A beautiful strategy – bridging the gap between the (aesthetic) perception and (strategic) realization of the organizations purpose

Abstract

Purpose: Recent literature in the field of knowledge management (e.g. Nonaka and Takeuchi, 2021) asks for new, future-oriented approaches to strategy that allow us to deal with an increasingly complex world. Thus, this paper aims to build an approach to exploit aesthetics (human’s sensory perceptions and their felt meanings) to sense an organizations purpose and realize it by means of organizational strategy. Design/methodology/approach: Conceptual paper, providing a new perspective on the perception of Organizational Purpose. The abductive argument follows Weick’s notion of Disciplined Imagination (Weick, 1989). Findings: The main argument of this paper is that aesthetics contribute to the identification of organizational purpose. Thus, aesthetic perceptions can inform strategy to implement a stakeholders’ sense of purpose into strategy. Research limitations/implications: The argument presented is grounded in recent literature on the concepts of purpose and aesthetics and abductive in nature. Thus, empirical research to validate the argument would be beneficial and worthwhile to be undertaken. Practical implications: The paper presents the idea to integrate the sense of organizational purpose into a corporate strategy to address stakeholders’ value expectations and build more sustainable organizations. By emphasizing aesthetics, the study takes a stand for the inclusion of nonrational knowledge in organizational decision-making. Originality/value: As far as the author’s knowledge goes, the concepts of aesthetics and organizational purpose have not theoretically been connected to each other. However, due to the implicit nature of purpose, aesthetics may serve as the matching knowledge tool to work with organizational purpose.