data was analyzed.

Statistical Analyses Measurement of items was focused on obtaining the statistical mean and adding the standard deviation to that score as to determine the degree of positive or negative response (De Beer 1997: 243). For this purpose a divisions were made on the 5-point Likert scale to serve as descriptive for the degree of response:

• 1,0 - 2,4 = highly negative response
• 2,5 - 3,5 = average response (gray/indecisive area)
• 3,6 - 4,4 = positive response
• 4,5 - 5,0 = highly positive response

A special category, 'borderline positive' will be added to cater for average responses which become positive due to the addition of the standard deviation. These responses are not naturally positive but could still carry some level of significance.

Due to the level of skewness of the data, the non-parametric Mann-Whitney-U- and the Kruskal Wallis tests were used for making and evaluating group comparisons (Theron 1992: 363).

Results

General Item Responses
Items with a positive score once the average and the deviation have been added are listed in the table below:

Most of the positive items are borderline cases. The generally high standard deviation indicates that respondents had a tendency to differ on most of the items. In all the borderline cases found in the table above the difference indicates a larger proneness to positive responses than toward negative ones. Noteworthy items include 10 and 12 where the deviation caused the response to cross into the range of ‘highly positive’. Item 16 is the only item which is highly positive without being a borderline case. The summation results in an unrealistic score of above 5 (which is the maximum) due to the large standard deviation, and should thus be read as 5. The remainder of the borderline positive items could also carry some significance when used in conjunction with the previously mentioned three items when identifying their relevance.

Personalized Item Responses
The two questions after the main 17 items of how respondents viewed themselves, saw the following results:

Clearly most respondents (69.4%) viewed themselves as rational thinkers. In this regard it could be deducted that the most managerial users in the work place are more inclined to evaluating matters rationally. Therefore issues pertaining to rational thinking should enjoy preference in the preparation of the Industrial Theatre. For the purpose of analysis we will only focus on the ‘rational’ group consisting of 57.1% of the total respondents.

In the rational thinking group, 70% or more of the 28 agreed positively on a number of responses. These items could bear a meaningful influence on how this thinking-style majority group views the Industrial Theatre.

• 71% agreed that the Industrial Theatre is not only for entertainment purposes.
• 86% agreed that it is an appropriate training and development method.
• 79% agreed that it is not only for semiliterate and illiterate employees.
• 93% agreed that learning on an emotional level is relevant in the business world.
• 86% agreed that Industrial Theatre companies do understand business issues.
• 82% stated that they do not only use internal trainers for all training interventions.
• 71% agreed that it requires a high level of expertise to produce.
• 93% however were unsure whether credits could be obtained for it according to the Skills Development Act

For this group no negative responses were notably significant as they tended to respond favourably in terms of their experience in using the Industrial Theatre.

In terms of those respondents who viewed themselves as more people- or task oriented, the only item which had a significant positive response correlates with one also found in the rational group. Both of these groups agreed that the Industrial Theatre requires a high level of expertise to produce. The task oriented respondents further believed that it is quite difficult to schedule performances so that employees can attend. Apart from these items no other area produced any significant result. This might imply that there is no notable difference in the perceptions of respondents who are more task- or people oriented, except for organizational issues surrounding planning for a suitable time for an Industrial Theatre production.

Omitted Item Responses
Due to the initial view of importance of two specific items which were omitted, it was felt necessary to make a quick overview of the response on these two items. The items read as follows:

• “The Industrial Theatre is in essence a communication method”, and
• “The Industrial Theatre is a useful tool to help manage change”.

The Rational group responded high for both these items with respective means of 4.6786 and 4.6071. For purpose of interpretation it should merely be kept in mind that more rationally-thinking people tend to value the communicational and change management use of the Industrial Theatre quite highly.

Both the People- and Task Oriented groups also agreed strongly on the value of the Industrial Theatre in these two areas with means ranging between 4.3571 and 4.7333 for the two items by each of the two groups. Therefore once again there is no difference between these groups, but rather the implication that people from either orientation seem to value the same elements of the Industrial Theatre.

Biographical Group Comparisons
Language Group Comparison
Comparing English and Afrikaans speaking managers, it’s interesting to see the significant difference in item 3 where a p-score of 0.013 was found (p < 0.05 = significant difference between groups). The Afrikaans speaking group felt that the Industrial Theatre is for all levels of literacy while the English group tended to respond that it’s more for lower literacy level employees. Any direct relation to clarifying this difference is unclear. The possibility should however be considered that Afrikaans speaking people are slightly more inclined to be culture bound and the appreciation of performing-arts and theatre could find their routes herein.

‘Length of Service’ Group Comparison
Due to the uneven spread of respondents on their ‘length of service’, only differences among those over and less than ten years at their companies were compared. Three significant differences and one closely significant difference identified length of service as a good criterion for difference on managerial perception. Item 5’s difference (p = 0.024) on the applicability being greater for those semiliterate and illiterate indicated those longer in service agreed more. The belief that the respondents’ companies use the latest technology to communicate with employees (Item 10; p = 0.028) saw those longer in service disagreeing more. Due to the short life time of the instrument it is currently still viewed as one of the latest mediums in its application area. A possible explanation could be that those longer in service might value traditionally known and proven methods, and modern variations thereof more. It could also be validated by theories on resistance to change where this method of communication has still not validated its usefulness in this area of application, greatly differing from its traditional field of entertainment. Combining this view with item 3 could further imply that senior staff might view more technical procedures as modern, while the soft approach the Industrial Theatre uses are for those who have difficulty with technical training and management procedures.

General Notations
- Comparisons between gender groups and level of position delivered no significant differences on any of the items. The omitted items however delivered great differences between these groups, but will not be discussed. These items could provide further relevant insight into perceptions of managers on the use of the Industrial Theatre and should therefore be refined and included in a future study.

- Although the dimensions were identified subjectively, it’s worthy to note that 57% of the items identified under dimension D were highly negatively skewed. The skewness gives a relatively accurate indication of the general attitude toward an item. The negatively skewed items in this dimension constitute 66,6% of all the negatively skewed items, implying that most of the areas that were highly agreed upon belong to this dimension. The awareness of factors pertaining to this area is therefore rather high and it can be deducted that the perceptions about the application opportunities of the Industrial Theatre are relatively clear to most managerial users.

Discussion

1. small sample size,
2. high standard errors to most items, and
3. poor representation in areas of home language, age, length of service, type of position and industry.

• For a study such as this it would be advisable to gather feedback from more than 49 managers. Increasing the sample size should inherently increase representation within areas of biographical differentiation, but could require more direct monitoring to assure that good representation is acquired.
• The low number of respondents currently disallows for generalization when evaluating according to each of the items. Therefore identifying which items more accurately describe areas for improvement of the Industrial Theatre prove less viable than when more respondents are included in the study.
• The questionnaires’ items lack standardization causing the lower reliability than what could be obtained. The low sample size further contributes to the high standard error of the items.
• The combination of high standard errors, low sample size, poor representation and the just acceptable reliability level of the questionnaire all contribute to the low probability of being able to make generalizations from this study.

Recommendations
Refining of omitted items…validity and use …

The high standard errors found for most of the questionnaires items relate directly to the small sample size. Therefore further studies will require larger amounts of respondents. Attention should also be given to correct formulation of the questionnaire constructing all the items to be positively worded. This should further prove to increase the reliability of the questionnaire.

The high level of agreement with the items in dimension D indicates a high overall awareness of the application opportunities of the Industrial Theatre. To improve awareness of issues relating to the other dimensions should prove to benefit the effective use of the Industrial Theatre. In the process to communicate something Robbins (1998: 312) describes seven steps for effective communication:

1. The sender (source) has the idea;
2. The idea must be transformed (encoded) into a known communication method;
3. The message must be transmitted via some canal;
4. The message must be received by the receiver;
5. The receiver must interpret the message (decoded);
6. The message must be understood correctly; and
7. The receiver supplies feedback if necessary.

If management is correctly made aware of all necessary factors relating to the implementation of the Industrial Theatre, they would find it easier to prepare their employees to effectively go through phases 3-7 of the communication process once attending the production. This way it could communicate more successfully as distortion and communicating obstacles, such as filtering and differences in perception and meaning, are lessened in advance. The same way managerial perceptions could also be improved if they were made more aware of the advantageous elements within the other three dimensions as well. The correct formulation of the dimensions must also be adhered to by statistically doing a factor analysis on the items. This way the correct dimensions will be identified in terms of the items used in the questionnaire. A sample size of at least 100 or more is required for this.

Further the representation of participants in this study is not evenly spread. For increasing viability to obtain sufficient comparative information, one might wish to consort to measures of insuring an even spread over all areas which would be desired to do comparisons on. Thus, instead of doing a simple random sample in future, resulting also in a random spread, an even spread sampling method should also allow for generalizations to the greater population not included in the sample.

Currently the spread of respondents do not allow for any comparisons to be drawn between managerial perceptions from different industries or different types of positions within these industries. Once one identifies the most receptive industries as well as which types and levels of people gain the most from theatrical learning, then one should be able to find the perfect niche for the growth and expansion of the instrument.

Future Research
A practical area for future research could be to attempt to reveal whether those emotionally sensitive would benefit more from this instrument than those who are less sensitive in this regard. An emotional related focus for further studies could analyze and produce evidence and even methods for preparing participants more effectively before performances, thus increasing responsiveness to the Industrial Theatre. This would invariably also influence the perception of management, as they too learn more of the true nature of the Industrial Theatre. Further alteration of this study in the form of evaluating the responsiveness of different categories of employees, such as female vs. male attendees etc., should also advance the establishment of target attendees. This could improve managerial planning for production sessions.

De la Bat (1999: 65) relates that the results from a previous study claimed that it seems that managers entertain the perception that the Industrial Theatre is only suitable for lower level employees. Contrary to this, this study elaborated on the previous study and found an agreement in general managerial perception that it is an appropriate medium for all levels of employees. Another approach however should be added to compliment this line of study in terms of ascertaining what the perceptions of lower level workers are about the instrument and its use.

Finally, a comparative study between industries should allow for greater future planning and development of the Industrial Theatre itself, as focus areas for development could be identified within each potential industry.

Conclusion

The desired outcome is to be able to generalize the findings of this study to the market as whole or certain segments thereof. Although this is not statistically viable, certain deductions can be made and should be taken into account for further research. The general understanding among the managerial respondents extends mainly into the application opportunities of the instrument. With increased awareness as well as improved positive perception within the fields of the three dimensions with less awareness, the instrument should prove to perform at increased levels of effectiveness.

The purpose of the questionnaire was mainly to identify the perceptions of those making change happen within the organization, managerial staff. That it does, however not in an acceptable scientific manner. A number of items in the questionnaire can however successfully verify whether partakers understood the purpose of the learning experience, and therefore measure the effectiveness of the instrument after each production. This feedback, once analyzed, can guide the development process of the theatre and can prove invaluable pertaining to improvement of the implementation among diverse working corpses. This builds on the research by Wilson (1996) that the Industrial Theatre can address any problem in the organizational environment. The issue must however be thoroughly researched and the goals be clearly defined.

The future of the Industrial Theatre lies in its development and value adding to other organizations. Once the process of implementation is firmly established, the final frontier would constantly be the changing nature of the work place. Increasing awareness of the learning instrument could provide sufficient marketing as most of the partaking managers currently was unsure of concepts like the recognition of the Industrial Theatre by the local SETA. According to the Skills Development Act no.97 of 1998 chapter 5, section20(2), and the Skills Development Levy Act, companies may claim back a percentage of levies paid according to the SDA chapter 7 section30(a) when using this instrument for training and skills development. This further invites positive sentiments towards using it. Once managerial perception about advantages such as this increase, it should also invite further knowledge of the use of the Industrial Theatre.

It has also been identified that most managers understand that this tool of change management requires highly skilled personnel and therefore the quality of service is generally not in question. The effectiveness of the instruments value adding is not as clear to most managers though. The general attitude is positive in most areas of perception. Greater awareness should improve the direct value of the managerial view in terms of implementation outcomes and the desirability of making use of this modern tool for communicating complex and controversial problem areas in the workplace (Trump 1994: 21).

References