Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Envisioning the Aesthetic Firm

  • Published:
Philosophy of Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper draws on the work of Alain Badiou and Martin Heidegger to construct a postructural theory of the firm. The ideal firm is conceived as a technology that facilitates a technology-free void/site of potential. For actors within this firm to be ethical requires their achievement of human subjecthood through aesthetic fidelity to the site-induced events. Heidegger’s concerns regarding the enframing effects of technology and his recognition of the truth-revealing qualities of art, are incorporated here into a theory of the firm as an idealized, technology facilitated, aesthetic void-of-potential revealing. Authentic human being thus implies that firms-as-technology ‘get out of the way’. This theory of the firm is further revealed through Badiou’s concept of event-driven human flourishing. We embrace Badiou’s ‘ethics-of-truths’ in which fidelity to the trace of an event creates human subjecthood. We consider implications of our theory-of-the-firm for social media firms such as Alphabet and Facebook.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Assleander, Michael S., 2019, “Adam Smith and his vision of ethical capitalism”, presentation given at international Vincentian business ethics conference, Dublin, Ireland.

  • Badiou, Alain, 2001 Ethics: An essay on the understanding of evil, (Peter Hallward trans.), New York: Verso.

  • Badiou, Alain, 2003 “Beyond Formalization” (interview with Peter Hallward in Angelaki, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 111–136.

  • Bakewell, Sarah. 2017. At the existentialist Café. New York: Other Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caputo, John D., 1996,“A Community without Truth: Derrida and the Impossible Community” Research in Phenomenology, Volume 26: Issue 1.

  • Cazeaux, Clive. 2000. The continental aesthetics reader. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chytry, J. 2007. Organizational aesthetics: The artful firm and the aesthetic moment in contemporary business and management theory. Aesthesis: International Journal of Art and Aesthetics in Management and Organizational Life 2 (2): 60–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coase, R.E. 1937. The nature of the firm. Economica 4: 386–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Couch, Robert B. and Joseph M. Spencer, 2013, “Economy suspended: the possibilities of a Badiouian business ethics”, Business Ethics: A European Review. Volume 22, Issue 4, October , Pages: 404–416,

  • Cummings, Stephen, 2000, “Resurfacing an aesthetics of existence as an alternative to business ethics”, in the aesthetics of organization, eds. Linstead and Hopfl, New York: Sage.

  • Derrida, Jacques, 1991, “Spurs: Nietzsche’s styles”, in a Derrida reader ed. Peggy Kamuf, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 353–377.

  • Dobson, J. 2010. Aesthetic style as a postructural business ethic. Journal of Business Ethics 93 (3): 393–400.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dobson, J. Nicolette Gorospe, Seung-Yeon Sunny Jeong, 2017, THIRD WAVE FEMINISM, ETHICS OF CARE, AND CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: THE CASE OF GENDER QUOTAS ON CORPORATE BOARDS« in Alejo Jose J. Sisson (Ed.), Springer Handbook on Virtue Ethics in Business and Management. New York: Springer.

  • Dyck, B., and J.M. Weber. 2006. Conventional versus radical moral agents. Organization Studies 27 (3): 429–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engelbrecht, Schalk, 2012, “Radical business ethics: a critical and postmetaphysical manifesto” Business Ethics: A European Review, Volume 21, Issue 4, October, Pages: 339–352.

  • Frazer, Elizabeth, and Nicola Lacey, 1994, “MacIntyre, feminism and the concept of practice” in John Horton and Susan Mendez ed.; On MacIntyre, Oxford University press.

  • Frey, Bruno S. 2018. Economics of happiness. London: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gayford, Martin, 2010, “David Hockney’s iPad art”, The Telegraph, 20 Oct. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8066839/David-Hockneys-iPad-art.html

  • Genette, Gerard. 1999. The aesthetic relation. London: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Guillet de Monthoux, Pierre. 2004. The art firm. Stanford: Stanford University Press (Stanford Business Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, J., 1998, The inclusion of the other: Studies in political theory, Cambridge mass; MIT Press.

  • Hallward, Peter, 2001, Ethics: An essay on the understanding of evil, (tanslators introduction.), New York: Verso, pp. vii-xxxvi.

  • Hancock, P. 2005. Uncovering the semiotic in organizational aesthetics. Organization 12 (1): 29–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heidegger, Martin (1966). Discourse on thinking (J. M. Anderson & E. H. Freund, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row.

  • Heidegger, Martin. 1952. 2013, “the question concerning technology” (QCT), in the question concerning technology and other essays. New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Helms Eleanor, and Dobson, J., 2016, “Heidegger’s Critique of Technology and the Contemporary Return to Artisan Business Activity”, Philosophy of Management, November 2016, Volume 15, Issue 3, pp. 203–220.

  • Heywood, Leslie L., ed. 2006. The Women's movement today: An encyclopedia of third wave feminism, vol. Vol. 1. Greenwood: Westport.

  • Hoffman, Michael W. 2014. Business ethics, ed. Frederic, Schwarts, New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, Michael, and William Meckling, 1976, “Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure”, Journal of Financial Economics, Volume 3, Issue 4, October 1976, Pages 305–360.

  • Kant, Immanuel, 1790, Critique of Judgment, trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon Press [1952].

  • Kellner, Douglas, 1985, Modernity and Its Discontents, Columbia University Working Paper (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/).

  • King, Mathew. 2015. “Being and Virtuosness: Toward a platonic-Heideggerian virtue ethics”, in Hermberg and Gyllenhammer eds. Phenomenology and Virtue Ethics, London: Bloomsbury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koehn, D. 2010. Ethics, morality, and art in the classroom: Positive and negative relations. Journal of Business Ethics Education 7: 213–232.

    Google Scholar 

  • Koehn, D., and D. Elm. 2014. Aesthetics and business ethics. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ladkin, Donna. 2018. The aesthetic and its relation to business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics January 147 (1): 35–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Layard, Richard. 2005. Happiness: Lessons from a new science. London: Penguin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maitland, Ian, 1997, ‘Virtuous Markets: "The Market as School of the Virtues"’ Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan., 1997), pp. 17–31.

  • Miller, Merton H. 1986. Behavioral rationality in finance: The case of dividends. Journal of Business 59: 45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Geoff, and Ron Beadle. 2006. In search of organizational virtue in business. Organization Studies 27 (3): 369–399.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nietzsche, Friedrich; 1888, The Will to Power, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1967) para 1067, pp. 449–50.

  • Nietzsche, Friedrich; 1882, The Gay Science, ed. Walter Kaufmann, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Random House, 1974).

  • Postrel, V. 2003. The substance of style. New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Twomey, Jay, 2004, “Saint Paul: The Foundation of universalism” (book review), R&L,36.2 (summer).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA, 93401, USA

    John Dobson

Authors
  1. John Dobson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to John Dobson.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

I hereby certify that there are no conflicts of interest associated with this project.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Dobson, J. Envisioning the Aesthetic Firm. Philosophy of Management 20, 355–368 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-020-00159-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-020-00159-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation