All ye need to know? : aesthetics from a design perspective

In support of the notion that the aesthetic side of organisations is as yet underdeveloped in organisation theory, we develop in this paper a research agenda for studying the impact of aesthetics on organizations. We take a design perspective (Romme, 2003; Van Aken, 2004) and structure the field of aesthetics in organization following an input-output model of organizations. This leads us to the development of seven hypotheses, which address the various aspects in which beauty in organisations influences organisational performance, as well as the various factors that drive organisational beauty. We also further develop our conceptual gear, by discussing the concepts process aesthetics, product aesthetics and aesthetic sensibility. We suggest that the key aspects of aesthetic sensibility (robustness, breath, sharpness and tolerance) can be of aid in understanding why some of us are more aesthetic sensible then others