Organizational Aesthetic Capability and Firm Product and Process Innovativeness

Abstract

Taking into consideration the popularity of organizational aesthetics in organizational behavior literature, and adapting dynamic capabilities perspective, we suggest that organizational aesthetic capability is an important competence that enables organizations to cope with the environmental uncertainty. Nonetheless, organizational aesthetic capability is rarely addressed in the technology and innovation management literature. Specifically, we know little about what organizational aesthetic capability is, its ingredients and benefits, and how it works in innovation context. Addressing this particular gap in the literature, this study contributes in two ways. First, we conceptualize organizational aesthetic capability and its sub-dimensions that are alert imagination, to act and defer, awareness of dissonance, analyzing past actions, prefiguring future trajectories, preserve existing modes of operation, willingness to change direction, recognizing symbols in use, and awareness of language. Second, the theoretical framework we proposed highlights the effects of organizational aesthetic capability on product and process innovativeness.