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Article Title Page
Arts-Based Interventions: Bringing the Arts into Organisations
Author Details:
Dr. Claudia Schnugg
Copenhagen Business School
Department for Management Politics and Philosophy
Fredriksberg, Denmark
Johannes Kepler University
Institute for Organization and Global Management Education
Linz, Austria
Corresponding author: Claudia Schnugg (please note new email address from 2016 on: mail@claudiaschnugg.com)
csc.lpf@cbs.dk, claudia.schnugg@jku.at
Please check this box if you do not wish your email address to be published
NOTE: affiliations should appear as the following: Department (if applicable); Institution; City; State (US only); Country.
No further information or detail should be included
Acknowledgments (if applicable):
I am grateful to my PhD supervisor Robert Bauer for helpful advice and discussions during the research process, and Ariane
Berthoin Antal, Steven S. Taylor, and Donna Ladkin for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this contribution.
Biographical Details (if applicable):
Dr. Claudia Schnugg is a Visiting Researcher at Copenhagen Business School, Institute for Management, Politics and Philosophy.
Her research interest lies in organizational aesthetics and arts-based initiatives in companies.
Structured Abstract:
Purpose – This paper focuses on arts-based interventions as a management tool for personal, team, and organizational
development. How have management teams implemented art in their organizations, and toward what end? The literature has
focused predominantly on single case. creating many possibilities of constructing for arts-based interventions. Yet, a typology is still
missing. This paper examines various of arts-based interventions and their underlying principles from a business perspective.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a systematic review of the literature in English and German, with special
consideration for articles and books within the field of business.
Findings – The typology presented in this paper, based on a mapping of the field, should contribute to a more coherent
understanding of arts-based interventions. My goal is to provide researchers with a more structured perspective for approaching this
academic area. Furthermore, the findings suggest that over and above the various types of arts that can be introduced to
organizations, there are three basic principles for the achievement of this goal.
Research limitations/implications: This paper presents a mapping of the cases in the literature on arts-based interventions and
presents a coherent understanding of ways of bringing art into organizations.
Practical implications: The three underlying principles presented in this paper should assist practitioners in designing arts-based
interventions for specific problems.
Originality/value – This paper provides assistance to consultants, business executives, leaders, managers, researchers, and
students for understanding the basics of arts-based interventions. Furthermore, it provides a structure for the body of literature on
cases of arts-based interventions.
Keywords: Arts, Arts-based intervention, management tool, typology, organizational development, personal
development
Article Classification: Literature Review (please note: based on my PhD thesis. Though the thesis is in
German, I can provide you with the updated figures used for this publication in English)
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For internal production use only
Running Head: How to bring the arts into organizations
Arts-Based Interventions: Bringing the Arts into Organisations
In today’s rapidly changing society, innovation is a fundamental capability of individuals and organisations
compelled to keep up with the new demands of the environment. Thus, for instance, open-mindedness,
original thinking, critique, and flexibility as preconditions of innovation are critical resources for creating
successful businesses. Scholars in innovation and organisational creativity have turned to the artistic realm
where innovation and critique are constitutive components and the artists serve as objects of study. Yet much
evidence shows that abstract knowledge about artistic processes may help in restructuring research and
development processes, and expose employees to new practices and different perspectives, while especially
‘creative’ role models are even more effective. According to a long tradition in thinking about education
represented, for example, by the German artist and art theorist Joseph Beuys (1975), practicing and dealing
with the arts is a necessary precondition for personal development, holistic thinking, and employment skills.
Therefore, well-planned and thoroughly considered human resource activities using the arts can help
employees acquire necessary abilities.
However, arts can be brought into organisations not only as a response to new demands on individuals within
organisations, but also as interventions to benefit team and organisational development, as well as external
communication. Depending on the design of an organisation’s engagement with the arts, it is possible to
target these other goals above human resource development. Team events or a carefully thought out artistic
portrait of the organisation’s identity and visions can, in particular, help facilitate organisational change, the
identification of problems, or the enhancement of a sense of community. These effects are based on the
understanding that the arts address ideas and problems in an aesthetic way, stimulate audiences and enhance
their experiences, and lead to processes of self-reflection.
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Beyond discussing pragmatic ways of bringing the arts into organisations, such as using the arts in external
communication, sponsoring art events, or investing in artworks, as a review of arts-based interventions, this
article considers the many possibilities of bringing the arts into organisations in order to keep up with the
demands of an uncertain and fast-changing environment. In the following section, cases of arts-based
interventions in companies will reflect the different ‘kinds’ of arts-based interventions that can be found in
the literature. Yet it is not possible to copy such interventions accurately and reach the same goals in different
organisational settings. Practitioners therefore need to understand the basic underlying principles of arts-
based interventions in order to develop arts-based interventions to address the needs of their companies.
The sources for this concept were collected in a systematic review of arts-based interventions, which
followed a structured review protocol, applying explicit strategies for selecting relevant literature. The search
in English and German databases revealed 119 relevant publications of which the majority is empirical and
case-based, often focussing on just one arts-based intervention in one company. These cases were in
publications ranging from diverse books and practitioners’ literature to state-of-the-art academic journals.
The categorisation of the cases followed certain guidelines to stay true to the original observation on the one
hand, and to organise and interpret data efficiently on the other hand. First, the cases were sorted by
descriptions of different methods that organisations use to bring elements from the art world into the
organisational realm. This step led to the following list of 12 ‘kinds’ of the arts-based intervention
phenomenon; to these, new published cases can easily be added. Second, this approach was complemented
by identifying patterns, commonalities, and differences among these kinds. This step concluded that the
current repertoire of arts-based interventions can be understood as creating organisational influence through
the import of artworks, artistic capabilities, or art practices as metaphors.
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Possibilities for Bringing Art into Organisations
Technically speaking, each kind of arts-based intervention is a category that represents a set of highly similar
and exemplary cases documented in the literature. Thus, the following overview demonstrates the variety of
‘techniques’ by which the arts have been brought into organisations in the past.
1. Provide Tickets for Art Events: Companies give tickets for public art events (e.g., theatre performances,
concerts, and art shows) to various stakeholders or most often employees as incentive. This is also done
for inspirational and educational reasons, thereby providing employees with opportunities to experience
art. For instance, as part of the corporate art programme Catalyst, Unilever offered its employees tickets
for selected art events, including contemporary theatre plays and exhibitions which the Catalyst team
considered beneficial yet challenging experiences that employees were likely to miss without their
intervention (Darsø, 2004).
2. Organise Art Events: Companies engage in organising, staging, and hosting art events that are either
restricted to invited organisational audiences or open to the public. For instance, Mercedes-Benz Center
Stuttgart regularly organises both private and public art events in the main car exhibition building
(including Hip Hop concerts, stand-up comedy, private views of local visual artists’ works, and the
Haydn Symphony Orchestra performing all 107 Haydn symphonies; Blanke, 2002).
3. Sponsor Art Events, Artists, or Art Institutions: Companies engage in art or cultural sponsoring as part of
their marketing and social responsibility activities. Basically, the practice of art sponsoring has been
known since the Renaissance: in order to instill a sense of dignity and success, trade dynasties like the
House of Medici hired artists to produce impressive artworks and paint coats of arms on buildings they
owned or sponsored (e.g., churches). Similarly, today's companies support artists, art events, or art
institutions in exchange for having their name and logo displayed on artistic publications, on posters
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announcing art events, in arts buildings (e.g., museums and concert halls) or even on the stage (Blanke,
2002). For instance, all German manufacturers of premium cars (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen,
and Audi) sponsor ‘highbrow’ cultural events (e.g., classical music festivals and contemporary art
exhibitions and museums; Schwaiger et al., 2010).
4. Buy and Collect Artworks: Companies buy selected artworks or systematically build corporate
collections. For example, the EA-Generali Foundation in Vienna, a foundation by the Austrian insurance
company Generali, collects artworks (predominantly work by Austrian artists and paper drawings) and
organises exhibitions within a company-owned museum. Furthermore, renowned artist Andrea Fraser
was hired to create events that bring employees in closer contact with the company-owned artworks
(Fraser, 1995).
5. Commission Artworks: Companies commission artworks, often in connection with a specific event.
Mercedes-Benz, for instance, asked Andy Warhol to produce artworks for the company’s 100th
anniversary. He chose a series of visually remarkable Mercedes cars for an artistic statement on the
company’s history (Becker, 1994). Similarly, Siemens purchased Farbfeld 845/91, a monochrome shrill
red painting by Ruprecht Geiger that measures 1.2 by 7.5 metres, and mounted it in the main staff
restaurant at its headquarters in Munich during a major reorganisation of the company. This triggered
considerable controversy, which in turn led to a series of meetings between employees and managers that
provided a forum for open discussion of corporate identity and culture, concerns regarding the
restructuring of Siemens, and pressing issues otherwise difficult to present to management (Wagner,
1999).
6. Offer Seminars about Art: Companies offer seminars about art (e.g., music, painting, and theatre) as part
of their human resource programmes. For instance, renowned German art theorist Max Imdahl held
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seminars on abstract, nonfigurative, and contemporary visual artworks for Siemens employees.
Participants were encouraged to perceive visual material, employing multiple observational strategies
such as spotting single parts, seeing the whole picture, having a brief or a close look, seeing between
drawn lines, and exploring optical illusions (Wagner, 1999).
7. Employ Artists as Designers: Companies employ artists for (re-)designing corporate image, buildings,
products, events, or even organisational processes. Best Markets hired the artist and architect group SITE
to turn the buildings that hosted their markets into artworks. The redesigned Best showrooms succeeded
as artworks (“reflected the uncertainty and precariousness of society and were definitely the early
stirrings of Deconstructivism”) and were instrumental in establishing a strong distinctive brand: “in the
end SITE and Best had branded the idea so distinctly that it couldn’t be transferred to another retailer
when the company went bankrupt” (McCown, 2003: p. 1).
8. Employ Artists as Consultants: Companies employ artists as management consultants to use their artistic
capabilities for organising material, solving problems, and creating expression beyond language in
coping with team or organisational problems. In addition, artists are hired as project advisers to support
discussions and problem solving with their artistic capabilities. For instance, German artist Mathis
Neidhart works as an artistic project advisor and as part of product development teams in which he
contributes an ‘artistic perspective’ on problem solving, and visually documents and expresses other
team members’ ideas (Neidhart, 2003).
9. Invite Artists-in-Residence: Companies invite artists-in-residence to pursue art projects within the
company, hoping that the process of artistic creation or the resulting artworks (be it their content,
material, or production method) will provide inspiration for the corporation. Xerox PARC (Palo Alto
Research Center), for example, conducted an artist-in-residence programme called PAIR (PARC Artist-
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in-Residence) in which artists and scientists working on similar ideas (e.g., user interface design) or with
similar methods (e.g., specific materials or software) were paired to inspire each other’s work (Harris,
1999).
10. Offer Artistic Workshops: Companies offer artistic workshops to develop their employees’ artistic
abilities. In these workshops, employees or managers work to create artworks, learn about artistic
processes, and engage in expressing themselves through artistic media. For instance, Boston Consulting
Group used acting courses in which consultants were trained to appear on stage and interact with the
audience (including talking, gestures, mime, and reading the audience’s reactions; Buswick, 2005).
Furthermore, art therapeutic methods are used in some artistic workshops to draw out and address
unconscious problems (Westwood, 2007).
11. Use Art Practices as Metaphors: Art practices can be used as models or metaphors that potentially
inform organisational practices, as seen in the training method of Bang & Olufsen’s international sales
staff, who utilised intimate knowledge about theatre production – specifically the relationship and
interaction between director, actor, and audience – to shift sales talks from rational conversations
focussed on technical data and price to customer interaction. This process enabled a pleasant aesthetic
experience for both customers and sales persons during retail interactions (Darsø, 2004).
12. Suggest Art Practices as Metaphors: There is a significant body of literature that does not analyse
empirical cases of arts-based interventions. Instead, art practices are suggested as potentially useful
models and metaphors for organisational processes, developments, or problems. For instance, authors
reinterpret managers as artists (Dégot, 1987) or show what managers and organisations could learn from
art ensembles, such as jazz bands or theatre companies (e.g., Weick, 1998). Moreover, authors refer to art
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history or specific art works as inspirational sources for general or case-specific organisational analyses
(e.g., Watkins and King, 2002).
The Underlying Principles of Arts-Based Interventions
After reading the overview of how arts-based interventions have been conducted in the past, managers,
consultants, and scholars may find it helpful to understand the underlying principles of arts-based
interventions. As the list of 12 kinds of arts-based interventions presented above treats each kind as a unique
phenomenon in its own right, without revealing underlying rules, this approach will now be complemented
by identifying patterns, commonalities, and differences among the various kinds of arts-based interventions.
Therefore, the second analysis of the cases proposes the following three principles that structure the kinds of
arts-based interventions and link them to underlying mechanisms. Arts-based interventions create
organisational influence through the import of three types of artistic elements: artworks, artistic capabilities,
and art and art practices as metaphors.
1. Artworks in Organizational Contexts: Organisational actors, most importantly managers, can create
organisational influence by exposing stakeholders (primarily employees or customers) to artworks. Some
arts-based interventions include invitations to art events (see kinds 1 Provide Tickets for Art Events, 2
Organise Art Events, and 3 Sponsor Art Events), and adding purchased or commissioned artworks to the
organisation’s appearance, typically by displaying artworks in the work environment (see kinds 4 Buy and
Collect Artworks and 5 Commission Artworks). Arts-based interventions bring artworks into
organisational contexts to create aesthetic communication, generating an experience that ranges from
fairly casual entertainment (e.g., decorative art and mainstream music) to deeply touching encounters with
personal perspectives, ideals, and ways of thinking. Therefore, engaging with artworks in organisations
may lead to important individual as well as team development processes. In addition, organisations
engaged in such arts-based interventions send a twofold message: first, they signal support for the arts (see
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kinds 1 to 6), which, through varying degrees of publicity, often counts as a sign of good corporate
citizenship; and second, their choice of artwork conveys the organisations’ values (e.g., conservative vs.
progressive) and their assumed or desired position in society (e.g., elitist vs. popular).
2. Artistic Capabilities in Organisational Constexts: Successful artists are commonly credited with
possessing exceptional capabilities that enable the creation of artworks, but their capabilities are not
always restricted to purely artistic use. Examples include unconventional thinking and acting
(‘originality’), reaching people through communication ‘beyond language’ (i.e., by means of images,
objects, and sounds arranged in space and time or by texts that speak ‘between the lines’), making
appearances with high (stage) presence and charisma, and pursuing goals with exceptional determination
and resilience. Arguably, such capabilities are generally useful in organisations if used carefully with
respect to the right time, place, and application. Arts-based interventions rely on two mechanisms to bring
these capabilities into organisations. First, artists participate temporarily in organisational activities that
may (see kinds 7 Employ Artists as Designers and 8 Employ Artists as Consultants) or may not (see kind 9
Invite Artists-in-Residence) include the production of artworks. Second, artists or educators train
organisational members to develop further their artistic capabilities (see kind 10 Offer Artistic Workshops
and, to a lesser extent, kind 6 Offer Seminars about Art), a technique which assumes that everybody
possesses some (dormant) artistic qualities which can be drawn out and expanded upon.
3. Art and Art Practices as Organisational Metaphors: Drawing on the arts as an autonomous institutional
field, arts-based interventions can use knowledge about the arts to inform organisational practices. This
refers to all 12 kinds of arts-based interventions discussed above, as art practices may inform employees
about new processes through any encounter with the arts. In particular, the analytical 11th and 12th kinds
(Use Art Practices as Metaphors and Suggest Art Practices as Metaphors) point precisely to this idea. For
instance, treating organisational practices as if they were art practices – as Bang & Olufsen did (Darsø,
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2004) – can provide a basis for applying additional knowhow about (customer) communication, which can
serve as a defamiliarisation technique (Schein, 2001) that enables a ‘fresh look’, a new perspective on
what is done within the organisation, and, in turn, facilitates organisational change and flexibility.
Be Aware of…
As shown above, arts-based interventions take various forms in terms of how they are realised in
organisations and how they influence organisations and organisational actors. As the review above shows,
there is great potential in bringing the arts into organisations. It also underlines that, before engaging with the
arts, it is essential to be aware of the necessary critical and reflective process that is fundamental to every
kind of arts-based intervention. Arts-based interventions are tools with a lasting impact that may lead to
major changes and innovations. Therefore, the first step of planning an arts-based intervention is to define the
problem that should be addressed within the organisation: does the intervention aim at human resource
development, organisational development, or external communication? Second, how can the chosen goal be
achieved? Is it through holistic learning and acquiring new perspectives? Or is it by learning specific
processes and contents? Is it through shock effect and provocation to make people speak up within the
organisation? Or is it about the organisation’s or a team’s identity? Only when these two fundamental aspects
are clear, will it be possible to set up a successful arts-based intervention that draws on artworks, capabilities,
art practices, or a combination of these features.
Conclusion
Artistic products and skills, as well as knowledge about the arts are meaningful and legitimate in the art
world, yet uncommon, if not alien, in the organisational realm. Arts-based interventions employ artworks,
artistic capabilities, and metaphorically applied knowledge about the arts to infuse art-specific difference into
the organisational realm. The process through which organisations cope with this difference provides the
basis for creating organisational influence on various aggregational levels of the organisation. If, for
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example, we consider a provocative painting hung where many employees or customers are able to see it,
Geiger’s painting in Siemens’ main canteen demonstrates that organisational influence does not necessarily
emanate from the painting itself, but rather from the initial reactions to the painting, further organisational
responses to these reactions, and so forth. Therefore, arts-based interventions can be considered as successful
as long as they are thoroughly planned, guided, and reflected upon by all participating parties (i.e., managers,
artists, and employees). To enable this process, it may also be useful to consider an intermediary to guide the
arts-based intervention – someone who is able to translate between the different languages of management,
art, and employees (as in the case of EA-Generali who hired artist Andrea Fraser as an intermediary between
the then newly established art collection and the employees). In short, arts-based interventions consist of the
release of an initial stimulus and the process of its dissemination throughout an organisation, which is subject
to various ways and degrees of facilitation, guidance, or governance.
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