Innovation, creativity, and imagination: Drama, theatre, performance in Taiwanese corporate training

Since 2004, there has been a Taiwanese trend of applying drama, theatre, and performance to corporate training, and this trend has yet to be thoroughly explored in scholarship. This research focuses on the investigation of this new phenomenon in the organizational and cultural levels. It analyzes the organic interplay among one characteristic of Taiwanese corporate culture (innovation), one feature of Laozi’s Taoism (creativity), and one principle of performance (imagination). As a practitioner-researcher, the author suggests that the purpose of applying drama, theatre, and performance in corporate training is not to enhance acting skills, physical techniques, or technical competences, but to explore organizational dynamics through embodiment and to enrich management-related knowledge such as innovation and creativity. The author provides thick description and participant observation. The author interprets Taoism tradition in Taiwanese corporate culture, reviews the Western scholarship in theatre and performance studies (particularly performative pedagogy). In addition, the author reports and analyzes the Taiwanese practices. In conclusion, the author provides two future research directions and hopes this article can encourage cross-cultural research and facilitate better communication between academic and business contexts.