Death and organization: Heidegger’s thought on death and life in organizations

Mortality has not been given the attention it deserves within organization studies. Even when it has been considered, it is not usually in terms of its implications for own lives and ethical choices. In particular, Heidegger’s writing on death has been almost entirely ignored both in writing on death and writing on organizational ethics, despite his insights into how our mortality and the ethics of existence are linked. In this paper, we seek to address this omission by arguing that a consideration of death may yield important insights about the ethics of organizational life. Most important of these is that a Heideggerian approach to death brings us up against fundamental ethical questions such as what our lives are for, how they should be lived and how we relate to others. Heideggerarian thought also reconnects ethics and politics, as it is closely concerned with how we can collectively make institutions that support our life projects rather than thwart or diminish them

Absorbing customer knowledge: how customer involvement enables service design success

Customers are a knowledge resource outside of the firm that can be utilized for new service success by involving them in the design process. However, existing research on the impact of customer involvement (CI) is inconclusive. Knowledge about customers’ needs and on how best to serve these needs (articulated in the service concept) is best obtained from customers themselves. However, codesign runs the risk of losing control of the service concept. This research argues that of the processes of external knowledge, acquisition (via CI), customer knowledge assimilation, and concept transformation form a capability that enables the firm to exploit customer knowledge in the form of a successful new service. Data from a survey of 126 new service projects show that the impact of CI on new service success is fully mediated by customer knowledge assimilation (the deep understanding of customers’ latent needs) and concept transformation (the modification of the service concept due to customer insights). However, its impact is more nuanced. CI exhibits an “∩”-shaped relationship with transformation, indicating there is a limit to the beneficial effect of CI. Its relationship with assimilation is “U” shaped, suggesting a problem with cognitive inertia where initial learnings are ignored. Customer knowledge assimilation directly impacts success, while concept transformation only helps success in the presence of resource slack. An evolving new service design is only beneficial if the firm has the flexibility to adapt to change

A designer on designing ::a conversation with Johannes Torpe

Organizational research has explored how design thinking can fulfill the human needs of customers or users, but it has largely overlooked how it is shaped by the designer’s subjective experiences. In an attempt to stimulate greater scholarly interest in exploring the designer behind the process of design thinking, we integrate materials from three interviews conducted with the renowned designer Johannes Torpe. Throughout the interviews, Johannes stresses the interpersonal aspects of his work, especially how he interacts with customers and how he fosters (and also controls) the creativity of the other designers that he employs in his studio. As our conversation unfolds, Johannes responds to our questions as an evolving creative person, a celebrated designer, a manager of a creative collective of designers, a top designer employed by a large corporation, and a business owner of a celebrated Danish design studio

How highly creative people shape their creative identity

Using a qualitative-exploratory study that spans over several years, we explain how highly creative chefs engage in aesthetic composing, which we define as the deliberate transforming of felt aesthetic stimuli in due consideration of advancing a creative identity. We induce how world-renowned Michelin starred chefs receive inspiration from aesthetic stimuli through their aesthetic sensibility and using their aesthetic knowing give meaning to these aesthetic stimuli. Our findings suggest that the phase of aesthetic sensibility initiates the phase of aesthetic composing that, in turn, can communicate back to the chef’s aesthetic sensibility. During aesthetic composing, chefs consider three reflection points: aesthetic emotion, aesthetic simplicity, and aesthetic harmony. These reflection points seem to be a salient ‘tool’ that is representative of the ability to shape a creative identity. By theorizing the aesthetic as an important dimension of creative work, we contribute to scholarly and practitioner knowledge around how creative identities are shaped