A paradigm change: Aesthetics in the management of organisations

•Aesthetics of organisations as its object of study and identifies, from a semiotic perspective.•Identifications of the dimensions and variables to take into account in the organisational analysis from the classical theoretical perspective.•A conceptual matrix with nine dimensions for the analysis is obtained, which allows for the design or outline of a possible typology of organisational beauty.•The dimensions and variables identified were validated on the basis of three empirical investigations carried out using a semiotic-based method. This research studies the aesthetics of organisations and identifies, from a semiotic perspective, the elements of the aesthetics of organisations and their workers’ perceptions of them. This research adds to the theoretical development of a new paradigm using a qualitative, retrospective, cross-sectional methodological approach and non-experimental design. To validate the dimensions and variables identified, three empirical research studies were carried out on a sample of 346 people using a semiotic-based method. The study is also quantitative, as the results obtained from the surveys are presented in numerical form in the semiotic matrix, which identifies the dimensions involved in the aesthetics of the organisations. The main contribution of the study is the design of a typology of organisational beauty by which to analyse the aesthetic dimensions of organisations.