Art for Art’s Sake?: An Exploratory Study of the Possibility to Align Works of Art With an Organization’s Identity

Some companies invest large amounts of money in corporate art collections. One of the reasons for this investment may be that works of art can be used to communicate corporate identity. The aim of this study was to explore whether people are able to align a work of art with a given corporate identity. Forty-six participants rated the fit of eight works of art with four different corporate identities of existing companies. The results showed that participants agree strongly with respect to whether a work of art was aligned with a specific identity. That works of art can be recognized as aligned with a company’s identity has important implications for companies that use reproductions of works of art to decorate their walls insofar as customers may take the art as a symbol of the company’s identity.