Leaders, Managers, Entrepreneurs on and Off the Organizational Stage*

leadinghiphip, Managers, Entrepreneurs On and impinge on the organisational Stage* Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff My purpose is to tell of bodies which herstwhile(a) crumb been transformed into shapes of varied kindhearteds. You heavenly powers, sinee you were accountable for those exchanges, as for solely else, look favourably on my attempts, and vortex an unbroken thread of verse, from the earliest stocks of the world, d consume to my profess clock times.Ovid Metamorphoses Abstr bet Barbara CzarniawsicaJoerges de subtract ment of line of merchandise Administration, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Roif Woiff Go and accordinglyburg Research Institute at the School of stintings and efficacious Science, Go and thenburg, Sweden This paper explores tercet crucial usages of the nerveal theatre creationagers, loss leaders and entrepreneurs. ever-changing fashion in the organisational theory public debate as closely as in organizational practice puts melodying roles in focalization at different times.Organization theory should, accordingly, shift its attention toward surveying the mise en scenes in which a aband unmatchedd role acquires dominance, in gift of an un deliberateive password of the relative getal advantages of each of them. This paper argues that n unity of the three get pop out ever go out of fashion, as they underside be namen as enactments of archetypes, constituteing the different fears and wants of those who create organizations by their daily exercise. leading is look onn as symbolic performance, expressing the hope of control over destiny charge as the activity of introducing crop by coordinating flows of things and nice deal towards collective action, and entrepreneurship as the making of absolute peeled worlds. The sociohistoric context pick ups to be considered as the stage-set wherein these roles gain prominence. understructure Organization Studies 1991, 12/4 529-546 1991 EGOS 017 0-8406/91 0012-0022 $2. 00 leading be in, managers atomic number 18 out, entrepreneurs ar waiting in the corridor.What monastic orders their appearances and disappearances? In an attempt to answer this question, we advise to analyze each(preno(prenominal)inal) told three roles, non in terms of organizational tellingness, scarce as symbolic expressions of collective hopes and fears, simulated military operationed out (performed) on the organizational stage. Leaders, managers and entrepreneurs ar supposed to serve certain functions in organizations functions which be ascribed to so-cal take executive positions. The term executive comes from the times when managers were supposed to execute the owners will.The disengagement of ownership and control (Chandler 1977) complicated this simple relationship, opening the way for discussions on the desired form of the executive role. This debate does non take place in a vacuum it accompanies, reflects and charms changes in or ganizational practices and theories. Just which functions and in what configuration changes, two with theories and with time, beca hire the definition of what executive functions should entail changes in crease with master-ideas, whose time comes and goes (Czarniawska-Joerges and Joerges 1990).These, in turn, be related to 530 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff broader changes in the cultural context of organizing (Czarniawska 1986). An ambition to tackle the issues of context leads exploreers to obviously relevant nerves such as changes in business cycles or changes in policy-making climate. A study of these can of course, if treated with devotion, completely fill much than one research c arer, and yet at that place always remains many an(prenominal)thing unanswered, a phenomenon unexplained, of a kind that conventional organization studies are poorly equipped to grasp.Perhaps the theatre fiction (Mangham and Overington 1986 Czarniawska-Joerges 1992) would help in describing those ephemeral phenomena. What leads to a change in repertory of a theatre, a replacement of comedy by tragedy, Shakespeare by Pinter? It is the finish of the management, the wishes of the primadonnas, the current cultural fashion, the stinting exigencies and much to a greater extent than(prenominal). In the organizational theatre, the plays performed deviate from one season to an different, from one director to a nonher, scarcely the general repertoire matchms to be quite usanceal, plain if it contains some(prenominal)(prenominal) tragedy, comedy and drama.It major power be that the actual playwright is our collective unconscious, to use Jungs term (1934) that in our attitudes toward the grand organizational roles, i. e. leaders, managers and entrepreneurs we act out archetypes. This phenomenon escapes the analysts attention because we are utilise to looking for articulation of archetypes in different spheres in myths and leg demises (Hogenson 1987). In this discussion, we are dealings with archetypes of somebodyalities quite than archetypes of transformation (Jung 1934/1959 322).The latter are typical situations, places, ways and means according to Jung (p. 322), or what some would call scripts (Mandler 1984). The archetypes of personalities are universal, idealized, larger-than-life symbols that contain the essence of sympathetic experience and that help idiosyncratics develop an emotionally satisfying picture of the world (Krefting and rime 1986 164). In otherwise words, we argue that the central organizational roles re nonplus wishes and fears dual-lane by organizational collectives they are symbols which help to ascribe gist to organizational events. It always seems to us as if importation compared with life were the younkerer event, because we assume, with some mediocreification, that we assign it of ourselves, and because we believe, equally rightly no doubt, that the great world can get a keen-sighted witho ut being interpreted. But how do we assign meaning? From what source, in the last analysis, do we derive meaning? The forms we use for naming meaning are historical categories that reach venture into the mist of time a detail we do not take sufficiently into account. (Jung 1934/1959 317) In what watch overs we shall correct to show that the continuing debate on those roles reaches indeed back into the mists of time, and although we limit ourselves to a relatively short span of time on that point are plenty of traces pointing further back. Next, we shall attempt to demonstrate that the three roles are complementary in the sense that they answer different needs or fears of the collective unconscious. In this sense, no role is ever Leaders On and mop up the organizational Stage 53I out they all have their place in our collective consciousness, even if we at times tire of one and father fascinated with another. To sum out the core of these archetypes we shall look for their e quivalents in belles-lettres and theatre, the traditional fields of symbolic expression. In doing so, we continue and extend the tradition of symbolic interlingual rendition of executive roles (see e. g. Frost and Egri, forthcoming Gustafsson 1984, 1985 Kets de Vries 1989, 1990a, 1990b Westley and Mintzberg 1989). LeadersIn 1948, Robert Stodgill attempted to get out a list of traits obligated for leaders succeeder, starting with a review by Charles Bird from 1940, which listed 79 traits important for successful leaders, as mentioned in 20 browses reviewed. Stodgill updated the list to rough 100 traits go observing that different authors did not agree on their importance. When he returned to the topic 26 farseeing time later in his book Handbook of leading, the number of leadership studies reviewed exceeded 3000 (Stogdill 1974).During the 1960s, the archetype of organizational leadership began to shift from persons to behavioural behaviors and then toward the situational factors. Ghiseili (1963), Fiedler (1964), deep (1960), and Umanski (1967) were among the silk hat k straightn authors who studied leadership and recommended that the leaders should begin by canvass the context of their action and should then act accordingly. By the 1970s, the interest in leaders diminished. thither were at least(prenominal) two closes.One was that, after three decades, researchersfinallyarrived at a contingency theory which proclaimed that leaders success depends on the fit between their personalities (thus incorporating the trait theory), the type of action they choose (the style theory, with its origins in the seminal study by Lewin et al. 1939), and the situation (e. g. Fiedler 1964). This achievement, impressive at the time, was met with some derision twenty years later, when the hustles of fashion came and went some(prenominal) times.Wildavskys comments add together it real well Unfortunately, multiplying traits of leaders, times types of followers, ti mes samples of situations, times group interactions has led to more variety than anyone can manage. (Wildavsky 1984 18) Another, and probably more important reason for abandoning the role of leadership was political frustration at the end of the 1960s. The young Americans saw their favourite leaders killed the young French decided to transport their old, unpopular leaders themselves. McClellands hold on Two vitrines of power (1970) is a superb example of anxieties suffered by the older generation in the U.S. when the youth jilted the traditional authority and the conventional career paths. According to this study, the graduates of Harvard and other schools did not want to be leaders anymore, seeing a dark face of power even butt the innocent organizational titles. 532 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff Managers Thus in the 1970s, personal appealtic leaders were distinctly out of fashion, and yet at that place was lighten a need for some sort of authority expression in organizations. The unpretentious managers similarlyk the place of leaders.However, Fayols fifty year old description of managerial work was no massiveer of use, observed Mintzberg (1971) in an early comprehend from his famous study of the tasks of managers. A tender approach was needed and the nigh typical model for a manager of the 1970s was perchance Druckers (1970) effective executive. The effective executives had no charisma whatsoever. The organizational reality constricted them towards ineffectiveness. Their time belonged to e very(prenominal)body else. They were labored to focus on operational exigencies to the detriment of locution and strategic thinking.They were blind by the walls of organizations, cutting off the worid outside. They were dependent on what other bulk did or did not do. To all these harassed hoi polloi, Drucker formulated a content a list of practices allowing for an increase in effectiveness, a set of hard-nosed prescriptions on how to manage ones time, how to use accessible resources and how to pull in decisions (Drucker 1970). Problem-solving capacities were more important than accessible skills and decision-making ability conquered charisma, at least for a while.But power was over again ruled, lurking female genital organ this depersonalized, institutional facade. It has been said that the management-oriented researchers, wish well the early rationalist organization theorists, . . . believed mankind had to shift from the government of men to the administration of things, as their predecessor Saint-Simon had claimed and they felt they were achieving their aims by emphasizing financial stimuli and technical controls instead of human being leadership. The delusion that they had suppressed power relationships prevented them from understanding the true nature of their own actions. (Crozier 1964 146)In a sense, this is the analogous accusation as the one formulated eariier against the leaders, provided with a di fferent rationale behind it. While leaders did not understand the true nature of their actions, blinded by power, the managers were blinded by an john that they were free from power. This issue appears in the debate on twain sides, pro-leaders and promanagers. The advocates of leadership say that there is so much power in organizations that it must be officially recognized, whereas the defenders of management tend to say that there are enough power games in organizations without giving them an official status.To pass on this circle, let us introduce a third voice. Entrepreneurs The theme goes that long before there were any leaders or managers in the companies, there were entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs created, in fact, the world of business organizations as we know them today, employ- Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 533 ing not so much charisma or keen capacities as something else willpower. Let us thus make an excursion into the mists of time. In 1921, Josef S chumpeter published an article on the Unternehmer the entrepreneur.In this not very well known article, he explored the character of the business company from a historical point of view, the function of the entrepreneur and finally the upstart entrepreneur. Schumpeter saw the origins and public presentation of companies as being based on two correlated facts on the one hand, the property rights over the means and results of production and, on the other, what he called a business mentality. The latter led to the schooling of production techniques, a capitalist sparing calculation and market communication structures.The combination of this capitalist mentality and capitalist property rights produced business companies, which became crucial elements of the contemporary cultures, but even more they were, without doubt, the terra firma for and the condition of such cultures (Schumpeter 1921 47). Thus, a given up type of indigenceal force creates a given type of organization, wh ich results in a given type of culture that, in turn, encourages such motivational forces and permits such organizations. When analyzing the 18th century, one can see entrepreneurs functioning both as employers and owners of capital.Schumpeter, however, had already noticed that these functions can be and are different, and that in modern companies one encounters two different types of people managers and entrepreneurs. Management, according to Schumpeter, is a function consisting of control, of guaranteeing discipline and introducing order a function requiring considerable daily, bureaucratic work. This function, necessary as it is, does not embody what is really characteristic of the capitalist economy. The importance of the entrepreneur is not the management of an existing company but the creation of such a company.Schumpeter perceived entrepreneurship as a special(prenominal) case of loving leadership. Such social leaders are not big(p) in their task abilities, but in their wi llpower. This willpower can be yieldd into contemporary language as initiative, but, in this case, not an initiative of prospect (for example, conception of new ideas), but an initiative of action. The core of entrepreneurial motivation is similar to that of leaders, but entrepreneurship mainly fits contexts which are new and cannot be dealt with by means of experience or routine.Entrepreneurship is leadership in exceptional situations and, we strength add, is most likely to entail the creation of such situations. Schumpeter stressed repeatedly that entrepreneurship is never a matter of individuals and. It is a phenomenon which has to be analyzed and identify within a complex conglomerate of factors. In saying this, interestingly enough, Schumpeter seemed to anticipate the growing interest in what Mintzberg (1983) calls configurations complex, dynamic contexts where simple contingencies are not of much use. 34 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff This does not mean that one should except other functions. Any economy, at any time, is performing on the basis of existing experiences and routines. Therefore, there will always be a function which has to do with the supervision of these processes (and which we call management). Management, or the routine behaviour in production and business, enables economies to deliver promptly and act in accordance with the requirements of systems which are highly rational and therefore predictable.On the macro-level, though, many processes constantly change their situational equilibrium. There is a continuous growth of existence and the means of production. There are too non- scotch developments which are changing the economy social developments, political influences, and so on. On the micro-level, the equilibrium ceases to exist when individuals see new possibilities, and strive to go for the innovations they have in mind. The concurrence of macro- and microchanges creates room for entrepreneurs.Paraphrasing Schumpet ers ideas in social reflectionist terms, one can say that entrepreneurs are people who are the first to see a crack or aflawin a social construction of economic reality, and to interpret it as an opportunity to actualize their ideas of what the world should look like. As long as this vision is not shared by others, they have to live with an individually constructed reality, which is a fundamental burden to bear. What seem to be anecdotal stories of mad inventors and innovators might be actually quite true, in the sense that the unsuccessful inventors are people whose reality did not occasion socially confirmed.Those who succeeded, though, are the makers of our worlds. Leadership Revisited The neo-conservatism of the 1980s brought to Europe, from beyond the ocean, various desirous notions such as free market and leadership (as opposed to negotiated economies and codetermination, the keywords of the 1970s). As far as leadership was concerned, organization theory did not go far bey ond Stogdill offering many definitions, many brands of leadership and varying recipes for success (see e. g. Maccoby 1981 Bass 1985 Bennis and Nanus 1985).But it is charisma and visions that count most. Bernard Bass asks spectacularally What does Lee Iacocca have that many other executives lack? Charisma. What would have happened to Chrysler without him? It probably would have gone bankrupt. (Bass 1984 26) To which Robert B. Reich answers umteen Americans would prefer to think that Lee Iacocca sensation-handedly saved Chrysler from bankruptcy than to harmonize the real story a large aggroup of people with versatile backgrounds and interests joined together to rescue the ailing company. (Reich 1987 82)Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 535 Reich points out that public opinion would like to see lacocca as an entrepreneur, a anchorite world-maker, rather than a leader who invents a team of people joined in a popular effort. His critique aims at the public veneration of world-makers, based on nothing more than their own claim to fame. What is interesting to us, however, is the fact that Reich stresses the variation between the entrepreneurs as solitary worldmakers and leaders who actually lead other people toward a common vision.It has been repeatedly stressed, especially in analyses of political leadership, that leaders express and embody the wishes of their followers rather than impose those of their own. The romanticizing tradition, which Reich criticizes, tends to equip the heroes of the day with the capacities of leaders, entrepreneurs and managers all furled into one, where they lead the masses to worlds of their own making, waiting for nature to cooperate. In practice, however, not simply should the three roles be divided among different people, but even their performance should be brought much closer to reality.If one talks to people employed by organizations led by charismatic leaders, one discovers that they happen upon about their leaders visions from the mass media (sometimes from internal videotapes) and that leaders themselves, busy in the TV studio, only when have a vague idea of what is happening in their organizations (Schwartz 1989). Organizations are run with the help of Standard Operating Procedures of which culture is perhaps the most powerful and impersonal control processes, the latter initiated and fed by many different actors, none of whom accepts certificate of indebtedness for the actual course of events.The rest pockets of autonomy are filled with individual creativity and self-control which seldom comes from the leaders (on leaders necessary distance from organizational action, see Brunsson 1989). So, what is leadership all about? In 1978, at the dawn of the new leadership era, a curious book was published, entitled Leadership Where else can we go? (edited by McCall and Lombardo), which included contributions from the greatest authorities in the field (Jeffrey Pfeffer, Karl Weick, Loui s Pondy). The articles challenged all the conventional visions of leadership and came up with new images.The most famous of these was perhaps Pfeffers article The ambiguity of leadership. Pfeffer stated that there was not enough evidence to allude either the effect of leadership or, more significantly, the conditions under which leadership might be expected to have more or less daze on organizational outcomes (Pfeffer 1977/1978 23). Leaders serve as symbols representing the personal author of social events. Such personal attribution of causality is a baulk of the feasibility to control events, one of the most important stakes in human beings fight against destiny. Occupants of leadership positions come to assume symbolic value, and the attribution of causality to those positions serves to reinforce the organizational construction of meaning that provides the appearance of relief and controllability. (Pfeffer 1977/1978 29) 536 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff Creating t his illusion of control over lot (Brunsson 1989 Czarniawska 1985) lies at the core of leaders symbolic performance. Leadership should be seen as a political, symbolic process and understood and evaluated in this berth.While accepting this postulate, we propose to extend the symbolic perspective to the two other roles entrepreneurs and managers. Entrepreneurship Reconsidered The late 1980s saw a revival of a long forgotten role that of the entrepreneur, which, for a while, seemed to be petrified in one sequence that of early capitalism. The contemporary variate of this role, embedded into monetary supply-side capitalism, is well describe by Kaplan To get things done through individuals striking out on their own (1987 86). The role is ven damp understood when contrasted with that of drones (Reich 1987), that is, those who give the empires and the big conglomerates going. Entrepreneurs, in the mid-nineties as in the 1880s, create new social and organizational realities. They work against the existing social structure, not by opposing it by e. g. political means, but by behaving as if the existing structure did not exist. By ignoring the established ways of thinking and action, they make dreams come true. Drones are then the carriers of entrepreneurial ideas. Entrepreneurs and drones alike represent two extreme personalities, born by two extreme social realities.Todays societal and economic structures tend to curtail both. On the one hand, revolutionary innovation became complex and inordinately pricey on the other, the cursory running of empires requires innovation and social change. Also, the individualism of entrepreneurship contrasts with the realities of everyday life and family structures, at least in the western industrialized part of the globe where we live and work. The freedom for acting out male dreams is curbed by womens emancipation, followed by changing division of work at shell, and womens attempts to acquire managerial positions.The dual career problems and glass ceilings discovered by women in the bodied context leads to more and more women opening small companies of their own. A growing proportion of entrepreneurial businesses in Europe and Africa have been established by women. History will show whether these new entrepreneurs will also turn back into the luring trap of empire build uping support by traditional economic success criteria, or whether they will redefine entrepreneurship by tying it to different archetypes. IVIanagement Defended . . . he executive leader is not a leader of men only but of something we are learning to call the total situation. This includes facts, present and potential aims Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 537 and purposes of men. off of a welter of fact, experience, desires, aims, the leader must find the unifying thread. He must see a whole, not a mere kaleidoscope of pieces. He must sec the relation between all the different factors in a situation. (Follet 1949 51) It was with these words that, as early as the 1940s, bloody shame Parker Follet move to defend the need for management rather than just for leadership.In the 1970s, Zaleznik launched the perceptive dissertation that while leaders are needed in times of crisis and change, managers represent the everyday rationality of welfare and affluence (Zaleznik 1977 see also Czarniawska-Joerges 1989). Machiavelli, it seems, wrote for managers and not for leaders. Leaders sometimes react to mundane work as to an affliction (Zaleznik 1977 201). They whitethorn work in organizations, but they never belong to them (1977 205). The 1980s brought in a heavier assault managers lacked not only leadership but entrepreneurship as well.Always a gallant knight of management, Peter Drucker asserts that they are all the same Management is the new technology (rather than any specific new information or invention) that is making the American economy into an entrepreneurial economy (. . . ) Entrepreneurship r equires preceding(prenominal) all application of the basic concepts, the basic techne, of management to new problems and new opportunities. (Drucker 1985 17) The concept of intrapreneurship (Pinchot 1985) is, in fact, the most extreme attempt to join management and entrepreneurship in the service of large organizations.Roger Kaplan comments drily For society to work, you need more than robust little capitalists (Kaplan 1987 89). Managers stand for rationality, as Zaleznik rightly pointed out, and they have not disappeared. As late as 1986, Hales asked again what do they do? on his way to clarification and synthesis between managers behaviour and the management function (Hales 1986 112). We shall now look at all three from a symbolic perspective only. In this endeavour, we shall look for help in archetypical personages known from belles lettres. This is, however, an illustratory device, and is compulsory in character.The readers are encouraged to look for other images or metaphor s which bow explicit that which the archetypes project into perceptions of executive roles as designed by both the actors and their audience. Why Are Leaders So Attractive? As we see it, the most appropriate figure representing the leaders role is that of Moses. It embraces, for example, the three leadership archetypes marvelous by Frost and Egri (forthcoming) The Warrior, the Healer and the Magician. A perceptive analysis of Moses political leadership, rendered by Wildavsky (1984), provides a good example of what is expected of a leader.It took Moses 40 years to take the Jews to their land, although 40 days would have been enough, but he had everything 538 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff that a leader should have a visioti, a will to lead, atid a cotitact with God. We do not intend to follow Wildavskys intricate reasoning. For present purposes, it suffices to notice that Moses represents the epitome of male and paternalistic leadership (a breast feeding father, Wildavsky calls him, although his nursing methods were rather cruel). His fate also indicates the primarily symbolic role of the leader he never reached the Promised Land, he was not needed there.The problem with Moseses is, that they have a tendency to sacrifice people in the name of obscure outer sources of legitimacy. Additionally, common sense and good organization is not their speciality. Moseses are good in crises, but otherwise they are not the most efficient. In everyday life one contacts a manager of a trip up agency to go to Israel. Does it mean that leaders are not responsible for what happens, because they do not actually cause it? Edelman answers this question in the avocation way They do identify themselves with particular courses of action and inaction and so deserve responsibility for them.But the assumption that leaders have caused the events for which they take responsibility is reductionist because it ignores the consequences of historical developments, material conditio ns, and interpretations of those conditions. Except as minor elements of a complex transaction, leaders cannot provide security or bring about change. (1988 65) An opposite type of leadership also-ran is the refusal to perform according to a script expected in given conditions. Maybe it is actually the other side of the same coin, that is, an erroneous belief on the part of the leader that he or she is truly a causative factor.What is then perceived as successful leadership, if it is not the act of bringing about a change? It is a dramatic performance which make fulls the expectations of both audience and co-actors, while retaining contradictions in the service of dramatic effect, but limiting negative and forbidding aspects to a necessary minimum and, to a higher place all, a skilful use of stage set and a talented improvization, tuned to prevailing moods (see also Westley and Mintzberg 1989). These are very demanding skills additionally, high visibility and high costs connect ed to adversity contribute to the market value of this role.Last but not least, high net income and high perks prove, in themselves, that the leader is who he is supposed to be the person who controls fate. The successful performance confirms the accuracy of the attribution. Why Are Managers Least wish? Like the leader, the manager has also a symbolic function to fulfil that of introducing and keeping order, opposing entropy. But unlike the leader, he is not given the splendour of a Moses-like performance. He is a Miser, or worse still, a Scrooge, without imagination, with his mistaken common sense and care for silver and things.Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 539 There are probably many unreal biographies representing the archetype of a manager. We took the Miser for his obvious similarity to an accountant. Misers are open(a)ly fishy characters, and we gladly laugh at them, as much as we need them. In the course of organizational life, however, this laughter beco mes often bitter. Misers have a strong tendency to treat people as things. Could anything be more cruel than this rigorous economy he inflicts on us, this unnatural tightfistedness under which we perforce languish? The Miser, Act One) This is Cleante speaking to Elise, but wouldnt we like to join him and La Fleche (A plague on all misers and their fuddled ways ) whenever we have spoken to our money-controllers? If the great leaders sometimes do a great deal of good by being othewise occupied (speaking to some god or other on some far mountain), managers sit at home, and manage Let us have you all in here. I want to give you instructions for this evening see that everybody has his theorize. Come here. Dame Claude, well start with you (. . . ) Your job is to clean up all round, and do be careful not to rub furniture too hard.Im afraid of your wearing it out. Then, Im putting you in charge of the bottles during the supper. If theres a single one missing or if anything is broken I shall hold you responsible and take it out of your wages. (Harpagon, The Miser, Act Three) A manager would, of course, find out the shortest way between Egypt and Israel and the cheapest means of transportation, and where would we be with our legend? Boland and OLearys (1988) amusing and insightful analysis of images of explanation in advertising illustrates this point very well.The advertisement artists attempted to project an image of a creative controller supported by clever machines but the laughable picture of a man with sleevelets and glasses always crept in. The enemy of creativity and change, the Miser nevertheless symbolizes order, the value which is just as indispensable to organization as control over the fate which Moses promised to his people. At any rate, manager is the one with the truly economic mind, ridiculous as it might seem to all who care about higher(prenominal) things. Why Are Entrepreneurs Admired and Feared? Who are entrepreneurs in terms of their dramat ic performance?It is difficult to say as, unlike leaders and managers, who are express to the political and/or organizational stage, entrepreneurs represent an everymans dream of the successful life. They are Columbuses, treasure-hunters and Horatio Algers heroes all in one. Their task is to create new worlds, often with a mainly pecuniary interest in the background. In a sense, their play is most often a tragedy, while leaders come from a drama and managers from a comedy. They might become Macbeths if things go wrong, but also inventors like Faust, who wanted to be immortal and succeeded indeed, it depends on very individual moral judgement as to 40 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff whether we see Faust as a failure or as a total success. When successful, entrepreneurs acquire God-like (or Satan-like) properties in eyes of the rest of the people those who can create worlds are to be both worshipped and feared. In the beginning was meaning In the beginning was power In the beginning was action (Faust) How can one translate Fausts dreams into modern economic terms? One possibility is some version of the American Dream, joining the archetype of the adventurer and the entrepreneur. Take, for example, the story of Uncle Jake.In 1929, Uncle Jake left his family home and the horse-breeding farm inherited from his father in Connecticut for Alaska. His mother and friends stayed behind that is, those friends who did not commit suicide after the Great clinical depression. The crash did not, however, influence Uncle Jake, neither economically nor psychologically his optimism seemed enhanced by the dramas about him. This is how sewer Hawkes epos Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade (1942) starts. It builds up a character similar to Ragged Dick and other Horatio Alger stories, but makes it clear that the economic success is only a means and not the end in itself, as in Faust.Ragged Dick, for example, was a self-make man, the intrepid capitalist, a person who became rich and made others happier by gambling on a new product or innovation. But Uncle Jake never got really rich. He stands for freedom, creativity and dream-building. The materialistic character of the dream has to do with another aspect of the American Dream success as measured by money (which in old Europe was usually measured by pohtical influence). The social costs Jake created by going to Alaska were enormous.He barely noticed his wifes death his little girl became a prostitute (there were not many ways for symbolizing womens failure in life in those days) until the day when she managed to free herself from his influence and could reflect on her father He was an artist of adventurous life. The exclusivity of the adventure was more important to him than the treasures he constantly promised to me and my mother. In the eyes of the daughter Jake was not an entrepreneur at all. He was only speaking as such. We are reminded of Iacocca again has he created a world or did he on ly speak as if?In a radical thought of Goodman (1978), this difference is immaterial. Until somebody comes with a better story, Iacocca will remain the author of Chryslers success in the eyes of the public. In his incisive analysis of the case of El-Sayed (the condition chairman of a Swedish company who, after a dazzle success, ended up in prison), Kets de Vries observes All entrepreneurs need dreams, but in dreaming they are not always effective in distinguishing fact from fancy (1990a 683). When they succeed, this very trait is seen as a source of their success. Leaders On and Off the Organizationai Stage 541When they fail, they fail for the same reason. The line between a dream and a distortion of reality is a tentative one. But all of them, Fausts and bathroom and Dicks, have one thing in common they leave behind a trail of broken hearts, crushed realities and, in general, extremely heavy costs (they are no Misers ) In order to better contrast entrepreneurs with managers we c an take another real-life but mythologized example, that of Columbus. As 1992 comes close and both Seville and Genoa are preparing for great celebrations, it becomes clear that Columbus discovered America due to his ignorance and mythomaniac tendencies.An Italian physician with a passion for geography told him, on the basis of several wrong estimations, that it is feasible to reach India by going there on an Eastern route. It has been said, by Columbus apologets, that he discovered America whereas other, better educated entrepreneurs did not. Actually, they did not because they were managers in the positive sense of the word. Apparently, the Portuguese navigators knew very well that such a continent existed, had all the estimations correct, and planned the stripping of America as a next project after having reached India via the Hesperian route.Whereas most of the Columbus biographers ridicule mental rigidity and lack of scholarship on the part of the managers from the Portugues e School of Navigation, the more mundane interpretation would have it that they did not go to India via America because they knew it was impossible. As an administrator of the new land, Columbus and his two brothers gave an incredible show of incompetence and cruelty, to the extent that Ferdinand and Isabella were pressure to call them back and appoint a new administrator.Such is then the story of Columbus a real entrepreneur, as opposed to Columbus as a mythical personage (Mendelssohn 1976), but in both versions one thing is clear entrepreneurs tend to trample over old worlds in their attempts to create new. Why should they be so hailed and respected, then? Because they also bring change, building new realities on the ruins of the old. Personages and Processes As we have attempted to show, it is an illusion that one role conquers the remaining two.We could go further and further back and, most likely, find the same (as Croziers example of Saint-Simon already indicates) theoretici ans quarrelling about which role is the best, and practitioners playing all three. The fashion of the day elevates one role above the other and then abandons it again. Now we need order, next we need change, and then we need to control our fate. What shapes the fashion, then? Reading the organization theory debate as it has evolved over the last 70 years, one acquires an impression that a demand for leaders, managers or 542 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Woiff ntrepreneurs is dictated by organizations themselves straight to the researchers ears. Then, in an intellectual discourse about the functioning of organizations, the researchers establish which properties the executives should have. They inform the practitioners about what is desired and the practitioners try to follow norms as well as they can. The next wave of research results and theories brings new developments to light, the theory is perfected and the practice follows suit. Such an selfish representation can be susta ined only as a result of firm isolation from the political, social and economic context of organizing.Indeed, with few and unsystematic exceptions, organizational literature neglects what is happening in the world around organizations. well-nightimes a simple agent called market comes into the picture, but even then just as a part of environment which is, indeed, more and more what organizations managed to enact around themselves. Organizations, the open systems, are for ever immortalized in a unlikeable system of an artificially created frame of reference. We would like to point out that organizations act in historically shaped economic and political circumstances.If we bring these into the picture, the leadership debate can be portrayed, for example, as follows Figure 1 mid-twenties 1929 1930s 1939-1945 1940s 1950s An Historical Speculation Entrepreneurs Depression (economic crisis) Leaders WAR (poiiticai crisis) Managers Entrepreneurs (economic hope) 1960s 1968 1970s 1973-1975 1980s 1990s Leaders (poiiticai crisis) Managers (economic crisis? ) Leaders Entrepreneurs? The 1920s seemed to herald a recovery from the economic disaster of the inaugural World War and the entrepreneurs were called for to create prosperity with their innovative thinking. The Great Depression brought an abrupt end to this dream.Frightened and in despair, people called for leaders. And leaders they got Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill, Roosevelt. We shall not pluck into what many historians, on many occasions, have analyzed with delight was it chance, a historically determined development, or all of those. We assume that people try to attribute meaning both to random events and to planned action. It is this factor that stands for the perseverance in the process, and not mechanically connected chains of causes and effects. The war made people wary of leaders and gave rise to operational research in the U. S. A.Managers were also welcome in Europe where a big job of restructur ing the post-war economies was started. It became possible to think in terms of economic challenge, not only in terms of economic necessity. Entrepreneurs acquired room to play. Slowly, the Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 543 prosperity became feasible and leaders were needed again, to push forward and expand their successes. The imperialist ambitions and the failure of new, democratic leaders brought the political unrest of the Sixties. Throughout the rational 1970s, managers were in vogue, to introduce some order and rationality into the world.The oil crisis, however, left in its wake the realization of a possible world-wide economic crisis. People turned to leaders again. As the crisisfeeling dissolved, however, the leaders were somewhat diminished in importance. It was Gorbachov, at least so long as he behaved as a political entrepreneur, who collected the popularity laurels. This is, of course, only one of several possible stories. We do not claim the monopoly on th e one and only true story rather, we would like to see more historical organizational research that traces down social, and not quasi-biological (as in population ecology) developments.Additionally, such stories would have to pay increased attention to the rhetorics that are used in telling them (McCloskey 1986). In this paper, for example, we have used what is considered to be a chauvinist language we have spoken of executives as if they were men. This was done on purpose the dramatical metaphors gave us an additional insight into a matter that is neat fashionable now, namely, why are there so few women leaders? Simply, the roles are not the female roles.There are, of course, some convincing performances, especially by female Moseses, such as Ghandi or Thatcher, but nevertheless their performance is reminiscent of Shakespearean times when men performed all female roles resplendent but artificial. Archetypical female roles are hard to fit into modern organizations neither Dame au x Camellias nor Mother Svea have good chances, at least not in executive roles. In this respect, the organizational theatre has a very traditional repertoire. Researchers As Theatre Critics The question that concludes our paper and, hopefully, starts a discussion is What should or can researchers do?Shall we contribute to the debate as participants? Shall we attempt to unmask and deconstruct it? Shall we write new scripts or ironize the old ones? Holding to our theatre metaphor, we see our choice as analogous to that set about the theatre critics. We can opt for what we ourselves like best, or prompt the directors to keep the public content, or to keep the public on its toes. Over time, however, we should be able to arrive at a more systematic reflection on the organizational theatre. It would be illuminating to be able to follow the process of ppointing and dismantling the favourites in the social consciousness to see when and how people reach to the repertoire of archetypes to exchange the last one for another. This means by-line not only historical developments, but also the shaping of fashions, the development of organizational and occupational cultures, the ups and downs of professionalization, and other social pro- 544 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Roif Wolff cesses of sense-making. The leadership debate can thus be seen as a transformation of symbols which both follows and announces other kinds of transformation.Organization research can then evaluate contemporary performances and try to build a theory of organizational theatre in a historical perspective. Note * The first version of this paper was presented at the 4th multinational SCOS Conferenee on Organizational Symbolism and Corporate Culture, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, June 28-30, 1989. We would like to acknowledge facilitatory comments from Peter J. Frost, Gareth Morgan and Susan Schneider in preparing the present version. 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