Arts-Based Management Practices and Organizational Aesthetics

Arts-based management practices and organizational aesthetics represent an interdisciplinary field that examines how creative methods and aesthetic sensibilities influence managerial decision-making, workplace culture and strategic development. At its core, this domain explores the infusion of artistic protocols—such as visual arts interventions, performative exercises and reflective practices—into routine management processes to foster innovation, employee engagement and adaptive capacity. Organizational aesthetics considers the sensory and symbolic dimensions of work environments, including spatial design, sensory cues and narrative framing, as critical levers for meaning-making, identity formation and stakeholder alignment. Together, these approaches signal a shift from purely rational, efficiency-driven management towards a more holistic paradigm that values emotional intelligence, tacit knowledge and embodied experience. Practitioners deploy arts-inspired tools such as storytelling, immersive workshops and participatory design to surface latent organisational dynamics, surface power relations and chart new pathways for collective learning and transformation. The global resonance of this field is evident in diverse contexts—from high-tech start-ups seeking fresh innovation catalysts to established cultural institutions reimagining their public purpose—underscoring its utility in navigating volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. By foregrounding creativity and aesthetic awareness, arts-based management fosters resilient, human-centred organisations capable of responding to societal challenges with both analytical rigour and imaginative depth.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Arts-Based Management Practices and Organizational Aesthetics publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in arts-based management practices and organizational aesthetics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Arts-Based Management: The intentional application of artistic methods and creative processes within managerial contexts to stimulate innovation, reflection and organisational learning.

Organizational Aesthetics: The study and design of sensory, symbolic and experiential elements in organisational life, including space, narrative and material artefacts, as drivers of meaning and engagement.

Art Thinking: An open-ended, exploratory approach to problem framing that emphasises radical possibility, playful experimentation and the creation of entirely new conceptual spaces rather than incremental improvement.

Design Thinking: A structured methodology for innovation that centres on deep user empathy, iterative prototyping and multidisciplinary collaboration to solve defined challenges.

Gambiarra: A Brazilian term denoting improvised technical solutions that creatively reconcile resource limitations and time pressures, often generating unorthodox but effective outcomes.

References

1. Arts-Based Management between Actions and Conjunctions: Lessons from a Systematic Bibliometric Analysis. Administrative Sciences (2023).
2. A beautiful strategy – bridging the gap between the (aesthetic) perception and (strategic) realization of the organizations purpose. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems (2022).
3. Gambiarra as an Emergent Approach in the Entanglement of the Organizational Aesthetic and Technical Controversies: The Samba School Parade Case. BAR - Brazilian Administration Review (2020).