Arts Entrepreneurship Education Research Articles

Conceptualising arts entrepreneurship education: bridging the arts and entrepreneurship within higher education settings

Despite the rise of entrepreneurship education within higher education, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education remain overlooked in the arts discipline. Existing research in arts entrepreneurship education is scarce. The current study aims to investigate stakeholder perspectives towards conceptualisations of arts entrepreneurship education within higher education, including that of first and final year undergraduate students, educators and industry professionals in the arts discipline. A questionnaire was administered for preliminary insights towards how arts students understand entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. Individual interviews were then conducted for in-depth investigation in how arts students, educators and professionals conceptualise and define arts entrepreneurship education. The findings revealed arts students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education. Moreover, diverse stakeholder viewpoints shed light upon understandings of arts entrepreneurship education, roles of relevant stakeholders and the relationship between entrepreneurship education and arts. This study highlights the value of arts entrepreneurship education, contributing to discussion on addressing gaps between arts and entrepreneurship education, and between higher education and the industry.

Advocating for Intrapreneurship in Arts Entrepreneurship Education: Developing a New Generation of Innovative Professionals

This research aims to propose a set of eight arts-based intrapreneurial projects for higher education, tailored to arts entrepreneurship students. The projects, designed for a 16-week timeframe (except one project requiring 21 weeks), provide project descriptions, learning objectives, assessment criteria, and resource requirements. To ensure feasibility and relevance, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with three experts in the field, including a project manager and creative director from a leading video production agency, an audio engineer and music producer in a multinational media conglomerate, and a creative director who transformed a Brazilian company into a multibillion-dollar empire through graphic design, music, video, and marketing services. The insights gathered from the interviews, along with an analysis and synthesis process, inform the proposed intrapreneurial projects, offering a framework for arts entrepreneurship educators to implement in their curricula.

The Educational Barriers and Needs of Tertiary Arts Entrepreneurship Education: A Case Study in the Greater Bay Area of China

This study aimed to explore the educational status of entrepreneurship education within tertiary arts education and examine the perspectives of arts experts (educators, managers, entrepreneurs, etc.) regarding the needs of students in arts institutions in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China. The study employed a qualitative method with two steps: document analysis and focus group interviews. Findings showed that entrepreneurship courses, classroom lectures, and practice-based training via entrepreneurship competition were the main teaching methods in the current state of arts entrepreneurship education in the GBA. The shortage of competent teachers and the lack of joint efforts among stakeholders are the significant barriers in developing tertiary arts entrepreneurship education in the GBA. Accordingly, to facilitate art entrepreneurship education at GBA, this study suggests improving the entrepreneurship guidance mechanism; establishing an environmental model conducive to art entrepreneurship; and strengthening cooperation among government, society, and academia to enhance art entrepreneurship education.

Libraries and Arts Entrepreneurship Education

Libraries and Arts Entrepreneurship Education

A Closer Look i nto t he Scope of Arts EntrepreneurshipEducation: Is There Any Such Thing as theAmerican a nd European Approach?

A Closer Look i nto t he Scope of Arts EntrepreneurshipEducation: Is There Any Such Thing as theAmerican a nd European Approach?

Entrepreneurial Responses to the COVID Era

The impact of COVID-19 has affected not only private citizens, but also arts entrepreneurship professionals and their respective business models. To explore both the problems experienced by professional music entrepreneurs and their solutions for navigating company survivability, growth and impact, a multiple-case qualitative research study using intensity sampling and grounded theory was conducted to uncover how professional music entrepreneurs (N = 5) succeeded in not only surviving the pandemic’s effects on their personal businesses, but also in augmenting their companies’ finances, resources and impact within the constructs of a post-COVID multimodal creative economy. The results present various themes and suggestions for implementation within music (and arts) entrepreneurship practice and education.

A Closer Look into the Scope of Arts Entrepreneurship Education

This study explores the notion, practice and potential differences of arts entrepreneurship efforts in the ways they are conceptualized and organized at higher education institutions in the United States compared to Europe. Based on a qualitative approach, the study’s main data collection method was paired interviews as a means of facilitating sustained dialogue between respondents to provide more context into potential similarities and differences. Findings show that although there are differences in the ways programs are organized, educators across the Western world seem to share similar values and face similar challenges. Students must be taught to apply context-specific and career-relevant knowledge, develop analytical, critical and self-efficacy skills and take up agency and explorative behaviors that lead to the creation of value, all of which require entrepreneurial mindsets. A more general theory of arts entrepreneurship might pave the way for enhanced training of arts entrepreneurship educators and promote greater inclusivity in terms of cultural expression.

Amplifying the Transdisciplinary Nature of Arts Entrepreneurship Education Through Online Learning

Current moves toward online learning have promoted and continue to promote transdisciplinary education as an indispensable path forward. Time and technological advances have given us the perspective to see that many of our disciplines are more interconnected than scholars and pedagogues of the past may have thought. This interconnectedness allows us to develop individually held senses of belonging within our students and a more solidified representation of arts entrepreneurship education. Online education provides inexhaustible resources and delivery methods for educators to provide multiple entry points for students. This piece makes a case for the notion that instruction via the internet enables students and educators to connect with people worldwide and provides additional ways to connect and engage with course material for individuals with varying learning styles. This piece also provides a model of a post-secondary course that can be used to explore arts entrepreneurship.

Case Studies: A Brief Introduction and Suggested Guidelines for the Field

Case studies are a common teaching and learning tool within entrepreneurship and its parent discipline, business, as a method of bringing the nuances of realism to complex theoretical problems. However, within the
 arts entrepreneurship field, they are used less frequently for pedagogical purposes and often with hesitation. Consequently, in this guide to the Case Study Edition, I aim to briefly:
 
 provide a rationale for using case studies in arts entrepreneurship education;
 illustrate what makes a good case study;
 highlight the mechanics of writing case studies by clearly outlining the expectations of a submission to JAEE for both traditional research cases and teaching cases;
 summarize the cases within this special issue and highlight why they demonstrate best practice example cases.

Entrepreneurial Pathways in Art

Art programs at the university level are often designed in a studio-based model where the curriculum objective is “high-levels of disciplinary expertise” (Hong, Essig, & Bridgstock, 2012). These programs graduate artists who, while highly proficient in creation and performance, must navigate a career market which is limited and highly competitive. This studio model is shifting. Many arts programs at the university level are now beginning to incorporate courses which help artists as they navigate the business of the art world, but these types of interventions still neglect opportunities to fully harness artistic skillsets of art students. 
 Arts Entrepreneurship is an emerging discipline in post-secondary education. This discipline aims address the needs of the artist while also recognizing the unique habits of mind the artist might bring into enterprise. The scope of this discipline extends beyond studio practices by considering and measuring the impact of an artists’ work. “The unique mission of arts programs and therefore a unique of arts entrepreneurship education and a defining aspect of its signature pedagogy is the practice of making art work in and for the real world” (Hong, Essig, & Bridgstock, 2012). In this discipline, artists extend the scope of their “work” beyond creation and towards practices which can future sustain an artistic venture. Arts Entrepreneurship therefore seeks to graduate artists who are able to consider and measure the scope of external impacts.
 The proposal here seeks to address the need of graduates in art education to pursue meaningful employment while also generating new potentials the artist’s role in wider society.

Development of Arts Entrepreneurship Education: Excavating and Unravelling the Knowledge Basis

Abstract Scholars have highlighted the need for a clearer knowledge, conceptualization and theorizing on the practicality of integrating arts entrepreneurship education in university programs. The objective of this study is to identify the themes in the Arts Entrepreneurship (AE) and to develop these themes to a conceptual model that describes the Arts Entrepreneurship Education (AEE). This research article fills the existing gap in the literature on the AEE through the research question: What are the key themes in AEE, and how can these themes be linked to the conceptual development of the AEE literature? This study argues that if entrepreneurship is to be viewed as a fundamental part of AEE, teachers need to have proper knowledge of the importance and inclusion in the University’s art subject curriculum. The findings identified pertinent themes, subthemes and trends several scholars have worked on finding the best practices to promote the development of AEE.

Libraries and Arts Entrepreneurship Education

In reaction to evolution in the way information is digested, libraries have undergone a transformation over the past couple of decades. Consequently, libraries everywhere have become more than just warehouses for books. Being a relatively new field, arts entrepreneurship has the opportunity to continue to grow along with libraries. This essay discusses ways that academic libraries can benefit arts entrepreneurship educators, as well as possibilities for collaboration between the two areas for research and planning events. Reaching out and establishing relationships with library personnel serves to reinforce the foundation of any arts entrepreneurship program.

On Being a Female Entrepreneur in the Arts: Comparative Experiences

This essay explores some of the issues facing female arts entrepreneurs by establishing findings from research data and comparing these findings with the experiences of two established international women artists from the culinary world and contemporary music, respectively. Themes such as revenue inequality, struggles by women to find and maintain venture capital and the dilemma of how to label women in the arts are joined by emerging conversations about the role of art in business, the importance of giving and receiving support, the dilemma of balancing family life, especially with partners who are also artistically engaged, and the role of motherhood. Implications and recommendations for further discussions in arts entrepreneurship education are provided as channels for change.

The Many Facets of Music Entrepreneurship Education

As the field of arts entrepreneurship education has developed, so has our collective understanding of the nature of arts entrepreneurship theory and pedagogy. At the same time, critical differences exist between the various arts sectors, with music entrepreneurship embodying a number of specific characteristics more or less unique to it. This essay identifies and explores five such issues and discusses the programmatic, pedagogical and theoretical implications of each, offering insights into how entrepreneurship education can benefit music students.

Best Practices for Mentoring in Arts Entrepreneurship Education: Findings From a Delphi Study

Arts entrepreneurship education is a multifaceted endeavor encompassing a diversity of learning contexts, from collegiate lecture halls to close apprenticeships and one-on-one coaching. Although existing research explores best practices for the arts entrepreneurship classroom, relatively few studies have been undertaken to explore the role of mentoring in arts endeavoring, the effectiveness of mentoring as a targeted pedagogical approach, and how mentoring might complement or even conflict with the tenets of classroom-based arts entrepreneurship education. The purpose of this study was to build consensus among established arts entrepreneurship educators regarding optimal mentoring activities, outcomes, and competencies. Eleven experts in the field of arts entrepreneurship participated in a multiphase Delphi procedure to generate and subsequently evaluate approaches to, and outcomes and characteristics of, effective mentoring. The result is a set of 43 expert-approved recommendations that can inform mentoring practice immediately and provide a foundation for future research in this still-emerging area of inquiry.

Blank Canvas

The majority of learning in arts entrepreneurship education is experiential (Essig & Guevara, 2016). Experiential and entrepreneurial learning theories indicate that to facilitate entrepreneurial knowledge generation which “enables [entrepreneurs] to recognize and act on entrepreneurial opportunities and to organize and manage new ventures” (Politis, 2005, p. 400), individuals need to exercise personal agency and engage in explorative behavior (Kolb & Kolb, 2009; Politis, 2005). If arts entrepreneurship education is to help students generate such entrepreneurial knowledge, arts entrepreneurship educators should create learning environments in which their students can exercise personal agency and behave exploratively. Despite this, how students exercise personal agency and explore within arts entrepreneurship education has not been empirically studied. This empirical paper attempts to answer the following question: How do students explore and exercise personal agency in arts entrepreneurship education? Using rigor to systematically analyze qualitative data (Gioia et al., 2013) from a five-week course in entrepreneurship in higher music education to produce a data structure and model, I find that within a teacher-created learning environment, students balance personal factors (their values and beliefs, habitual modes of thought, prior experience and personal goals) against social factors (social interdependencies and conditions of approval) while taking actions to reduce uncertainty. The findings imply that teacher-created learning environments and engagement in social contexts influences how students exercise personal agency and explore.

Blank Canvas: Explorative Behavior and Personal Agency in Arts Entrepreneurship Education

Blank Canvas: Explorative Behavior and Personal Agency in Arts Entrepreneurship Education

Entrepreneurial Learning in Arts Entrepreneurship Education: A Conceptual Framework

Increasingly, higher education has called upon arts entrepreneurship to prepare artists for sustainable careers, and to provide a platform for research on artist professional development. In response, teaching in entrepreneurship and arts entrepreneurship education has grown significantly over the past few decades (Fayolle et al., 2016), with an estimated 168 institutions with 372 offerings arts entrepreneurship courses in the US alone (Essig & Guevara, 2016). This is especially true in the field of music, where arts entrepreneurship has been readily embraced due to the entrepreneurial nature of sustaining a livelihood as a musician (Bennett, 2016; Breivik et al., 2015). The amount of research focusing on the teaching of arts entrepreneurship has followed closely behind the growth in arts entrepreneurship education – but what about research on learning arts entrepreneurship? How do arts students actually learn to be entrepreneurial? While research in arts entrepreneurship has been performed to examine curricular efforts (e.g., Beckman, 2005), the similarities and synergies of entrepreneurs and artists (e.g., Gangi, 2015), and arts entrepreneurship education as a comprehensive phenomenon of interest and study (Chang & Wyszomirski, 2015), no work has been performed to connect the field s body of knowledge to extant theoretical work directly related to experiential and entrepreneurial learning (Politis, 2005). Given that most arts entrepreneurship curricula include some form of experiential learning (Essig & Guevara, 2016), I propose a framework to advance the field s investigation of entrepreneurial learning in the arts entrepreneurship classroom. Since understanding arts entrepreneurship is context-specific (Beckman & Essig, 2012), in this article I use the specific case of music performance education in higher music education (HME) to connect empirical and theoretical literature on arts entrepreneurship education, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial competencies (Bacigalupo et al., 2016), careers in music, and social cognitive career theory (Lent et al., 2002) Synthesizing these streams of literature, I propose a conceptual framework for integrating context-specific entrepreneurial learning activities within arts entrepreneurship education. The framework developed recognizes and address the importance of context, personal agency, student-centered learning, explorative behavior and definitions in arts entrepreneurship educational activities. The framework also provides the means to analyze both mini-cases and examples of entrepreneurial learning activities which may develop entrepreneurial competencies. The article concludes with promising areas and questions for future research and as well as implications for educators.

Entrepreneurship among Public School Arts Educators: The Case of Music Teachers in New York State

This survey study explored the entrepreneurial dispositions and behaviors of public school music teachers in New York State to better understand the incidence of arts venturing in highly bureaucratic school environments. On a broader level, the study brings to light the need for entrepreneurship pedagogy tailored for school-based arts educators, who constitute a large segment of the creative economy yet are virtually ignored in the teaching and learning of entrepreneurial skills. From a sampling frame of 1,351 teachers, 576 responded to an online questionnaire for a response rate of 42.6%. The questionnaire was modeled after previously- validated scales and assessed respondents’ history, intentions, and perceptions related to entrepreneurship. Results showed that a large proportion of the teachers surveyed were already creating new musical ventures at their schools or planning to do so in the near future. Further, teachers who were familiar with the tenets of entrepreneurship, possessed business experience, or whose postsecondary education included entrepreneurship coursework, reported stronger entrepreneurial self-efficacy, better support from their schools for innovative projects, and a higher likelihood of launching new pedagogical endeavors in the near future. Findings of this study underscore the broad appeal of an entrepreneurial worldview across a variety of arts subdisciplines, suggesting the adoption of a wider and more inclusive scope for the enterprise of arts entrepreneurship education.

With their feet on the ground: a quantitative study of music students’ attitudes towards entrepreneurship education

ABSTRACTThe present study examines students’ attitudes toward entrepreneurship education. The context of the study are the arts, where we empirically test whether different dimensions of arts entrepreneurship education are recognized by students from higher music education institutes in the Netherlands. Specifically, we investigate 167 music students’ perceived need for various entrepreneurship education topics, because students’ concurrent attitudes toward entrepreneurship education may affect their future career behaviours. Our findings suggest that students embrace a holistic approach to entrepreneurship education, in terms of new venture creation, being enterprising, and employability and career self-management. Values such as a passion for music and the need for autonomy are not at odds with the perceived need for entrepreneurship education in relation to vocational work. As one of the first attempts to quantitatively investigate students’ perceived need for entrepreneurship education (PNEE), this study is a stepping stone for future quantitative research in this area.