Yeah, I suppose you're right Steve--it's possible to gain a footing and
still be side-lined in the end. Action research is a good example. Still,
I'm encouraged by what I'm seeing in the mainstream MOS journals this last
year, esp. AMJ and that special issue on 'rich' research. In several of the
pieces there you can almost substitute 'rich' for 'art' and 'aesthetics'.
Just take a general survey of journal titles this year and compare them to
titles 10 years ago--much more humanist than before. 

And there's a broader move afoot as well, grounded in business itself, that
I think makes this shift if not inevitable, at least more possible than I
once thought. I'm thinking of the rise in the search for meaning at work in
a time where people (especially Americans!) are working all day and night.
Long working hours, rising education and disposable wealth, and increased
competitiveness due to global trade & the internet (with the concomitant
search for new methods) all seem to be really testing the instrumentalist
science-based models (which aim at more efficient pathways to wealth but
don't provide the wherewithal to enjoy that wealth in meaningful or
sophisticated ways). 

With this, I think that the 1st world countries are collectively moving to a
point where being a 'business artist' will have the same appeal as being a
business scientist. For sure I'm seeing that shift in Northern Europe, where
more execs than I can count are looking to form 'cultured' organizations,
and often in very artful ways. Take the Danish Tax Ministry. They've bought
an island in the "Second Life" virtual world (http://secondlife.com/ ),
where they are holding public forums to play around with taxpayer issues.
Participants assume virtual identities, have virtual fights, innovate . . .
it's extremely bizarre. Even stranger, they've managed to sell off parts of
their island at a profit, thus helping pay for the whole venture. This is
the tax service, home of some of the most conservative people in Denmark
(well, used to be). Brave new world. 

To come back full circle to the issue of publishing and so on, Mary Jo asked
what would an artistic, aesthetically sophisticated MOS community look like
(I'm paraphrasing). For one, I think we would see organizational art
projects that can pass muster in the art community. These might come from
MOS academics, but I think that's still a ways off. It will more likely be
professionally trained artists who've become curious about organizations and
economics and who are partnering with MOS people (Rob Austin's and Lee
Devin's collaborations are an example). I sense that you, Steve, are one of
the few who've been trained enough in both the art and science community so
that you can produce works that art professionals AND the MOS communities
value. That might change--if programs like Donatella's at BI continue (and
hers is certainly flourishing), we're likely to see a new generation of
business students who also have professional arts training--some of these
will certainly migrate into the business academy. NUROPE is pushing things
that way as well, along with the sharp rise in the status of Euro journals
like Org Studies and Mgmt. Studies that are gradually taking the 'cultured'
highground. The new journal Aesthesis will hopefully be a pathmaker in this
regard. People like Antonio Strati, Pierre, and David Weir are chipping away
at educating the business schools about art standards--and gradually upping
the bar.

For another, I think we'll see rising recognition in the kind of usefulness
that an arts perspective provides--peripheral vision, meaning, new insight,
reformation. Raghu Garud really struck a 'need for meaning' chord with a lot
of the N. American Academy with his last article, and others like Weick and
even Denny Gioia have also been pushing for this . . . But but but--this
will only be if the works are as elegant and well crafted as their
science-based counterparts (which is devilishly hard to do). In my
communications with editors like Martin Kilduff (AMR) and Sara Rhynes (AMJ),
I see that they're becoming more oriented towards cultured studies (not
culture studies)--maybe as a response to the increasing number of journals,
maybe the trends I mentioned above, both . . . I don't know. They want
beautiful research. Beautiful, cultured, meaningful--those terms will take a
lot of work and development, but its happening. Mike's and your points about
beautiful experimental research are also relevant here--it might be that
we'll find artistic standards eventually standing alongside the science ones
in the mainstream journals--that when we review for these outlets, we'll
have a choice of rating papers on their artistic merit, scientific merit, or
both.

I'm not sure what other things might change. I'd really welcome more of
these 'what would/could a Business Arts Academy look like?' scenarios from
the rest of you--it's a good exercise I think. And maybe it will help whisk
things on their way. Teike, Philippe, Henrik, Claus (and others of you who
are professionally trained artists getting MOS PhDs) . . . you're in a good
position to say something about this! Lucy? Deborah? Vicki? Brad? Eric? Some
of you other SCOS denizens as well ;-)--Steve Linstead, Heather? D

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Taylor [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 12:59 PM
To: Daved Barry; ACORN
Subject: Re: Art's place in organization studies

I hope that you are right, Daved, that in ten years organizational
aesthetics will have the same legitimacy that qualitative research has
achieved.  I say legitimacy because it feels like I have to fight for the
legitimacy of  approaching something from an arts based perspective every
time I write for an MOS journal.

I also have the same experience when I try to write about action research.
And I realize that there was a time when action research had moved pretty
far up the legitimacy curve in MOS (there were centers of action research at
prestigious universities such as MIT's Sloan school), but it somehow failed
to make it.  So I have a cautionary tale in my head as well.

And to add to Mike's idea, I think that beauty is one way to legitimacy.
Beautiful writing, beautiful research, or at least artful writing and
research is much harder to ignore and leave in the dustbin of academic
history - whether that research is science based or art based.

Anyway, just my thoughts on this fine April morning (it is still below
freezing here in New England).

- Steve


On 4/8/07 6:51 AM, "Daved Barry" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I didn't mean that aacorn is being scientized. Actually, I meant the
> opposite, that we're beginning to find arts-based standards for making and
> judging work that are just as rigorous, important, contributive, etc., as
> the hard science standards that have been used in MOS (mgmt. and org
> studies) for the last century. Things like what you're mentioning here
> (creative use of constraints) and like what Steve Carroll mentioned last
> time (e.g., noticing the unnoticed). It's kind of like what happened when
> Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba wrote "Naturalistic Inquiry"--where they
> developed a set of counter standards for social research.
> 


Steven S. Taylor, PhD
Assistant Professor
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Department of Management
100 Institute Rd
Worcester, MA 01609
USA
+1 508-831-5557
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