Arts Entrepreneurship Education Research Articles

Artists and the Rite of Passage North to the Temperate Zone

For an aspiring Australian artist, a sojourn north to the world’s large cultural centres has become a rite of passage and to some extent a requirement to achieve recognition both abroad and at home. Many of Australia’s most recognised artists have spent some or a considerable amount of time abroad, such as musician Peter Sculthorpe, painter Arthur Streeton and contemporary indigenous photographer Tracy Moffatt. Despite the frequency of this rite of passage, Australian art continues to struggle to achieve significant international recognition. This article considers the influence of this rite of passage for Australian artists in the context of a rapidly changing global art world, which is increasingly subject to changing production and consumption patterns. It does so in the context of what Bourdieu describes as a cultural field and which involves a complex arrangement of horizontal and vertical power relationships. The paper also considers the extent to which this rite of passage is relevant in the second decade of the 21st century and for a nation which, although having strong historical ties to Britain in particular, is geographically closer to Asia and in a time of the Asian century.

Integrating Entrepreneurship into the Design Classroom: Case Studies from the Developing World

Developing countries are more and more committed to building a knowledge-based economy as a means to diversify from their current resource-based economy. The current focus of many governments is on technology with real insights on creative economy and arts. In this context, universities are seen as a key partner of the government. This article presents the results of two innovative case studies of professors working in the College of Art and Design collaborating with a professor in the College of Business to integrate the concepts of entrepreneurship into their interior design courses. This was done through designing space for entrepreneurial projects and by the students acting as entrepreneurs themselves with an external client. This dual model of training combines (1) learning processes about the habits and the needs of entrepreneurs and (2) learning by acting as an entrepreneur. Such methods demonstrate the role of universities to provide a proper theoretical background for students and to foster entrepreneurial behaviors through arts entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the central role of professors to introduce innovative teaching methods to combine entrepreneurship and the creative economy into non-business courses is an important finding in these case studies.

Arts entrepreneurship education in the UK and Germany

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the current state of arts entrepreneurship education at higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the UK and Germany. It is based on findings from questionnaire surveys among 210 lecturers in fine art at 89 HEIs in the UK and Germany.Design/methodology/approachThis paper explores issues related to fine art curriculum in higher education in the UK and Germany via survey questionnaires among 210 fine art lecturers with focus on arts entrepreneurship.FindingsThe study shows evidence that an arts entrepreneurship education, although considered by lecturers to be important and necessary for the professional and entrepreneurial preparation of fine art graduates, is definitely not implemented at HEIs, in neither the UK nor Germany.Practical implicationsThe findings stimulate the discussion in the field of arts entrepreneurship and the redesigning of fine art curriculum to prepare fine art graduates for their entrepreneurial and professional careers.Originality/valueThere is still a marked paucity of research that focusses on arts entrepreneurship education. This study contributes to the knowledge by presenting specific findings related to fine art curriculum.

Towards Consensus: Suggested Foundational Building Blocks for Arts Entrepreneurship Research and Pedagogy

The continued creation of new arts entrepreneurship programs at the university level highlights the need for consensus among arts entrepreneurship researchers and educators about what we are teaching and researching. This article explores the possibility of consensus among business entrepreneurship scholars and arts entrepreneurship scholars, and suggests that a general conception of entrepreneurship is a unifying principle and foundational building block. A theory of entrepreneurship, effectuation, is presented as another building block for arts entrepreneurship research and education, resulting in potentially profound implications. Finally, a proposed unified vision for the field of arts entrepreneurship education is presented, formulated from existing arts entrepreneurship scholarship.

The Synergies of Artistic and Entrepreneurial Action

Arts Entrepreneurship education as a field continues to grow, but misperceptions of entrepreneurship seem to cause confusion among arts students, faculty, and administrators regarding the value of entrepreneurial training to higher education arts programs. These misperceptions are explored to determine if entrepreneurship, for artists, is harmful or helpful. By articulating the theoretical essence of entrepreneurship, it is suggested that entrepreneurial action is profoundly synergetic with artistic action and purpose, and that arts faculty and administrators can embrace entrepreneurship education and its value to aspiring professional artists.

Toward a Theory of Arts Entrepreneurship

The Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education provides a national inventory of Arts Entrepreneurship programs and currently identifies at least ninety-six institutions offering courses and programs dedicated to the study of entrepreneurship in the context of the arts. Research suggests such courses are commonly associated with new venture creation across the arts and creative sector, as well as the teaching and learning of skills, competencies and behaviors necessary for selfemployment in the arts and creative industries. However, despite the existence of such courses and programs, there currently exists no proposed theory or theories of arts entrepreneurship in nascent literature for guiding contextual entrepreneurship pedagogy and practice. In an effort to advance the concept of arts entrepreneurship, this paper identifies challenges to theory building, explores a theory of arts entrepreneurship, and proposes how a theory of arts entrepreneurship can inform program theory development.

The Aesthetic Value Exchange: A Potential Framework for the Arts Entrepreneurship Classroom

This article presents an argument for a distinct educational framework more relevant to the aspirations of arts entrepreneurs by outlining commonly used business-based entrepreneurship structures when building an entrepreneurial venture within the realm of the arts. Disparities between the arts and business schools of thought are addressed and dissected within the context of arts entrepreneurship. Proposed is an auxiliary framework for arts entrepreneurship education, which delineates an aesthetic paradigm within entrepreneurial activity.

Responding to the Needs and Challenges of Arts Entrepreneurs: An Exploratory Study of Arts Entrepreneurship in North Carolina Higher Education

To address the call for examination of academic and professional approaches to arts entrepreneurship, we summarize the academic arts entrepreneurship programs in the State ofNorth Carolina and conduct a pilot study with data gathered from arts entrepreneurs who attended the 5th annual Southern Entrepreneurship in the Arts Conference in Greensboro, NorthCarolina. Our review of the descriptive data reveals that arts entrepreneurs face a variety of needs and challenges, which are psychological (e.g., peer support) as well as technical (e.g., start-up skills). These findings suggest that, as prior literature stresses, arts entrepreneurship education programs should entail both the “entrepreneurship mindset” aspect and the “venture creation” aspect, so we advocate a holistic approach that combines both these perspectives with other related courses. We conclude, based on our exploratory study, that collaborative and flexible approaches, such as cross-campus programs for arts entrepreneurship education in higher education, could have beneficial outcomes for art entrepreneurs. Implications for future research are discussed.

Barriers to Recognizing Arts Entrepreneurship Education as Essential to Professional Arts Training

While many professional arts training programs prepare students to excel at the practice and performance of the arts, evidence suggests that many professional arts training programs may be failing to prepare students to be professional artists. A total of 11.1% of all recent college graduates with undergraduate arts degrees are unemployed (Carnevale, Cheah, & Strohl, 2012, p. 7). Fifty-two percent of arts undergraduate alumni reported being dissatisfied with their institution's ability to advise them about further career or education opportunities (SNAAP, 2012, p. 14). Eighty-one percent of all arts undergraduate alumni reported having a primary job outside of the arts for reasons of job security (SNAAP, 2012, p. 19). Many arts higher education administrators address the situation by advising arts students to attend business and entrepreneurship courses. However, these courses are often taught or presented outside of an arts training context. Arts entrepreneurship education can serve as contextual business/career/technology education for arts students; however, barriers make it difficult for administrators to create adequate curricular room for arts entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the teaching and learning of contextual business/career/technology education in professional arts training programs may often be thought of as helpful but not essential, as evidenced by the National Office of Arts Accreditation (NOAA) classification of these types of courses as general education units. This essay supports the need for arts entrepreneurship education, and discusses key barriers to recognizing arts entrepreneurship education as essential to professional arts training.

Not a dirty word: Arts entrepreneurship and higher education

While the majority of creative, performing and literary artists are self-employed, relatively few tertiary arts schools attempt to develop capabilities for venture creation and management (and entrepreneurship more broadly) and still fewer do so effectively. This article asks why this is the case. It addresses underlying conceptual and philosophical issues encountered by arts educators, arguing that in all three senses of the term – new venture creation, career self-management, and being enterprising – entrepreneurship is essential to career success in the arts. However, the practice of entrepreneurship in the arts is significantly different from the practice of entrepreneurship in business, in terms of the artist’s drivers and aims, as well as the nature of entrepreneurial opportunities, contexts and processes. These differences mean that entrepreneurship curricula cannot simply be imported from business schools. This article also examines the arts-idiosyncratic challenge of negotiating distinctive and potentially conflicting entrepreneurial aims, using career identity theory. It concludes by suggesting strategies by which adaptive entrepreneurial artist identities can be developed through higher education programs.