Abstract:

This paper presents conducted research „Influence of Applied Drama Methods on the Moral Competence of Mid-Managers” and argues, that Applied Drama Methods [ADM] are reliable in the context of social sciences.
Strengthening mid-managers‘ moral competence is important due to socioeconomic, geopolitical and global challenges in all types of organizations. The tensions caused by globalization (i.e. increasing diversity of nationalities, age, cultural and social experiences in organizations) affect communication (Cannon, 2008) and call for new powerful methods for strengthening the moral competence of mid-managers‘. ADM is efficient, because it engages spatial and kinetic intelligences in addition to linguistic (Gardner, 2011).
The paradigm of this research is pragmatism. Two approaches were used to assess the moral competence change of mid-managers, i. e. quantitative research (Lind, 2008) and arts-based research [ABR] (Leavy, 2015; 2018).
Extensive empirical research includes measuring change of moral competence of mid-managers using a quantitative change measurement tool (Lind, 2008). The Forum Theatre method was used as intervention. This is a pre-experimental mixed design research, which does not have a control group. The instrument for quantitative assessment and control of the effectiveness of the experiment is Moral Competence Test [MCT] (Lind, 2008), which shows the change in attitudes. Before the ADM intervention, a pretest determines the initial position of the subject; after the ADM intervention, a final posttest evaluates the impact of the intervention.
The Forum Theatre (Boal, 1993) method represents ADM in an arts-based research approach (Frayling, 1992; Leavy, 2015) and was performed by professional actors. ABR aims to satisfy the desire of artists and researchers to thoroughly understand the situation and its context, f.i. the impact of ADM on mid-managers moral competence. For this was choosing one of the ABR data collection methods – Forum theatre creation and evaluating its impact based on the actors' perspective. The research also contains results of analysed interviews with professional actors. The purpose of the conducted interviews is to assess how professional actors see their influence on the audience of mid-managers.

The conclusions of the research show following:
- MCT is a standardised tool; it captures the estimate of moral competence without taking into consideration the context and in its current form cannot measure accurately the change of mid-managers moral competence;
- Forum theatre as one if ADM is a tool of critical pedagogy that helps people think critically, historically, and sociologically. Forum theatre is an example of performance pedagogy, which develops sociological imagination;
- Forum theatre method provides maximally personalised access, invites mid-managers to reflect on their behavior and rethink their motives;
- the effectiveness of Forum Theatre is based on its an exceptional opportunity to assess the importance of context in moral decisions‘ making. This aspect is important for strengthening the moral competence of the mid-managers.
This interdisciplinary research represents the case of performative social science (Leavy, 2015; Saldaña,1999). Thus bridges the gap between science and art.

Keywords:

Performance pedagogy, applied drama methods, arts-based research, interdisciplinary, sociological imagination, social sciences.