Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette Art Thinking
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The Improbable Chair by Galeries Lafayette is all about bringing together artists and entrepreneurs, linking art with business in a new way.
It supports creative practices by connecting artists with entrepreneurs, businesses with cultural institutions, and artistic creation with business strategy. It encourages everyone to embrace the "improbable" to think like creators. Through a unique method called "Art Thinking," developed at ESCP, the Galeries Lafayette group and ESCP offer a way to support, encourage, and spread the act of creation.
A few words from
Guillaume Houzé
Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette group
“The Improbable Chair is all about bringing together artists and entrepreneurs, linking art with business in a new way. It supports creative practices by connecting artists with entrepreneurs, businesses with cultural institutions, and artistic creation with business strategy. It encourages everyone to embrace the ‘improbable’ to think like creators. Through a unique method called ‘Art Thinking’, developed at ESCP, the Galeries Lafayette group and ESCP offer a way to support, encourage, and spread the act of creation.”
Guillaume Houzé, Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette group Photo Credit: ©Lucasziwel
A few words from
Sylvain Bureau
Professor at ESCP Business School
Scientific Director of the Improbable Chair
“Our initial belief was simple: to make creation accessible to as many people as possible. To achieve this, we developed a method called Art Thinking, which characterises how artists, entrepreneurs, and scientists go through similar steps in the creative process, such as gift-giving, deviating, destroying and drifting. For 15 years, our Art-Thinking seminars have trained thousands of students, entrepreneurs, managers, and researchers across a dozen countries and twenty universities and schools. Partnering with Galeries Lafayette group, a company with a strong entrepreneurial DNA, our chair combines theory and practice to amplify this approach and promote creators and creation in the broadest sense.”
Professor Sylvain Bureau, Scientific Director of the Improbable Chair
Objectives
The Chair has two major complementary goals:
- Support scientific research to better understand creative practices
- Teach the Art Thinking method and spread the Improbable pedagogy worldwide
Art Thinking not only helps participants unleash their innate creative potential; it also promotes collaboration, listening, leadership, negotiation, and constructive dialogue. Participants learn to question themselves, leverage failure, establish partnerships, and develop an agile approach to uncertainty.
Three areas of activity
- Scientific publications
- Doctoral theses and final dissertations
- Improbable Siesta: seminar bringing together researchers, artists, and experts in creation
- Spreading the Improbable method at ESCP and beyond
- Designing initial training in Art Thinking
- Training Art Thinking instructors
- Conferences and workshops on Art Thinking
- Exhibitions and Improbable openings
- Improbable residencies (artist/scientist/entrepreneur triads)
“This Chair is the story of an encounter between visionary creators who understood early on how future generations of students and entrepreneurs would need artistic and creative practices to prepare for the world of tomorrow. Through this collaboration, ESCP is grateful to the Galeries Lafayette group for opening up new playgrounds for unprecedented and improbable creations!”
Pascale Pernet, Director of chairs and corporate sponsorship
ppernet@escp.eu
Focus on...

Article
On Tuesday, 19th March 2024, Léon Laulusa, Dean and Executive President of ESCP, Jean-Stéphane Arcis, President of the ESCP Foundation, Philippe Houzé, Chairman of the Management Board of the Galeries Lafayette group, and Guillaume Houzé, Brand and Communications Director, Galeries Lafayette group, signed the first Chair dedicated to artistic and entrepreneurial creation.
Research Monograph (Working papers)
2011
Subsidiary Initiatives in Multinational Corporations: What Do we Know about them, their Antecedents and their Consequences?
ESCP Europe Working Paper, no. No. 59, 2011
Paper presented in a Conference
2011
Subsidiary Initiatives: What Do we Know about them, their Antecedents and their Consequences?
in 11th Vaasa Conference on International Business, 2011, Vaasa, Finland
Conference Proceedings
2011
Successfully creating value for the consumers and capturing value for the firm : the Apple case
in 16° International EAERCD Conference on Research in the Distributive Trades, Universita' di Parma, 2011, Parma, Italy
Chapter
2011
Suggestions for Completing the Assignments of the Case Study: The Acquisition of Reebok by Adidas
in Fallstudien zum Internationalen Management: Lösungen., Zentes, J., Swoboda, B. and Morschett, D. (Eds.) Eds, Gabler, pp. 14 p., 2011
Contribution on blogs and Social Networks
2011
Sur la carence de l'entrepreneuriat en droit
2011, Le blog CCIP
Chapter
2011
Survey Evidence on Financing Decisions and Cost of Capital
in Capital Structure and Corporate Financing Decisions - Theory, Evidence, and Practice., BAKER H. K., MARTIN G. Eds, John Wiley, pp. pp. 229-248 20 p., 2011
Habilitation Dissertation
2011
Synthèse de recherche
Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2011
Textbook
2011
Tableaux de bord
2011, Les essentiels RF, Paris, France
Studies and Reports commissioned by Companies and Research Agencies
2011
Talent Management im Mittelstand - mit innovativen Strategien gegen den Fachkräftemangel
2011
Paper presented in a Conference
2011
Testing the cultural universality of young adult consumer purchase decision-making styles : empirical results from Turkey, Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Egypt.
in International journal of management cases, 2011, Dubrovnik, Croatia