Abstrakt
Purpose: The ability to act in a purposeful and effective way amid institutional tensions and paradoxes is, right now, a highly prized quality in public leadership. The purpose of this chapter is to qualify moderately brave acts as a learning format that combines the analytical and performative skills implied in this kind of agency.
Design/methodology/approach: The chapter explores the engagement with paradoxes as a narrative praxis. From existing literature, it sums up an understanding of agency as a social process of mediating paradoxes in order to make action possible. Drawing on Northrop Frye’s theory of modes, the chapter explains this praxis as a narrative endeavour balancing the dynamics of tragedy (disintegration) and comedy (integration). Moderately brave acts are formed as a kind of low-mimetic synthesis – very much akin to comedy and realistic fiction. The narrative dynamics of low-mimetic synthesis are pursued in the case story of Christian, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) student from Copenhagen.
Findings: Moderately brave acts appear as a learning format that can inspire a less idealised, but not entirely ironic approach to the paradoxes of management. In this way, they can foster a nuanced and pragmatic agency that combines analytical reflexivity with the ability to take practical action in problematic situations.
Practical implication: The chapter may inspire teachers to use narrative techniques to allow students to deal with real problems of daily praxis in a way that embraces the tension between idealisation and deconstructive irony.
Design/methodology/approach: The chapter explores the engagement with paradoxes as a narrative praxis. From existing literature, it sums up an understanding of agency as a social process of mediating paradoxes in order to make action possible. Drawing on Northrop Frye’s theory of modes, the chapter explains this praxis as a narrative endeavour balancing the dynamics of tragedy (disintegration) and comedy (integration). Moderately brave acts are formed as a kind of low-mimetic synthesis – very much akin to comedy and realistic fiction. The narrative dynamics of low-mimetic synthesis are pursued in the case story of Christian, a Master of Public Administration (MPA) student from Copenhagen.
Findings: Moderately brave acts appear as a learning format that can inspire a less idealised, but not entirely ironic approach to the paradoxes of management. In this way, they can foster a nuanced and pragmatic agency that combines analytical reflexivity with the ability to take practical action in problematic situations.
Practical implication: The chapter may inspire teachers to use narrative techniques to allow students to deal with real problems of daily praxis in a way that embraces the tension between idealisation and deconstructive irony.
Originalsprog | Engelsk |
---|---|
Titel | Developing Public Managers for a Changing World |
Redaktører | Klaus Majgaard, Jens Carl Ry Nielsen, John W. Raine, Bríd Quinn |
Antal sider | 25 |
Vol/bind | 5 |
Udgivelsessted | Bingley |
Forlag | Emerald Group Publishing |
Publikationsdato | 2016 |
Sider | 205-229 |
ISBN (Trykt) | 9781786350800 |
ISBN (Elektronisk) | 9781786350794 |
DOI | |
Status | Udgivet - 2016 |
Navn | Critical Perspectives on International Public Sector Management |
---|---|
Vol/bind | 5 |
ISSN | 2045-7944 |
Emneord
- Public management
- Paradox
- Narrative
- Agency
- Experiments
- Management development