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Clown Scouting And Casting At The Cirque Du Soleil: Designing Boundary Practices For Talent Development And Knowledge Creation

Author

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  • THIERRY GATEAU

    (Department of Management, HEC Montréal, Local 5.249, 3000, Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (Québec) Canada H3T 2A7, Canada)

  • LAURENT SIMON

    (#x2020;Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, HEC Montréal, Local 5.249, 3000, Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (Québec) Canada H3T 2A7, Canada)

Abstract

A significant part of management in creative organisations is the discovery, development, and engagement of the creative talents. These activities require practices at the intersection of talent management, knowledge management and HR management. In this paper, we observed a bootcamp held at Cirque du Soleil in order to experiment with new casting and training practices for a scarce and specific occupational creative community: clowns. Our study shows that this bootcamp provides context at the borders of distinct practices: recruitment, training, and exploration. This intermediary zone allows the emergence of a boundary practice: the co-construction of what actors of the organisation and members of the communities do, make and learn to connect, create and understand new meaning of their shared reality in performance and exploration. This concept contributes to an improved understanding of the management of scarce talents in knowledge-and-creativity intensive fields, as hi-tech industries, software development, engineering, or creative industries.

Suggested Citation

  • Thierry Gateau & Laurent Simon, 2016. "Clown Scouting And Casting At The Cirque Du Soleil: Designing Boundary Practices For Talent Development And Knowledge Creation," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(04), pages 1-31, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:ijimxx:v:20:y:2016:i:04:n:s1363919616400065
    DOI: 10.1142/S1363919616400065
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Siw M. Fosstenløkken, 2019. "The Role Of Plans In The Formation Of A New Innovation Practice: An Innovation Object Perspective," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(04), pages 1-23, May.

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