Organisational aesthetics in temporary project organisations: a systematic literature review

Turbulences in organisational environments, especially due to major crises and disruptive events, force organisations to innovate, applying imagination, intuition, improvisation, etc., and route to learning from the arts, including the “aesthetic turn” in organisation and management science, and practice. Continuous projectification and proliferation of temporary organising represent some of the current trends in organisations. The current research gap lies in the insufficient understanding of the commonalities between organisational aesthetics and temporary project organisations. This systematic literature review aims to contribute to the literature on temporary organisations by integrating it with organisational aesthetics, as well as to the literature on organisational aesthetics, introducing the aspect of temporality. A keyword search in Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar along with the application of the inclusion/exclusion criteria yielded the sample of 49 articles. A systematic review of the literature and further application of the grounded theory approach allowed to discern eight themes that embrace the junctures of organisational aesthetics and temporary project organisations. These themes were aggregated into four dimensions: philosophical approach, personality traits, project management approaches, and project processes along the organisational environment. Considering these dimensions may help to create an aesthetically pleasing work environment and a culture that fosters creativity and innovation in temporary project organisations. As temporary organisational settings are often used for transitions, aesthetic temporary organisations may bring along more aesthetic permanent organisations. Cross-disciplinary and cross-thematic research in this field, involving philosophy, psychology, management, organisational theory, sociology, etc., will be vital in the future.