Organizational Aesthetics

Editorial Theatre – A Seat for Everyone

Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This time, the editors engaged themselves in an experimental conversation about collaboration, risks, composting, the Monobloc chair, turbulences, and the future of the journal, which is presented in the form of a play in three acts. The text concludes with a 'summery late’ invitation to readers to become part of the new community and submit contributions to the journal.

An Invitation to Contribute

Ralph Bathurst — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 23:38:18 +0000

Selling Beauty

Steven Taylor — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Although the idea that beauty could or even should play a central role in thinking about organizations has flitted around the edges of organizational thinking for many years, it has gained little traction in mainstream organizational theory. This may be due in part to the analogical mismatch between intellectual theorizing and the aesthetic experience of beauty. "The analysis of beauty is often like the story of the six blind elephants and the man. The first blind elephant encounters a man and says, “Oh, it feels flat.” The second elephant says, “Oh yes, it feels flat to me, too.” And so on for all six elephants as they trample the man. After analytic inquiry into the nature of beauty, there is often little left but a trampled, lifeless corpse that doesn’t seem very beautiful after all." (Taylor, 2013 p. 71) So, instead I engage the topic of beauty in organizations aesthetically, with this play “Selling Beauty”.

Sold on Beauty

Katy Mason — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Kennedy Center 2025

Ralph Bathurst — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 23:55:53 +0000

No abstract

Prelude and Fugue

Douglas Stuart — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 09:44:41 +0000

In this reflective essay, composed in the likeness of a prelude and fugue, I explore how musical form can lend insight into navigating organizational complexity.