The Aesthetic Turn in Management

[4]Organizational Kitsch

Stephen Linstead

University of Durham, UK

Abstract. Kitsch as a descriptive and evaluative term is popularly deployed in the context of art, and artifacts, contemporarily denoting that which is perhaps poor in taste, quality or refinement yet which retains some sort of mildly perverse attractiveness. It prettifies the problematic, makes the disturbing reassuring, and establishes an easy (and illusory) unity of the individual and the world. This article draws on historical sources and contemporary theory across a range of critical disciplines to expand our current awareness of the range of the concept and its organizational relevance, examining how its acceptance has developed over this period to incorporate mass production ...