Art Experience and Human Resources’ Perception

Although theoretical publications maintain that art experience influences human perception positively and although corporations invest significantly into the arts (e.g. corporate art collections, sponsoring) the potential of art experience as a human resource development tool has been neglected in empirical management research. Taking into account a philosophical and a psychological perspective and based on a case study of the Siemens Arts Program's "Kulturzeiten" - an established and elaborate art experience program targeted at corporate human resources - Denise Sumpf analyses empirically whether art experience contributes to a reduction of perceptual biases in managerial decision-making (e.g. stereotyping, halo effects, overconfidence bias). The results show that art experience tackles several perceptual biases, but its efficacy and efficiency as a human resource development tool depend on a number of variables. Decisive are, for instance, the quality of the intermediary, the amount and intensity of exposure to art, or the composition of the participant group.