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Coordination of group activity is rarely more important than in a singing group that has no designated conductor. This paper aims to explore the group dynamics in an 11-man singing group whose members, all over 60, have without exception occupied senior leadership positions in their working careers. The study arose because responses to a wider research study revealed interesting perceptions of leadership issues in the group.

All the members participated in semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis of the responses was used to process the responses. This enabled the identification of practices that support the group’s success and illustrated how this group of practiced “leaders” respond to a (relatively) conductorless situation.

It was confirmed that the group exhibits several characteristics of self-managed teams and string quartets. All members felt empowered to take a lead, although their backgrounds might have predisposed them to take such initiatives anyway. But the long-serving female accompanist is, by virtue inter alia of her superior musicianship, which appears to overcome any gender bias, in many respects the de facto leader. In performance, the singers synchronize their singing in response to cues from each other, but this could work better if given more specific attention.

Whereas conducted choirs have been extensively studied, such a self-managed group of amateur singers, all of whom are accustomed to leading in their working careers, has apparently not been studied. This study sheds some light on techniques for overcoming the challenges of creating quality performance in such a group and insights for similar groups, not necessarily musical, are identified.

The purpose of this paper is to go beyond the leader-centric approach to highlight the shared leadership phenomena happening in organizations where there is no head leader. Seeing interactions between the orchestra members through the lens of aesthetics is a useful way of understanding leadership phenomena.

The different approaches used are interviews, participant observation, analysis of video, photo materials and journalist review.

The managerial evidence says that without a head leader nothing is possible in organizations with a high level of complexity is not proved in a conductorless orchestra. The orchestra without a conductor shows that leadership is an aesthetic phenomenon. The conductorless orchestra is enhancing the sensitivity of organizational practices in a situation where beauty is a common goal to achieve. Studying leadership through the aesthetic lens is very relevant to understand this phenomenon, and shows that leadership is a co-construction between leaders and followers (and therefore negotiated).

It has to be compared to a non “amateur” orchestra where power struggles are maybe more visible.

No study has been done on aesthetics and the no-conductor orchestra.

As members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra arrive for rehearsal you would not think anything out of the ordinary. The usual number of musicians are gathering, and there is the usual banter as they take their places and start to tune up. It is only when the practice begins that you notice what is missing – there is no conductor.

As members of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra arrive for rehearsal you would not think anything out of the ordinary. The usual number of musicians are gathering, and there is the usual banter as they take their places and start to tune up. It is only when the practice begins that you notice what is missing – there is no conductor.

Addresses the issue of the addition of features and functions to end‐user computer systems in an effort to increase the productivity of users. Argues that the core productive functions of most technology in daily use has been achieved and that vendors of this software are giving users greatly diminishing returns for further investments in new versions. Suggests that better knowledge of what exists, rather than additional features, is a more fruitful path to achieving productivity gains.

The purpose of this paper is to show that conceptualizing trust and control as interactively related processes, as opposed to more static conceptualizations of the two concepts and the relations between them, adds importantly towards understanding the challenges involved in balancing of trust and control in organizations.

The paper examines recent literature on the conceptualization of the relation between trust and control in and between organizations.

The literature review shows that trust and control has been conceptualized as either substituting or complementing each other. Further, it is found that the complementary/substitution debate calls for an explicit conceptualization of the relation between trust and control as an interactive process, in contrast to earlier conceptualizations of trust and control as two relatively static and isolated concepts.

While the static perspective on trust and control made the problem of finding a balance between trust and control a once and for all decision the process perspective introduced here implies that balancing trust and control is an ongoing process of balancing and rebalancing. The implication for management is that the problem of balancing trust and control becomes an issue that deserve ongoing attention.

The paper adds to the discussion on the relation between trust and control by showing that the process perspective reframes the problem of balancing trust and control. More generally, by demonstrating the importance of the process perspective on the trust and control interrelation, the paper calls for the wider use of a process perspective for researching the trust‐control nexus.

Arts‐based learning in business is a young field. Few businesspeople are aware of the opportunities to learn about it. This article takes an international look at the most prominent programs that bring together businesspeople, artists, and academics in various combinations.

Over the past several years, the author has interviewed people active in the field in the USA and Europe. This survey article brings together her findings.

There are many opportunities for learning. Some bring artists and businesspeople together; some combine academics, artists, and businesspeople; and within the academic community there are many opportunities for artists and academics.

Businesspeople will learn and take advantage of learning opportunities.

The author has not seen such a survey published elsewhere.