Is Management an Art or Science?

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about principles and facts, and the same is the case with management. Management process takes place by years of research to come up with a theory which would result in a correct outcome in assisting a business to achieve its task set.

Management as an Art

Irgens (2014) defines art ’As a way of “being and acting in the world,” where quality depends on the ability to illuminate the multi-level world’. This implies that, through art we can look at things differently, in a more creative sense which can lead to interesting ideas. Moreover, art can not only cause the organization, management, and the work to become more effective, but

also more attractive, interesting, meaningful and original (Meisiek and Barry, 2014). However, Darsø (2004) claimed that arts in business involved can be used for different functions such as entertainment, for decoration, as instruments for example communication and team building, or in integration with the strategic processes of transformation. This way art becomes a tool or a technique instead of being a way of approaching, seeing, sensing, understanding, creating, and acting (Darsø, 2004; Irgens, 2014).

On the other hand, art and artists sharpen people’s attention to their environment, force them to take risks, help in developing new responses or solutions to challenges, help people get in touch with their creative selves, and legitimize an aesthetic sense of performances (Schein, 2001). Furthermore, Schein suggests that ’Studying artists can produce important insights into what it means to perform, lead, and manage’. Additionally, management practitioners began to invite artists to help them with ways of inquiring and seeing, and their ability to make abstract issues tangible (Antal, 2013; Barry and Meisiek, 2010). Artists organize cultural projects with companies, innovation centres invite artists to gain inspiration for new technological applications, companies commission organizational theatre for change processes, agencies like and business schools call artists to gain from them in their training sessions and development programmes for the employees (Brellochs and Schrat, 2005; Harris, 1999; Meisiek, 2004; Baker and Baker, 2012; Taylor and Carboni, 2008). This shows that the way artists think can be helpful for organizations to overcome the problems being faced, hence proving Darsø’s claims wrong.

As mentioned above that schools invite artists for educational purposes. This is done for the reasons of learning abstract concepts and skill training (Adler, 2006; Buswick and Seifter, 2005; Springborg, 2012). This way students can be educated on and distinguish abstract concepts, for instance in organizational theory or area of leadership (Hatch and Yanow, 2008; Carroll and Flood 2010). This gives students an additional skill of looking at problems or coming up with unique ideas. They would also learn to understand human behaviour, or example their colleagues or consumers’, and also give then confidence in their socialising skills. According to Hjorth (2007), ’Shakespearean plays are used to illustrate charisma, resilience, or the power of rhetoric’. Films assist students to understand how organizational culture enables and constrains individual behaviours (Carroll & Flood, 2010).

Looking at the above points on how art is being used in educational purposes by schools, it can be concludes that once a student is educated and trained properly, he will have the correct knowledge and understanding of, for example, consumer buying habits, financial systems and measures, and theories of motivation. This is very useful in the fields of accounting, economics, finance, marketing, human resource and psychology.