Aalto Organizational Communication Group
Research and teaching in the unit of Organizational Communication focuses on the social and communicative practices through which organizations, communities, and societies are managed and organized.
CHARISMA: Leadership and Organizing in the Performing Arts
CHARISMA is a research project on leadership, organizing and artistic excellence in professional performing arts organizations. The project examines how high-performing orchestras in the field of classical music sustain exceptional artistic work while navigating the demands of coordination, accountability, professional autonomy, and responsible leadership.
About the project
Performing arts organizations in the field of classical music occupy a distinctive place in contemporary society. They are expected to produce outstanding artistic work, preserve artistic autonomy and creativity, remain financially sustainable, reach diverse audiences, and demonstrate public relevance through outreach and inclusion initiatives that increasingly extend artistic work beyond traditional concert halls into schools, public spaces, and community settings.
These expectations make performing arts organizations, and symphony orchestras in particular, revealing contexts for studying leadership and organizing. Their work depends on highly specialized artistic expertise, strong professional autonomy, and shared commitments to artistic excellence, yet it also requires administration, coordination, financial responsibility, and public accountability. Leadership in this context is therefore not only a matter of artistic vision, but also of organizing the conditions that make collective artistic work possible.
CHARISMA examines the organizational conditions that make artistic excellence possible. It examines how artistic authority is exercised, how professional commitments are sustained, and how artistic and administrative responsibilities are coordinated in the everyday work of classical music organizations.
Research themes
CHARISMA starts from the idea that artistic excellence is not produced by individual talent alone. It also depends on the organizational conditions that support artistic work: authority relations, professional norms, shared commitments, administrative practices, and everyday forms of collaboration. The project examines how these conditions are created, maintained, and sometimes challenged in classical music organizations.
The project focuses on three interrelated themes.
Leadership and authority
In performing arts organizations, artistic leadership often rests not only on formal position, but also on professional recognition, artistic judgment, reputation, and trust. CHARISMA examines how artistic leadership and authority are established, exercised, and challenged in these organizations. Particular attention is paid to charismatic authority: how certain individuals come to be seen as artistically compelling, how their influence is sustained, and how performers, administrators, and other organizational members respond to that authority in everyday work.
Cultures of excellence
The pursuit of artistic excellence gives classical music organizations their purpose and identity. At the same time, high artistic standards must be interpreted, negotiated, and sustained in everyday work. CHARISMA examines how ideas of excellence shape collaboration, responsibility, evaluation, and professional relationships in classical music organizations.
Organizing artistic work
Artistic work in performing arts organizations depends on many forms of coordination that often remain invisible to audiences. CHARISMA studies how tasks are divided, responsibilities are negotiated, and collaboration is sustained across artistic and administrative domains. It examines how organizations can support artistic autonomy while also strengthening coordination, accountability, and sustainable working conditions
Research Team
Pauliina Valtasaari | Postdoctoral researcher
Pauliina Valtasaari holds a Doctor of Music (D.Mus.) degree from the University of the Arts Helsinki. Dr. Valtasaari’s doctoral dissertation examined the interplay between artistic collaboration, individuality, and psychosocial well-being in symphony orchestras and identified psychosocial stressors —such as competition, criticism, and interpersonal tensions—that undermine creativity and cohesion. In addition to her background as a professional musician, Valtasaari has worked as a professional supervisor and lecturer specializing in occupational wellbeing and ethically sustainable organizational culture in arts organizations. She is particularly interested in artists’ wellbeing and has served as President of the Finnish Music Medicine Association from 2020 to 2023. She holds a leadership position as the orchestra manager of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.
Tuomo Huhdanpää | Doctoral Researcher
Tuomo Huhdanpää holds a master’s degree in music from the Sibelius Academy and has a rich background as a professional musician, producer, manager, and entrepreneur in the music industry. Throughout his career as a musician and arts manager, Huhdanpää has worked with some of the world’s most renowned conductors, enriching his understanding of the artistic and organizational dynamics within the field. He has previously worked as the Executive Director of Avanti and The General Manager of VIVO Symphony Orchestra. Huhdanpää is currently a doctoral student in the Aalto Doctoral Program in Business, Economics and Finance. His doctoral dissertation research focuses on leadership in creative work within the context of the performing arts.
Johanna Moisander | Principal investigator
Johanna Moisander is a Full Professor at Aalto University, Department of Management Studies. She holds a doctoral degree, D.SC. (econ), from Helsinki School of Economics. Her research focuses on emotions, power and politics in institutional and organizational life. She has examined these themes in several theoretical and empirical contexts, including art and media organizations, organizational institutionalism, corporate responsibility, and critical diversity and inclusion studies. Since 1999, she has also been active in the interdisciplinary field of media and arts management as a researcher, teacher, and academic leader.
Research environment
CHARISMA is based at Aalto University School of Business and the project draws on the expertise of the Aalto Organizational Communication Group, whose research examines how communication, discourse, power, and social interaction shape organizational life.
CHARISMA is also connected to the CAOS – Creativity and Arts in Organizations and Society Network. CAOS provides an interdisciplinary research environment for examining creativity, arts, culture, and organizing in contemporary society.
Creativity and Arts in Organizations and Society (CAOS)
Aalto early-career research community exploring art and creativity in organizations and society