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In this paper I suggest, on the one hand, that organization theory offers an interpretation of the reality of arts producing organizations and, on the other, that the empirical analysis of these realities can supply new input for organization theory. As a practical example of artistic production I refer to an international chamber music festival. Close inspection of chamber music will reveal characteristics that apply to any type of organization. I begin by looking at the nature of arts management and the arts manager. I go on to analyse the characteristics of the production process in the performing arts, which can be seen as communication taking place on three levels: between audience and performers (concept of `prosumer'); within the performing group (`listening ability'); between the author of the written text and the performer/ interpreter (`concept of value'). I finish by showing how in a symbolic-cultural framework the features identified in the paper can feed back into organization studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses kitsch as the discourse of depriving experience of beauty and surprise. It argues that people often construct kitsch when they organize Three different Kitsch- Organizations are depicted: the Polish communist youth organization from the 1950-ties. a foreign enterprise operating currently in Poland, and a school of organizational behavior, Kitsch, not being equivalent to "low" or "popular" culture is a degrading construct, Adopted as a second level metaphor to the studies of organizations, it can be of use for critical social constructivist analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay contrasts two different modes of iconic appropriation and organizational symbolism, with reference to a single physical structure: on the one hand, that of a local folk society, seeking to define itself and preserve its distinctiveness as against the wider nation state of which it is a part; and, on the other hand, that of the nation-state itself, seeking to incorporate the diverse elements out of which it is constituted into a coherent synthesis. Both modes operate by selecting particular elements out of the material remains and recoding them within specific ideologies, although they go about their "symbolic work" in strikingly different ways, the one technologically passive and the other technologically proactive. Moreover, of these two appropriations, one (that of the nation) is hegemonic, in that it imposes itself and pre-empts the other. By reference to diverse historical examples, the discussion in the latter part of the paper attempts to elucidate the salient features of symbolic hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]