Artistic Interventions in Organizations

Ulla Johansson Sköldberg is Professor Emeritus from Gothenburg University, Sweden.Jill Woodilla is Honorary Visiting Professor, School of Business, Economics and Law, and Affiliated Researcher, Business & Design Lab, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.Ariane Berthoin Antal is Senior Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany and Distinguished Research Professor at Audencia Nantes School of Management, France.

'This is a delightful and important book, dedicated to how artistic and creative interventions can – evolutionarily or revolutionarily – influence organizing. A book for all times, but perhaps particularly important currently, in an era when imagination and genuine creativity are all but banned from mainstream workplaces. The book shows how vital artistic input can prove to be not just for the enjoyment and satisfaction that work can provide, but for the renewal and survival of organizations. Art helps us deal with the difficult, opens up the mind to new realizations, it makes it possible to learn and to make sense of a complex world. This book shows how and why it should become part of a healthy and sustainable management process in a variety of organizations and contexts, from the point of view of managers, intermediary organizations, employees and artists. It depicts practices, artistic engagements, inventive metaphors, as well as space as catalysts for reflection and organizational illumination, sometimes successful, sometimes not, or not immediately. A must read for everyone who hopes that a human kind of management, after all, has a future, but is unsure of how this future can be reclaimed. This book offers one very strong proposition on how this can be done.' - Monika Kostera, Professor Ordinaria in Management, The Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland and Guest Professor at Bradford University, UK 'Bravo for not saying bravo. The editors have avoided the trap of being cheerleaders and instead embraced the complexity – in terms of theory, practice, and certainly epistemology – of artistic interventions in organizations. In doing so, they provide a much-needed and timely summary, and an excellent place for moving forward in this exciting domain.' - Steven S. Taylor, Associate Professor, Worcester Polytechnic University, USA'Today's leaders increasingly open their organizations to artistic interventions. They're collaborating with artists and using art processes to produce better outcomes. In this book, the world's foremost authors on this subject bring us up to date on this trending activity.' - Robert D. Austin, Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark'Aesthetic experience is always an experience of choice that challenges us, yet this book opens up he discussion and allows us to understand artistic intervention in organizations and how they can be used to make a positive changes and improvement. I strongly recommend it.' - Silvia Gherardi, Professor, University of Trento, Italy

• Part I. Framing the Field 1. Artistic Interventions in Organizations: Introduction 2. Arts-in-Business from 2004 to 2014: From experiments in Practice to Research and Leadership Development Part II. Assessment and Evidence 3. Multistakeholder Perspectives on Searching for Evidence of Values-added in Artistic Interventions in Organizations 4. Assessing the Business Impact of Arts-Based Initiatives Part III. Learning from Success and Failure 5. A Newspaper Changes its Identity Through an Artistic Intervention 6. Fostering Creativity through Artistic Interventions: Two Stories of Failed Attempts to Commodify Creativity 7. Artistic Interventions in Organizations as Détournement and Constructed Situations Part IV. Experiences with Different Art Forms 8. From Aspiration to Evidence: Music, Leadership and Organizational Transformation 9. Choreographic Creative Processes for Innovation 10. Playing the ‘Magic If’: A Theatre Director’s Perspective on Intervening Part V. Responsibility for Making it Happen 11. Managers in Artistic Interventions and their Leadership Approach 12. Mind the Gap! Bridging Strategies for Artistic Interventions in Organizations 13. Organizational Studios: Enabling Innovation Part VI. Reflections 14. From Revolution to Evolution … And Back Again? 15. Postlude