




































Microsoft Word - perspectives_part 3 final.docx


Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts Volume 5, Issue 2 
http://artivate.org pp. 3-6 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 
Copyright © 2016, the authors  

PERSPECTIVES ON ARTS ENTREPRENEURSHIP, PART 3 
Neville Vakharia, Drexel University 
Gordon Shockley, Arizona State University 
Laura Zabel, Springboard for the Arts 

We offer this as the third installment in our opinion series, “Perspectives,” in which we 
invite Artivate’s editorial board members and contributors to respond to open-ended prompts 
about: their position in relation to arts entrepreneurship; how arts entrepreneurship is situated in 
relation to other disciplines or fields; what problems we are grappling with as scholars, 
practitioners, teachers, and artists; and what are the research questions we are attempting to 
answer individually or as a field. This issue’s is a particularly diverse selection, drawn from 
various disciplines and across the transdisciplinary spectrum of scholarship and practice. We 
welcome our newest editorial board member, Neville Vakharia, with his essay on knowledge 
centricity and showcase the perspectives of two of our founding editorial board members, 
Gordon Shockley, professor of community resources and development at Arizona State 
University, and Laura Zabel, executive director of Springboard for the Arts, who concludes with 
provocative questions for those who undertake research as the core of their enterprise. 

Knowledge Centricity and the Artist Entrepreneur 
Neville Vakharia 
Drexel University 

As the United States continues its evolution to a post-industrial knowledge society, 
economic growth will continue to be driven by organizations and people that are able to create 
and use knowledge to advance their goals. Knowledge is now both an economic variable and an 
economic activity (Machlup, 1962). Knowledge workers, who work with their heads – not their 
hands – to produce ideas and information, are driving innovation and growth (Drucker, 1967). 
Since so many artists work with their hands to realize their artistic vision, how could they play a 
stronger role in our knowledge society? 

I believe we need to start with the framework of knowledge centricity, which is built on 
the foundation of the critical role that knowledge plays within organizational structures and 
within a knowledge society. A knowledge-centric organization uses collective knowledge to 
advance organizational goals (Crawford, Hasan, Linger, & Warne, 2009), gaining a competitive 
edge through an increased ability to innovate, operate more effectively, and respond rapidly to 
changes in the environment (Grant, 1996). 

In my own research on knowledge centricity in arts and cultural organizations, I found 
that organizations that exhibit knowledge-centric practices with regard to their leadership, 
technology, and staff development were positively associated with improved financial and 
operational performance (Vakharia & Janardhan, 2015). In developing a working definition of a 
knowledge-centric arts organization, I also found that many organizations were struggling with 
the practice of knowledge creation as a means to advance their goals, jeopardizing their 
sustainability and relevance. Individual artists, too, face challenges of sustainability and 
relevance in their own careers, though there is limited research on the role of knowledge creation 
and artists. 

Could knowledge centricity be applied to the individual artist as entrepreneur? Going 
further, would knowledge-centric artists be better equipped to build a sustainable career by 
leveraging more opportunities for their work? Because artists are individuals that must adopt 



Vakharia, Shockley, and Zabel            Perspectives on Arts Entrepreneurship, Part 3 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

                                                 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 5 (2)   

 4 

“entrepreneurial habits of mind in their practice” (Essig, 2014, p. 6), I would posit that 
knowledge centricity could play a key role for artists seeking to advance their careers. However, 
without empirical research leading to a definition of a knowledge-centric artist, we cannot 
understand how artists might benefit from knowledge centricity or what impact it could have on 
their work. Such research into adapting the concepts of knowledge centricity from organizations 
to individuals could be a valuable effort that would provide artists with useful insights into 
practices that might enhance their entrepreneurial success. This would require the development 
of new measures of success as well as an assessment of individual practices that create 
knowledge. 
 The benefits of creating a framework of knowledge centricity for artists could be 
significant for multiple stakeholders. Artists would better understand how certain practices and 
approaches could improve the reach, scope, and impact of their work. Academic researchers 
would be able to take a proactive leadership role in developing and implementing a research 
agenda with immediate applicability to artists, rapidly putting theory into practice. Institutions 
that serve and support artists could strengthen their efforts by focusing on those efforts that 
would enhance knowledge centricity and entrepreneurial success.  
 In a knowledge-driven society and economy, artists must create with both their hands and 
their heads. Adapting the concepts of knowledge centricity could ensure that the role of the artist 
in our society continues to grow in relevance and impact.  
 
References 
Crawford, K., Hasan, H., Warne, L., & Linger, H. (2009). From traditional knowledge 

management in hierarchical organizations to a network centric paradigm for a changing 
world. Emergence: Complexity and Organization, 11 (1), 1-18. 

Drucker, P. (1967). The Effective Executive. Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Row. 
Essig, L. The ouroboros of arts entrepreneurship. Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the 

Arts, 4 (1), 5-7. 
Grant, R. M. (1996). Toward a knowledge‐based theory of the firm. Strategic Management 

Journal, 17 (S2), 109-122. 
Machlup, F. (1962). The production and distribution of knowledge in the United States. 

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 
Vakharia, N. K. & Janardhan, D. (2015, July). The knowledge-centric arts organization: 

Connecting practice to performance. Paper presented at the International Conference on 
Arts and Cultural Management. 

 
The NEA in the 1990s: Advent of the Age of Arts Entrepreneurship 

Gordon E. Shockley 
Arizona State University 

 We now live in the Age of Arts Entrepreneurship. Thanks to the efforts of projects like 
Artivate, it is axiomatic that the arts must be entrepreneurial to survive. I believe that the advent 
of the Age of Arts Entrepreneurship can be traced to the travails of the National Endowment for 
the Arts (NEA or Endowment) in the 1990s. To survive the 1990s, the NEA engaged in 
entrepreneurship – policy entrepreneurship – in order to survive repeated, credible threats to the 
agency’s existence.     
  You might recall that the convergence of controversial art exhibits of, for example, those 
of Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and the NEA Four in the late 1980s and early 1990s 



Vakharia, Shockley, and Zabel            Perspectives on Arts Entrepreneurship, Part 3 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

                                                 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 5 (2)   

 5 

and the conservative politics of Sen. Jesse Helms, Rep. Newt Gingich, and the Republican 
Revolution of the 104th Congress threatened the existence of a budgetarily tiny and hitherto 
obscure federal agency created under the Johnson Administration in the 1960s to support the arts 
in the United States. “It was clear,” says Jane Alexander, NEA Chair in the early 1990s, “that we 
needed to make some changes at the Endowment if we were going to survive elimination” 
(Alexander, 2000, p. 243). And change they did: by engaging in policy entrepreneurship and 
recreating the agency. Alert to the source of their travails (i.e., grants to controversial artists), the 
NEA most significantly collapsed their decades-old grant-giving categories away from artistic 
disciplines like the Visual Arts and Photography to a few broader, thematic categories like 
Heritage & Preservation. As the art critic Michael Brenson puts it, “The government decided that 
in order to save the Endowment, it had to stop investing in artists and invest its cultural authority 
in institutions” (Brenson, 2001, p. 89). The policy entrepreneurship of the NEA enabled the 
agency to survive the 1990s. 
 The policy entrepreneurship of the NEA in the 1990s also serves as a cautionary tale for 
the Age of Arts Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship at its root is an economic behavior. As such, 
while keen to questions of efficiency, value, and thus survival, entrepreneurship by itself is mute 
on questions of fairness, justice, and right-or-wrong. Yes, the NEA’s entrepreneurship to change 
enabled it to survive, but at the precipitous cost of no longer directly supporting artists in the 
United States. As Brenson once more observes, “In Congress, in the Endowment, and in society, 
there was a place for the art artists made and for the people who commissioned and administered 
it but there was no place for them” (Brenson, 2001, p. 92).  Artists lost an important voice in the 
federal government and American culture. Was it right for the federal agency supporting artists 
in the United States to abandon them to survive?  Entrepreneurship alone cannot answer that 
question. 
 This is not a plea for art-for-art’s-sake; that has never existed in any meaningful or 
sustainable way. Nor is it cry to eradicate money from the arts; that has never been the case, nor 
probably should it be.  Indeed, my favorite artist, the Northern Renaissance genius Albrecht 
Dürer might have been one of the most economically efficient, financially successful, and 
thoroughly entrepreneurial artist of all (see "Portrait of the artist as an entrepreneur," 2011.)  
Rather, it is a sincere wish to preserve the spirit of artistic creation and to respect the devotion of 
the artist to her craft along with utilizing the necessity of entrepreneurship in the Age of Arts 
Entrepreneurship.   
       
References 
Alexander, J. (2000). Command Performance: An Actress in the Theatre of Politics. New York: 

Public Affairs. 
Brenson, M. (2001). Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual 

Artist in America. New York: The New Press. 
Portrait of the artist as an entrepreneur. (2011, December 17). The Economist, 401, 142(US). 
 

Meaning-making and Arts Entrepreneurship 
Laura Zabel 

Springboard for the Arts 
 My relationship to arts entrepreneurship is complicated. Depending on the context, “arts 
entrepreneurship” is an idea that represents commodification and an attempt to define our most 
human expression in reductive, monetary terms. In another context it feels aspirational and full 



Vakharia, Shockley, and Zabel            Perspectives on Arts Entrepreneurship, Part 3 
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

                                                 
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Artivate 5 (2)   

 6 

of possibility for us to remake an economy focused on meaning-making and exchange. Most of 
the time it feels like the best, if flawed, way to describe the work we do at Springboard for the 
Arts and so I try not to get too hung up on the semantics and instead pursue the work that we 
believe will make our world a more creative, human place. 
 Most actual definitions of entrepreneur don’t start with the business-minded, tech-start-
up-in-a-hoodie, capital driven picture that is commonly imagined; most definitions start with 
opportunity, and risk, and initiative. That more elemental definition suits most artists perfectly. 
Our work at Springboard is about helping artists define success for themselves and then gather 
the tools and resources they need to work towards that success–financial success, recognition, a 
supportive community, respect, cultural preservation, conversation, and social change, these are 
all equally valid goals for an artist. 
 What this means practically is that we try to see the full spectrum of artist needs and 
work to create a system that is open and as accessible as possible. It means we teach business 
skills and provide healthcare and legal services and we build mechanisms that connect artists 
with the other sectors of their community and demonstrate their value as creative thinkers and 
doers around community issues. Our mission is to help artists make a living and a life—and to 
help communities tap into the creative power of artists. This guiding principle of our work is also 
our biggest challenge when it comes to measurement. We don’t measure our work in purely 
economic terms (does an artist make more money after they take a workshop?) because that 
narrow definition would exclude many artists’ goals. How do we measure reciprocity, trust, 
relevance, boldness, agency and power? 
 Over the years we’ve come up with some measurement tools for these ideas, or at least 
satisfactory proxies. For example, the degree to which a person is willing to name themselves as 
an artist sometimes helps us see agency and confidence. Our ability to create bridges and 
mechanisms that help relationships continue to thrive beyond a project or program can help us 
measure reciprocity and trust. Or the ways in which artists’ efforts can combine to impact social 
issues, contentious conversations, and change individual and community narratives can serve as 
a proxy for relevance and value. In the end, though, most of these measures still feel insufficient. 
They are insufficient in demonstrating the depth and potential of artists’ contributions. Despite a 
lot of fantastic work across the country, artists remain an under-resourced and under-tapped asset 
in most places.  
 I believe this is the core question facing the field of arts entrepreneurship: how do we 
measure the effectiveness of our work in a way that aligns with the scale of impact we know that 
artists can have and in a way that doesn’t minimize the most basic human need for creative 
expression? How do we measure meaning-making? 
 


