Open Access

Monika Blattmeier

• This chapter focuses on how to bring knowledge to life in business processes. It provides an example of metaphor as a product of theorizing—see Table 2.1 in Chap. 2. The chapter applies the metaphor of the atmosphere to describe a different type of business process. The traditional business process is a series of tasks performed in a sequence that has a beginning and an ending. The aesthetic business process is made up of experiences—much like how one experiences the atmosphere—as a result of the elements and conditions present in the business process. Where the traditional business process improves outcomes by linking services or tasks in parallel (e.g., horizontally across different functional departments), focusing on the aesthetic business process improves the overall outcome in different ways, by constructing various “atmospheres,” in particular working on the “thinking” atmosphere (engendering independent thinking in constructing business processes) and the “sensing” atmosphere (feeling what works in a business process). The concept of aesthetic business processes aims to stimulate aesthetic satisfaction in digitalized business processes so that new thinking necessary for business process design becomes possible.