Feb 24, 2016
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