Legitimating Business Skills in Fine Arts Education: The Role of Entrepreneurial Orientation

(en anglais seulement)

Kostas Alexiou, Jennifer Wiggins

Kostas Alexiou is Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Sykes College of Business at the University of Tampa. His research focuses on hybrid organizations, social entrepreneurship, and commercialization within non-profit organizations.
Jennifer Wiggins is Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Kent State University. Her research focuses on consumers’ willingness to donate to nonprofit organizations, willingness to pay for arts experiences, and willingness to contribute to new arts and social ventures. 

ABSTRACT
Success in an artistic field requires business as well as artistic training, but researchers have repeatedly noted that artists lack business skills and are reluctant to acquire them. The authors suggest that this is due to a conflict between a market orientation, usually associated with commercial or business skills, and the artistic logic that dominates artists’ approach to career management. However, an Entrepreneurial orientation, which includes dimensions such as autonomy, innovativeness and proactiveness, is consistent with both artistic and commercial logics. The authors argue that this hybrid logic should be viewed as more legitimate by artists, and that academic programs positioned with an entrepreneurial orientation should be made more attractive. Two randomized laboratory experiments show that while both market-oriented and entrepreneurially oriented programs are viewed as legitimate, the latter are preferred by artists, due primarily to the emphasis on proactiveness.

KEYWORDS
Education, training, entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation, legitimacy