‘And if I don’t want to work like an artist...?’ How the study of artistic resistance enriches organizational studies

An increasing number of artists, from theatre makers to painters, critique recent aesthetic developments in organizational life.* One of their topics is the relation between work and freedom, as employees, like artists, are required to bring fully into work their subjectivity and emotional motivation. This paper presents several contemporary examples and a case of the theatre maker Ren� Pollesch whose plays show the dark side of these role models, leaving the audience to draw its own, bitter conclusions. It is proposed in this paper that organizational studies should consider these forms of ?artistic resistance? more systematically. Artistic resistance goes beyond extant critical intellectual approaches to organization studies: Its presentational form provides an aesthetic experience, and conveys both embodied and tacit forms of knowing in fuller, richer and stimulating ways. The paper discusses implications for organizational theory building (for example with regard to work models and the use of arts for organizational development), and research methods (scholarly applications of arts-based methods for the generation and presentation of research findings)

'I'm as much an anarchist in theory as I am in practice': Fernando Pessoa's 'Anarchist banker' in a management education context

The performance of Fernando Pessoa?s novel The Anarchist Banker serves as an example for critical management education and allows for further insights into how anarchist theories may be reflected upon and practiced in a business school context. We explore elements of an ?anarchist aesthetics? that are created through dramaturgy, narration, and collective production and reception. The Anarchist Banker fits well with arts-based education in business schools and efforts to learn lessons for leadership through the use of drama. The literary source encourages to rethink salient issues in today?s global and finance-dominated capitalism and offers opportunities to search for alternative forms of organizing society and the economy by questioning charismatic leadership and managerial rhetoric in favor of collective reasoning. Elements of an anarchist aesthetic include the deconstruction of the hero and authoritarian discourse, dialogue and polyphony, collectivity and obstructionism that are at play artistically and socially, integrating anarchist theory and practice in content and form. The topic links to new forms of resistance, with critical artists opposing the business world and academics attempting to play out the ?banker? versus the ?anarchist?

Improvisational Theatre in Management Education: Exploring arts-based approaches to enhance student learning

For enabling a creative and interactive learning-experience, MBA students in the School of Management and Business, Aberystwyth University have been involved in a teaching project based on improvisational theatre. This is a response to calls for active student involvement in teaching situations in order to vary and enhance their learning experience. The use of arts-based approaches in particular has been adopted in management education because there are overlaps between artistic, theatrical skills and generic management skills which involve improvisation, spontaneous action, the creative use of available resources and the ability to listen to others. This paper describes how the improvisational theatre exercise contributes to these skills and evaluates how it helped students to better understand theoretical concepts by providing them with the opportunity to elaborate creatively on different aspects of theory. Details of the exercise are provided in the paper. Difficulties in preparing and conducting the action are outlined and general implications for professional practice are addressed

Art, Fashion, and Anti-consumption

Contemporary artists deal with many forms of social interaction, including consumption. In this commentary, I walk the fine line between art and fashion, distant sisters in history. Referring to fashion projects presented at dOCUMENTA(13), I show that art?s aesthetic language may speak against fashion?s ultimate commercial meaning. The aesthetic perspective is important because reasons against consumption are not merely intellectual. They include many emotional and symbolic forms of knowing, in this case about self-degrading styling concepts that are possible only through unsustainable production by global fast fashion retailers such as H&M, Zara, and Forever 21 and other cheap fashion brands. Referring to art critics? assessments and aesthetic theory, I interpret my observations through theories of anti-consumption. Included is a review of Elizabeth Cline?s critical book Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion that reveals some of the motifs of the fast fashion industry resonating in contemporary artworks and investigates opportunities to reject, resist, and reclaim fashion

Ästhetik und Inszenierung in der Unternehmenskommunikation

Für die Umsetzung strategischer Unternehmenskommunikation sind Konzepte der Inszenierung und Ästhetik hoch relevant. Ästhetik wird hier nicht als Schönheit definiert, sondern als sinnliche Wahrnehmung, die verschiedenste Formen von stillschweigendem Wissen entstehen lässt. Das ist wichtig für immaterielle Wertschöpfung, wenn Vertrauen und Reputation aufgebaut werden sollen, die nicht nur rational begründet sind. Das Konzept der Inszenierung bedeutet hier die Gestaltung, Auswahl und Einsatz von sinnlich wahrnehmbaren Kommunikationsbausteinen. Dies wird an folgenden Beispielen erörtert: Die Inszenierung von Events einschließlich Hauptversammlungen, Architektur von Unternehmen, Managerporträts, Firmenhymnen und Kunstsammlungen. Abschließend wird darauf eingegangen, dass ästhetische Kommunikation in einer globalisierten Wirtschaftswelt nicht nur von Unternehmen verwendet wird, sondern auch von Unternehmenskritikern und Stakeholdern

Using artistic form for aesthetic organizational inquiry:Rimini Protokoll constructs Daimler's Annual General Meeting as a theatre play

This paper reviews and analyses an artistic intervention in the context of aesthetic organizational inquiry and theatre in organizations. Having served as inspiration and as a tool within organizations, theatre now has returned the favour: Rimini Protokoll, a group of directors, used Daimler's 2009 Annual General Meeting in Berlin as a ready-made and constructed it as a theatre play entitled Hauptversammlung. Two hundred theatre spectators were channelled into the event via the purchase of shares. This study focuses on the aesthetic experience of the event and underlines the potential of artistic forms for aesthetic organizational inquiry. Implications suggest that a so-called postdramatic, nonlinear aesthetic form can be most promising for enabling critical interpretations of organizational issues