Despite a growing interest in the effects of arts-based interventions on organizational change, concepts aiming at business innovation and product development other than residencies are rare. Furthermore, little is known about the role and impact of artists involved in idea-generating formats. How does the personal presence of artists in a heterogenous working group influence the procedure? To what extent do artists unfold their creative qualities while dealing with such a non-artistic challenge? The paper introduces a method named Art Hacking that applies professional labour attitudes typical for artists and artistic modes of thinking to business problems and enhances the approach by having artists attend the whole intervention. One of these events was taken as a case for exploring the role of four artists in the collective idea-generation process. The results of participatory observation along critical incident technique substantiate the thesis that in interdisciplinary “playgrounds” artists implicitly become process leaders. They are catalysts for awareness, sensemaking and change of perspective.
Purpose Arts-based cooperations between business and the arts create innovative solutions for companies by introducing artistic practices. Cooperations of this nature are predominantly prepared and implemented by intermediaries who act as “matchmakers” and bridge the cultural clash. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach For the present study on the function of such intermediaries, qualitative data material from interviews and case studies on arts-based cooperations was collected and analysed. Findings This paper analyses the results from an institutional economics perspective. By drawing on transaction cost theory and information economics, the findings are transformed into an intermediation theory of arts-based cooperations. The theory postulates that intermediaries are able to reduce transaction costs as well as the risks which are contingent on asymmetric information. Involving an intermediary produces cost advantages compared to direct contact between companies and artists. Originality/value The analysis illuminates an important but heretofore neglected aspect of arts-based initiatives thus providing an indication for their successful implementation.
In a highly competitive business environment, integrating artists into corporate research and development (R&D) seems to be a promising way to foster inventiveness and idea generation. Given the importance of individual level innovation for product development, this study explores the benefits that employees experience from the artist-in-residence-program at Robert Bosch GmbH, Germany. Qualitative content analysis of interviews with scientists and engineers was performed in order to explore the impact of their encounters with artists in the theoretical framework of the triadic concept and transmission model of inspiration. The findings corroborate the notion that inspiration is a suitable theoretical underpinning for individual benefits of art–science collaborations in the front end of innovation. Scientists and engineers are inspired by the artists’ otherness and transcend their usual modes of perception in favor of enhanced focal, peripheral and bifocal vision. Whereas shifts in perspective are reflected in individual thinking patterns, researchers are hardly motivated to change their work-related behavior. The exchange with artists does not have a concrete impact on technological innovation, because researchers neither integrate impulses into their experiential world nor link them to fields of activity. In the case under scrutiny, artistic impulses do not contribute to idea generation in the sense of front-end activities. The study contributes to research on artists in businesses by illuminating the R&D environment as a hitherto neglected field of activity. While substantiating previous research on artist-in-science-residencies, the results suggest that the potential of such interdisciplinary endeavors is limited.
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