« Joindre l’agréable à l’utile »

Artist, craftsman, businessman, writer, and socialist thinker—William Morris lived a thousand lives. Yet one unifying principle guided his endeavors: that of making beauty the driving force of work. As a company director, William Morris upheld this ambition in the running of the workshops he founded...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: Philippe, Xavier, Meyer, Vincent, Culié, Jean-Denis
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Langue:Français
Publié: 2025
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Description
Résumé:Artist, craftsman, businessman, writer, and socialist thinker—William Morris lived a thousand lives. Yet one unifying principle guided his endeavors: that of making beauty the driving force of work. As a company director, William Morris upheld this ambition in the running of the workshops he founded and directed. The aim of this article is therefore to highlight the originality of William Morris’s managerial thinking, by revealing how it provides an aesthetic response to the way in which work is conceived and organized. Using a methodological approach applied to research in business history, we show that William Morris’s managerial thinking can be seen as an aesthetic organization of work based on three imperatives: beauty, evident utility, and quality.