Monday,October 25 from 12pm – 1pm Eastern.

Welcome to IHMA’s Humanistic Management PhD Network. We support PhDs with mentoring, social support and research opportunities. We also have possibilities to connect researchers for publication work, and data gathering sites in companies and organizations connected to IHMA.

In our monthly gatherings the Humanistic Management Ph.D. network is featuring the work of selected Ph.D. students in the field to :

1) highlight their research topic

2) ask specific questions regarding their work for feedback

3) share and discuss concerns of members of the group via Zoom

Please join us for our first session of the new academic year on October 25, 2021 as Craig Mourton, a third-year student in Antioch’s PhD in Leadership and Change program presents his work entitled, “The embodiment of resilience by mid-to senior level Higher Education administrative leaders”.

Abstract: My research interests in the last year have become focused on leadership resilience of mid-level to senior level leaders in higher education, with a particular interest in the role of communicative processes (discourse) and temporal aspects of resilience (the length of the crisis).

Fotinatos (2018), focused on the role of mindfulness in managing human resource challenges from the perspective of senior higher education learning and teaching leaders. The concept of how the author delineated her persona, actions, attitudes, and behavior based on whether she was metaphorically front-stage, back-stage or off-stage was impactful to me as a researcher and has led me to the work of Goffman (1959), who used a theatrical metaphor to discuss how individuals present themselves and interact with others. Goffman drew a distinction between front-stage and back-stage. On the front-stage, individuals deliver performances to an audience “The performance of an individual in the front region may be seen as an effort to give the appearance that his activity in the region maintains and embodies certain standards” (p. 107). The back-stage in contrast allows suppressed facts to make an appearance. Goffman stated that “A back-stage may be defined as a place, relative to a given performance, where the impression fostered by the performance is knowingly contradicted as a matter of course…here the performer can relax, he can drop his front, forgo speaking his lines, and step out of character” Goffman goes on to state that “One of the most interesting times to observe…is the moment when a performer…returns (from the front-stage region), for at these moments we can detect a wonderful putting on and taking off of character” (pp. 112-128).

Although Goffman did not specifically address the off-stage in his work, Fotinatos discussed how she viewed the off-stage as being away from the work environment and as an opportunity to reflect on “situational leadership quadrants and provide either direction, support, coaching or delegation as appropriate” (p. 183). Goffman extended the theatrical model to include four specific types of communication out of character: Treatment of the Absent; Staging Talk; Team Collusion; and Realigning Action.

My dissertation research will focus on exploring how the Goffman theatrical metaphor and the four types of communication out of character relate to the embodiment of resilience by mid to senior level leaders in Higher Education, with a particular focus on leaders from marginalized backgrounds and how the social identity theory of leadership (Hogg, 2001) can possibly extend to the embodiment of resilience by those that are othered.

Hosted by: David Wasieleski, Erica Steckler, Michael Pirson, and PJ Dillon.

All interested students and scholars are welcome!

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The HM PhD Network is sponsored by the Albert P. Viragh Institute for Ethics in Business at Duquesne University.

This monthly gathering is hosted by the International Humanistic Management Association in collaboration with the Academy of Management MSR Interest Group and Social Issues in Management (SIM) Division.