Manager as an Artist: Creative Endeavour in Crossing the Borders of Art and Organizational Discourse

The key to the considerations contained in this work is the authors’ metaphor of the organization: “organization as an artwork”, which – based on the achievements of aesthetics – allows us to look at the manager as a creator (true “artist”), and on organization’s stakeholders as recipients of this artwork. This new approach places management on a skeleton of Maria Gołaszewska’s concept of “aesthetic situation”. Thanks to this approach, the elements of aesthetic theories appearing in the management literature take the right context, and solutions borrowed from the theory of aesthetics bring a new quality to the theory of creativity in management. The inspiration to take up the topic was one of the authors own experience in both art and management. The research methodology is based on a qualitative review of the literature. The methodological approach is based on interdisciplinary and multi-paradigm approach taking into account the publications from areas of management and organization, as well as art and psychology. After applying the theory of aesthetics to the management process, it can be said that artistry should be considered as a kind of higher level of management; highest degree in gradation: administrator, manager, anagement artist.