Finding the sweet spot between art and business in analogically mediated inquiry

Stefan Meisiek and Daved Barry

Journal of Business Research, 2018, vol. 85, issue C, 476-483

Abstract: In a longitudinal study, we followed 19 companies that invited artists to help their employees become more innovative. The purpose of the projects was to see if working artistically with a variety of media around organizational concerns could help employees question their habitual ways of seeing, knowing, and acting—i.e., their work epistemes. Following an artist's lead, employees created and interpreted colorful artifacts that functioned as analogs to their workplace and practices. The outcomes varied greatly. In some cases, the analogous artifacts became rich signifiers for collective sensemaking. In other cases, employees were lost in reflection. Comparing the cases, we found that there are “sweet spots” where stakeholders maintained a meaningful and dynamic balance between working artistically and business concerns. With the “sweet spot” concept, our study contributes to the literature on the role of arts-based methods for collective sensemaking, as well as the literature on epistemic objects in organizing.

Keywords: Sensemaking; Innovation; Epistemic objects; Arts-based methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014829631730406X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:85:y:2018:i:c:p:476-483

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2017.10.026

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().