Illustrations of emergent transformation towards aesthetic management

My thesis is an explorative way of living, working and spiritual practice. I created an experimental inquiry in artful approaches to aesthetic content of life, motivated by a sense of flatness and lack of humanity within my work in large corporations. Emergent outcomes are of more expansive ways of living and working. I present here my experience of how inquiry changed me and how I know. This dissertation is for those who feel on the edge of their community and want to belong, those who want to be engaged in their work but who do not feel involved in their company culture, and those who want to be included in their school, or workgroup and feel different to what is thought of as normal. Modernity has created the conditions where we are able to survive and to a degree get by in isolation. This would have been impossible in the past because belonging and being a part of a community was essential to survival. We are naturally social animals and living apart is living in the shadow and not realising our full potential. We are less rich because of it. This inquiry became how I relate in my consulting work in meaningful sincere relationships with purpose. My hope is it paves a way for those who, like me, were not part of the mainstream, and through a similar process of inquiry can find their sense of engagement and belonging through knowing their creative identity. Aesthetics is the science of sensuous cognition. I explored experience in aesthetic appreciation of the good and the beautiful within everyday life and sought to bring the same way of being to relationships within working practice. I took a dual theoretical perspective in Organisational Aesthetics (Taylor and Hansen, 2005) and in Jungian Individuation (Jung, 1991). Inquiry in artful methods, looking at aesthetic content, transformed my way of being from positivist norms to an artful ontology. Knowing the aesthetic, brought heightened awareness of an underlying creative self, from where I was able to discern meaning and understanding within my emotional responses related in psychology of archetypal knowing. The contribution of this research is presentation of my experience of transformation from a technical positivist manager to an aesthetic manager (Dobson, 1999). I have developed a deep sense of aesthetic knowing and I show up in practice with a confident creative identity. I found resistance in work culture to my inquiry, and I learnt how I could bring my inquiry to consulting practice in cycles of action research. I found this aesthetic inquiry radical in its paradigmatic difference to the norm. My experience has challenged ingrained beliefs, assumptions, and biases within me, and within in academia and in commerce. This inquiry generated inner change, shifting how I engage with my world, and it gave me clarity of purpose in how I choose to live. This dissertation shows my experience within transformation of myself in consulting practice. It could be a valuable way of integrating our humanity within an increasingly abstract world of work.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

DProf

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

DProf thesis

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Middlesex University / Ashridge Business School

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Norbury, D.

Identifier

oai:repository.mdx.ac.uk:2x03v6

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.mdx.ac.uk:2x03v6