On Regarding the Value of Aesthetics for Entrepreneurship

Abstract

An inexorable pursuit of economic gain has ushered in fashionable, entrepreneurial manoeuvres in the arts. This has led not only to the acceptance of new sectoral categories, such as the creative industries, but also to a form of creative industrialization that encourages additive injections of market logic and notions of entrepreneurial value to an erstwhile dependent culture of the arts. Normative silo-based analyses continue unabated in the gnostic worlds of both the arts and entrepreneurship, with a tendency for the latter to ‘rescue’ the ‘failing’ arts. Application of market logic can, however, ignore the multivalence of entrepreneurship or the rich textures of meaning provided by the arts. It is suggested that a consideration of the centrality of imagination offers insights into different forms of value creation in entrepreneurship and of the creative entrepreneurial dimensions in the arts. A review is presented of how entrepreneurship has positioned itself in the arts and questions are raised about the constraints of a market logic approach. It is argued that such an approach promotes a deficit model of the arts and a stagnant, status quo understanding of entrepreneurship. By exploring various arts movements, such as the Bauhaus project, the legacy of Joseph Beuys’s philosophy and the unique, needs-focussed work of the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, creative latitude can be found in the meaning of entrepreneurship as the mobilization of the resources of imagination.

Citation

Mitra, J. (2020), "On Regarding the Value of Aesthetics for Entrepreneurship", Formica, P. and Edmondson, J. (Ed.) Innovation and the Arts: The Value of Humanities Studies for Business, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 73-90. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78973-885-820201004