BODY AND SENSES IN ORGANIZATIONAL RESEARCH: EMPATHIC UNDERSTANDINGFROM AN EMBODIED EXPERIENCE

ABSTRACT Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the contributions of the method of empathic understanding to the field of Organizational Studies by highlighting the corporeality and sensitivity of the researcher in the production and interpretation of data. Originality/value: Since empathic understanding can be viewed as a method for analyzing the researcher’s experience during fieldwork, this paper situates the role of the researcher’s body as an instrument for the collection of data during their research. The theory of organizational aesthetics is taken as a basis to discuss the relevance of the sensory dimension during the research process. Without giving priority to any particular sense (such as that of sight, for example), the construction of scientific knowledge is therefore discussed in terms of the human senses that respond to diverse stimuli by highlighting the relevance of the processes involved in the production of embodied and sensible knowledge for Organizational Studies. Design/methodology/approach: A theoretical-empirical study of qualitative nature was carried out in a street market of a Brazilian city. The method of empathic understanding directed the entire process of data collection and analysis, in which the limitations of field observations were discussed by expanding the notion of the researcher’s own experience into that of a sensory experience. Findings: The findings suggest that it is possible for the researcher to engage their mind and body during research by experiencing the field and overcoming dichotomies such as cognition/sensitivity. Such an engagement can be viewed as a major contribution of the method of empathic understanding to Organizational Studies. Thus, the notion of the body as a major vehicle for the construction of knowledge is made evident in this paper through both the discussion of the empathic understanding approach and the research carried out.

Studio Practices in Management Education: Creative Adventures in Aesthetic Formativeness

As collaborative artistic inquiries, studios challenge logical–analytical approaches to knowledge. Studio activities entail materializing artifacts to explore a range of management and organization issues. Theoretical references are currently needed to keep pace with the growing interest in studio-informed pedagogy. Inspired by organizational aesthetics, my article engages with Luigi Pareyson’s hermeneutic–aesthetic philosophy of production and theory of formativity for new understandings on the art of “learning-by-making” studio practices. Based in sensory knowing, formativity—conceptualized as aesthetic formativeness—denotes how artistic “making/doing” unfolds through trial and error, socio-material processes involving simultaneous invention and production. Building on previously established analytical distinctions for studying formativeness dynamics in practice, studio experimentations with two distinct MBA cohorts are explored. Excerpts from these studio accounts guide the reader through students’ creative formative adventures. Extensions to the initial conceptual framework are put forward with the aim of contributing more nuanced aesthetic insights on studio-based education. Practical implications and future directions are considered.

Gendering the Boy Scouts: Examining Hegemonic Masculinity at a Co-Ed Backpacking Camp

Masculinity has been studied in various outdoor settings, including the industries of ecotourism, outdoor education, and forestry. However, few studies have examined how physical space contributes to the construction of hegemonic masculinity in organizations associated with nature and the outdoors. This study relies on nine in-depth interviews conducted with outdoor educators and sixteen hours of ethnographic research completed at Mountain View Scout Camp, a backpacking program for youth operated by the Boy Scouts of America. Findings indicate that Mountain View is gendered both through its organizational aesthetics, which valorize a hegemonically masculine ideal, and via sta members’ conception of nature as feminine and forestry work and tools as masculine. Results also suggest that men employed at Mountain View will occasionally embody a hybrid masculine gender performance by utilizing non-hegemonic traits of masculinity such as pro-feminist ideas. However, these episodic masculine performances also serve to subtly reproduce gender inequalities by accepting only a speci c type of woman and rewarding men for super cial allyship.

Tasting the Difference: A Relational-Epistemic Approach to Aesthetic Collaboration in Haute Cuisine

Collaboration during aesthetic production is inherently complex, involving difficult-to-articulate aspects of aesthetic judgement as well as relational questions that are inherently power-laden. Particularly in situations where actors do not share background conditions or judgement criteria, aesthetic collaboration poses conceptual and practical challenges. Through an in-depth case study of a French haute cuisine programme in Shanghai, China, we propose a relational-epistemic approach to aesthetic collaboration, in which aesthetic judgement and relational positioning mutually shape how chef trainees come to understand their creative products. Specifically, aesthetic collaboration was shaped by whether participants understood their mutual relationships as antagonistic or integrative, and whether they considered aesthetics as a matter of objective knowledge, cultural tradition or co-construction. Based on our results, we explore the implications of the relationalepistemic approach in understanding organizational aesthetics, especially in the context of the culture industries and haute cuisine specifically.

Lost in translation? Transferring creativity insights from arts into management

Since the early 2000s the business sector has, as a matter of both professional and academic concern, repeatedly advocated the transfer of artistic practices, especially those deemed exemplary forms of creativity, to a management world grappling with new challenges – a claim we here call the ‘transferability thesis’ in order to consider the responses made to what Boltanski and Chiapello define as an artistic critique of capitalism. Drawing on the wide range of relevant academic literature, this article critically examines the plausibility of the ‘thesis’. To this end, we review analytical literature advocating artistic transfers alongside empirical work that examines art interventions within organizations. Both are important components of a broader organizational aesthetics approach even though, we contend, neither strands of research provide a plausible argument for meaningful transferability. We then draw on arts-based literature, management theory and psychology to compare notions of creativity at both ends of the proposed transferral process. We highlight convergence and variance in art and business thinking, noting fundamental mismatches with regard to utility, rationalization and heteronomy – three levels of incompatibility that make a genuine transplantation of art ideas highly unlikely. Finally, we discuss our critical contribution in relation to the specious status of the ‘thesis’ and the centrality of Boltanski and Chiapello’s triadic model of capitalism to our investigation. By way of a conclusion, we suggest that further research is needed to examine the symbolic nature of appeals to artistic creativity by management.

ORGANIZATIONAL AESTHETICS

In response to the new challenges arising from an increasingly competitive and globalized environment, aimed at the Knowledge Era, where the value of the individual, his knowledge, and best practices become essential, managers with greater sensitivity and flexibility, aligned to entrepreneurial objectives, must be encouraged in the quest for knowledge sharing in order to encounter new opportunities and new processes of innovation. Therefore, the objective of the present research is to apply a strategic model for knowledge sharing in the light of organizational aesthetics and entrepreneurial management, developed by Willerding (2015), in an entrepreneurial organization that promotes knowledge sharing and change generation, opening the discussion on the possible impact of the aesthetic dimension on the ambiguity and subtlety existing in the business routine. To achieve the proposed objective, the study is based on bibliographical and documentary research, and interviews. In general terms, the contribution of the model to the understanding of complexities, ambiguities, and subtleties, existing in the business daily routine, becomes evident, allowing a differentiated perspective in its management so that they can reach new conclusions about their performance, thus promoting a competitive differential and a greater socioeconomic development.

Aesthetics of Retailers: An Evaluation of Self-Service, Full Service, and Web-Retailers

 Organizational aesthetics is a new area of organizational study and relates with a form of human knowledge which a person develops by using his five senses including hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell. This knowledge of a person is associated with developing a perception about an organization, its purpose, main values, etc. Aesthetics shapes emotions, attitudes, and behavior of people. The aim of this research is to evaluate aesthetics of different service level of retailers of convenience products. Such evaluation of aesthetics of retailers based on service level would become the basis of evaluation of how each option generates value for the customers. Such knowledge will be useful for the organizational decision makers and they can use it to select/adjust service level with the desired level of value. In order to achieve the stated aim, a scientific research was carried out by the researchers. The researchers used case study research methods to analyze the dynamics of retail sales level in order to evaluate related aesthetics. The purpose was to evaluate, contrast and compare the aesthetics of different service levels (self-service, assorted-service, and full-service). The data collected during this research project was exclusively carried out for this research project only and was collected during the month of March 2016. Data was collected from different countries including United States of America and Pakistan. The findings of the research uncovered that style of three diverse retail benefit levels change in view of; design of retail outlet, comfort-related with each type of outlet, cleanliness, basic leadership process, impact of sales representatives, self-rule of purchaser in choosing items/administrations, cost of operations to retailer, speed of administration, assortment looking for conduct, music, sound and video in retail condition, capacity to counsel others, chance to feel items, level of instruction, chance to retailer of association and gaining from clients and shopping at claim speed. Retailers should choose their retailing technique (self-benefit retailing, full-benefit retailing and e-retailer) after a watchful investigation of these variables.