Beauty – Competing on significance

SCCV 2010Per Åman

Issues

-What is ’beauty’?

-What is ‘beauty’ as sustainable competitive advantage?

-How may ‘beauty’ be integrated and combined with other sources of sustainable competitive advantage?

OutlineLectures

Readings

Group assignments (pass/ not pass)DBA – deconstructing’beauty’ in architecture DBC - deconstructing ’beauty’ in commerce IBS – integrating ’beauty’ in business strategy

Final paper

firms successfully produce things and services that aren’t terribly useful from a rationalistic and utilitarian vantage point

Microeconomics: Economic value and functionality?

Competitiveness recap

Per Åman, PhD

BigBest

Fast

Scale, scopeMarket dominanceExpansion

Customer orientation,DifferentiationMarket perspectiveResource perspective

Dynamic capabilities..through the value chain; logistics..to the market; innovation..response; learning and change management

Sources of business success

Per Åman, PhD

Scale, scope and market dominance

Customer orientation and differentiation

Operational efficiency, learning, innovation and change

Ericsson, late 1990s

Be first, be best, be cost efficient

Kurt Hellström

the argumentation is based on an economic/ technical rationality

materialistic utility maximizers, they value individual benefit over group and societal benefit, they are rational or boundedly rational given the utility fuction, and whose engagements are above all means to an end.

much contemporary competitiveness can be argued to be the result of an empathic understanding of human irrationality and idiosynchracies

this alternative view sees the human agent as relational, actively seeking value-based social interaction. People are intrinsically motivated to self-actualize, and have no preconceived utility function, but where discourse and continuous exchange shapes their interests, needs and wants

Madonna

Lady Gaga

The ’beauty’ gap

Anecdotal/ observations

Empirical assessments

A phenomenon

Firms compete and operate on other grounds than utilitarian

This form of competition is of considerable economic importance

Technical/ economic explanations are not enough to understandthe sustainable competitive advantage of this competitive behavior

Substance and significance

Per Åman, PhD

Darwin’s dilemmaSelection based on functionality; ’survival of the fittest’

Selection basedon attraction

Functional value Aesthetic value

Symbolic value

Per Åman, PhD

Substance

Significance

Per Åman, PhD

Management techniques

Managerialpurpose

”Finding and holding a firm’s moral and strategic center in a competitive market is a calling and an art, not an engineering problem.” Russell A. Eisenstat, Michael Beer, Nathaniel Foote, Tobias Fredberg, and Flemming Norrgren HBR July-Aug 2008

Per Åman, PhD

Management techniques

Managerialpurpose SCA ?

Historical path dependencyTacitnessSocial complexityCausal ambiguity

’beauty’

[mass noun] a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight: I was struck by her beauty | an area of outstanding natural beauty. • a combination of qualities that pleases the ...

(From The Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition revised)

beauty

→ noun (pl. beauties)1. [mass noun] a combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight: I was struck by her beauty | an area of outstanding natural beauty.

• a combination of qualities that pleases the intellect. • [as modifier] denoting something intended to make someone more attractive: beauty treatment.2. a beautiful or pleasing thing or person, in particular:

• a beautiful woman: a blonde beauty. • an excellent example of something: the fish was a beauty, around 14 pounds. • (the beauties of) the pleasing or attractive features of (something): the beauties of the English countryside. • [in sing.] the best aspect or advantage of something: the beauty of keeping cats is that they don't tie you down.

→ adjective (Austral./NZ informal) good; excellent (used as a general term of approval).

beauty is in the eye of the beholder (proverb) that which one person finds beautiful or admirable may not appeal to another.

beauty is only skin-deep (proverb) a pleasing appearance is not a guide to character.

- ORIGIN Middle English: from Old French beaute, based on Latin bellus ‘beautiful, fine’.

The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press

’aesthetics’

World Encyclopedia. Philip's, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press

aesthetics (Gk. aisthesis, perception) Specialized branch of philosophy concerned with the arts. Plato's classical formulation of art as a mirror of nature was developed by Aristotle in his Poetics. As a distinct discipline, aesthetics dates from Alexander Baumgarten's Reflections on Poetry (1735). Common problems in aesthetics include a definition of beauty and the ascribing of artistic value. For Plato and Aristotle beauty is objective, it resides in the object. While Plato argued that art represented the form of particular objects, Aristotle believed that art imitated a universal essence through a particular form. David Hume argued that the value of art was dependent on subjective perception. In Critique of Judgement (1790), Immanuel Kant mediated between the two, arguing that artistic value may be subjective, but it has universal validity in the form of pleasure. Later philosophers, such as George Santayana and Benedetto Croce, focused on art as a socially symbolic act.

Aesthetics as a form of knowledge

• Not analytical, reductionist or logico-rational• Holistic• Immediate• An experience• Tacit• A sense of beauty, ugliness, grotesque…• Connectedness

Sensory abilities

• Eyesight Visual• Hearing Auditive• Touch Tactile• Smell Olfactory• Taste Gastronomic

Aesthetic philosophy

• The Greeks• Medieval times• Kant and the romantics• Postmodernism• Contextual aesthetics