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Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts    Volume 8, Issue 1 
http://artivate.org  pp. 45-66 
 
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Copyright © 2019, Josef Hanson   

 

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AMONG PUBLIC SCHOOL ARTS EDUCATORS:  
THE CASE OF MUSIC TEACHERS IN NEW YORK STATE 
Josef Hanson 
University of Massachussetts Boston 

 
Abstract 

 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. 
 
 Within the past two decades, the mindsets and behaviors collectively known as 
“entrepreneurship” have been democratized to meet the realities of a post-industrial, knowledge-
based economy. Entrepreneurial approaches to improving medicine (Toner & Tompkins, 2008), 
promoting urban renewal (Hall & Hubbard, 1996), combating social problems (Bornstein & Davis, 
2010), and enhancing the creative industries (Henry, 2007) demonstrate this transferability, which 
has been promoted increasingly by numerous higher education institutions. According to Roberts, 
Hoy, Katz, and Neck (2014), encouragement of entrepreneurship among disparate fields of 
academia is known as cross-campus entrepreneurship education, or “the process of infusing 
entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, and abilities to promote entrepreneurial behavior within the non-
business disciplines” (p. 6). An especially active arm of this phenomenon is arts entrepreneurship 
education (AEE). Its proponents argue that the constellation of skills acquired through AEE 
enables artists to thrive amid the uncertainty of the modern arts landscape. Beckman (2007) 
identified two “broad philosophical stances” to AEE that help students address this uncertainty: 
the traditional approach of new venture creation, and a “transitioning” philosophy, which 
“envisions an as-yet undefined and broader view of entrepreneurship that teaches students new 
skill sets…in the context of the arts environment they will inhabit as professional artists” (p. 91). 
 Despite the proliferation of entrepreneurialism across many arts disciplines, attempts to 
precisely define “arts entrepreneurship” suggest a lack of consensus regarding its core elements, 
and why and how they should be taught (Beckman, 2007; Bonin-Rodriguez, 2012; Chang & 
Wyszomirski, 2015; Essig, 2015; Gangi, 2017; White, 2015). Gartner (2015) suggests AEE 
scholars and practitioners might benefit from existential reflection on the following question: 
“How do artists organize themselves, both in terms of how they generate art, and in how what is 
produced, as art, is valued and exchanged?” (p. 5). As arts entrepreneurship continues to grow in 
significance within academia, the lack of consensus regarding its very nature begs a different 



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question: to whom should it be taught? Welsh, Onishi, DeHoog, and Syed (2014) suggest that AEE 
providers “consider the wide range of artists and their various needs” (p. 21), yet acknowledge that 
most programming caters to artists who are “self-employed in their own businesses” (p. 28). In 
reviewing definitions of “arts entrepreneurship” in the scholarly literature, Chang & Wyszomirski 
(2015) discovered that scholars used the term to describe individual artists’ self-employment 
almost twice as often as the next most common meaning, opportunity recognition. Beckman (2007) 
envisioned a context-based curriculum for AEE that positions entrepreneurship as “an inclusive, 
empowering philosophy” encompassing diverse disciplines and outcomes (p. 98). However, Thom 
(2016), acknowledging vague notions of what makes someone an arts entrepreneur, described the 
audience for AEE as future “professional artists” who “make unique work for sale” (p. 5). Thus, a 
lack of consensus regarding the intended recipients of AEE intermingles a more broad-based, 
inclusive conception of the types of art students who may benefit from learning entrepreneurship 
skills with the more traditional view of AEE students as professional performers and producers of 
artistic products. 
 The largest population within many postsecondary arts education entities—schools of 
music, art departments, dance programs, and similar divisions within colleges and universities—
is students studying to become PreK-12 teachers of the arts. Currently, AEE initiatives are at best 
only indirectly serving this population, and, at worst, simply ignoring it. A survey of AEE offerings 
in North Carolina (Welsh et al., 2014) revealed that, although respondents represented “a wide 
range of fields and interests,” none represented the field of arts education or arts teacher 
preparation (p. 30). Reasons abound explaining the disconnect between AEE and arts teacher 
preparation programs. Teacher licensure programs notoriously carry some of the most extensive 
credit requirements in baccalaureate education, leaving little room for additional coursework. 
Traditionalists often cannot reconcile the staid traditions of school teaching with a culture of 
innovation, or with their conception of entrepreneurship as a profit-centered phenomenon. In 
addition, it may be that many preparers of future arts teachers believe in AEE’s utility, yet see it 
as only beneficial to fine artists and performers—a label they regrettably do not always apply to 
their students. This stereotype casts arts teachers not as visionary creatives, but as cogs in a 
bureaucratic system, one that offers job security so long as participants follow a prescribed 
approach. 
 The dearth of entrepreneurship education programming geared for current and future PreK-
12 arts teachers disregards a growing body of research affirming the effectiveness of 
entrepreneurial thinking as a tool for enhancing teaching and learning in schools. Numerous 
studies indicate that contextual supports for entrepreneurship enable employee-based innovation 
to thrive in large organizations (Lee, Wong, Foo, & Leung, 2011; Morris, Kuratko, & Covin, 2011; 
Zimmerman, 2008). Hess (2006) defines educational entrepreneurship as “a process of purposeful 
innovation directed toward improving educational productivity, efficiency, and quality” (p. 2). As 
visionary thinkers, entrepreneurial educators believe they can change the status quo and start new 
ventures through experimentation and ongoing learning (Smith and Peterson, 2006, p. 25). School 
reform efforts, although often well-intentioned and transformative in their own right, differ from 
educational entrepreneurship. Per Teske and Williamson (2006), the chief differences between 
reform and entrepreneurship in schools concern scale and scope. Entrepreneurial change tends to 
happen suddenly, at the grassroots level, while school reform occurs incrementally, in a 
bureaucratic, top-down fashion, and is often viewed as “counterproductive” by the teachers 
themselves (Labaree, 2010, pp. 134-135). 

Entrepreneurial approaches to public school teaching have been shown to enhance aspects 
of education such as teacher motivation, student engagement, and school innovativeness (Berry, 



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Byrd, & Wieder, 2013; Cavanaugh, 2013; Macke, 2003; Smith & Peterson, 2006). Frustrated with 
the widening divide between theory and practice in teacher education, LeBrecque and Ravitz 
(1973) made an early attempt to link teaching and entrepreneuring. In light of increasing poverty 
in America’s urban areas, they proposed the reconceptualization of teachers as “human 
development entrepreneurs” who take risks and keenly invest resources “in order to develop truly 
responsive programs” (p. 9). Wagner (2012) interviewed innovative teachers and their students 
and identified five entrepreneurial practices that combat the risk-averse position of most traditional 
school organizations: (a) true collaboration, (b) multidisciplinary learning over specialization, (c) 
risk-taking and celebration of failure, (d) creating versus consuming knowledge (experiential 
learning), and (e) intrinsic versus extrinsic sources of motivation. Similar findings emerged from 
Schimmel’s (2013) qualitative exploration of educational entrepreneurs’ career experiences, which 
identified themes of risk-taking, innovation and creativity, proactivity, overcoming initial 
challenges, prior positive entrepreneurial experiences, and collaboration. Additional examinations 
of school structure and leadership style demonstrated that entrepreneurial approaches featuring 
distributed leadership and enhanced teacher autonomy produced significant increases in teacher 
empowerment and student achievement (Anderson, Dobbs, Jenkins, & Short, 1997; Brown & 
Cornwall, 2000; Caffey, 2013; Costa, 2012; Onukwugha, 2013). Odell (1995) and Flippen (1998) 
found that high-achieving and rapidly-improving schools in California demonstrated a 
significantly higher incidence of entrepreneurialism than an equal-sized random sample of 
average- and poorly-performing schools within the state. In sum, the above studies suggest that 
measures of success, including student achievement and teacher motivation, increase within 
entrepreneurial teaching and learning contexts. 
  Relatively few researchers have explored the incidence of entrepreneurialism among PreK-
12 arts educators. Within music education, the field of interest in the present study, a small body 
of research demonstrates both the potential of entrepreneurial practices and the need for baseline 
research (Abramo, 2008; Garnett, 2013; Snow, 2012; Smith, 2014). Newton (2007) and Brook 
(2011) explored how enterprising music teachers in rural areas resourcefully crafted atypical 
educational opportunities for students by adapting to “place-based” conditions. Fitzpatrick-
Harnish (2015) identified a similar phenomenon of “contextually-specific” teaching among music 
educators working in urban schools. Clements’ (2010) collection of case studies profiled various 
ways that music educators throughout the United States launched and successfully sustained 
unconventional programs; subsequently, Berman (2016) showcased the success of similar efforts. 
Zawacki (2011) explored professional motivations of exemplary music educators, finding that 
those who embodied entrepreneurship and self-actualization succeeded by focusing on vision, the 
ability to work within chaos and take risks, and the need for balance and creativity. Most notably, 
the teachers participating in Zawacki’s study felt compelled to act upon “growth motivations…by 
creating new programs, leading clinics, [and] starting ensembles and music programs within the 
community” (p. 204).  
 Just as the mindsets and behaviors collectively known as “entrepreneurship” transcend the 
business world, so too do they manifest in every artistic subspecialty, not only those concerned 
with branding, selling, and self-employment. In light of chronic teacher demotivation (Strauss, 
2018), unflagging teacher attrition (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016), and 
continued instability in American arts education (Loewenberg, 2017), entrepreneurship offers a 
potential pathway to more effective, equitable, and personally satisfying models of teaching and 
learning the arts. Yet, we do not know the extent to which arts educators already think and act 
entrepreneurially, or whether AEE offerings reach this segment of the artistic community at all. 
Several survey studies of AEE (Welsh et al., 2014; White, 2017) exemplify the strength of cross-



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sectional research methods but were not created to collect data on entrepreneurial teaching 
approaches in public school arts classrooms. To the extent that the AEE community better 
understands how entrepreneurship relates to school-based arts teaching, it will become more adept 
at supporting this oft-overlooked population of artists and ultimately broader in its reach. 
Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the entrepreneurial behaviors, dispositions, and 
perceptions of public school arts educators to understand better the incidence and impact of arts 
venturing within the bureaucratic environment of the American public school. Music educators 
working in New York State public schools served as the subject of analysis, and survey 
methodology offered the most effective means of collecting data from them. The following 
research questions framed this study: 

1. To what extent do PreK-12 music educators report familiarity, experience, or training in 
entrepreneurship? 

2. Are PreK-12 music educators’ intentions to create new ventures at work related to their 
reported familiarity, experience, or training in entrepreneurship? 

3. To what extent are PreK-12 music educators’ reported familiarity, experience, or training 
in entrepreneurship related to their entrepreneurial self-efficacy? 

4. To what extent are PreK-12 music educators’ reported familiarity, experience, or training 
in entrepreneurship related to their perceptions of organizational support for new venture 
creation? 

Method and Data Collection 
 As part of a larger exploratory study of teachers’ work motivation and entrepreneurial 
orientation (Hanson, 2017), I surveyed K-12 music educators in New York State to gauge their 
perceptions of and experiences with various aspects of entrepreneurship. Survey methodology 
proved most effective for investigating my research questions for several reasons, including 
efficiency, wide coverage, and precision. Using SurveyMonkey (www.surveymonkey.com), I 
developed and distributed an online questionnaire that collected the following data from 
respondents: demographics, history of developing new musical endeavors at school and/or intent 
to do so in the future, familiarity with the tenets of entrepreneurship, experience with business, 
past enrollment in arts entrepreneurship coursework, feelings of entrepreneurial self-efficacy 
(ESE), and perceptions of organizational support for new venture creation. The questionnaire 
contained both adaptations of established scales and questions I designed specifically to address 
my research questions. 
 I created demographic questions to collect two categories of data: personal characteristics 
(gender, years of teaching experience, educational attainment) and job characteristics (school 
setting, level, and specialization of teaching assignment). Using simple yes/no questions, 
respondents reported their history of developing new musical endeavors at school within the past 
three years and intentions to do so within the next three years. Those responding affirmatively 
were then asked to report the type(s) of musical endeavors they developed in the past or planned 
to launch in the future using a list of categories that emerged out of a systematic review of 
innovative K-12 music education programs. I designed three questions to measure respondents’ 
familiarity with the tenets of entrepreneurship, business experience, and history with arts 
entrepreneurship coursework. The first presented the statement “please indicate the extent to which 
you are familiar with concepts of entrepreneurship” and asked respondents to answer using a five-
point continuum (1 = not familiar at all, 5 = very familiar). To gauge business experience, 
respondents provided a yes/no answer to the following question: “Do you own, or have you ever 
owned or operated, a small business or business-like endeavor?” Similarly, respondents supplied 
a yes/no answer regarding the presence of entrepreneurship instruction in their postsecondary 



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education: “Did your undergraduate or graduate degrees include coursework in music/arts 
entrepreneurship?” Additionally, I included several open response items throughout the 
questionnaire to encourage respondents to clarify their perceptions, comment on the survey 
project, or provide additional details about their teaching and entrepreneuring experiences. 

To measure respondents’ feelings of ESE, I adapted the scale developed by McGee, 
Peterson, Mueller, and Sequeira (2009). In the scale’s first iteration, Cronbach’s alpha estimates 
confirmed its reliability (α = .80-.91). The version I created asked respondents to rate their 
confidence in a series of six entrepreneurial teaching behaviors using a five-point continuum (1 = 
very low confidence, 5 = very high confidence). For example, respondents would rate their 
confidence in “estimating the time, resources, and personnel necessary to launch a new musical 
endeavor.” Hornsby, Kuratko, Holt, and Wales’s Corporate Entrepreneurship Assessment 
Instrument (2013) served as the basis for assessing respondents’ perceptions of organizational 
support for new venture creation. The original form of this scale produced acceptable reliability 
coefficients (α = .73-.87). My adaptation asked respondents to indicate the extent to which they 
agreed that a series of seven organizational climate statements applied to the work environment in 
their schools. They used a five-point continuum (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree) to 
evaluate statements like “My school leaders supported experimental teaching efforts throughout 
my school, knowing that some might not be successful.”  
 To assess content validity, I assembled an expert panel consisting of (a) a music education 
professor with experience working in a music entrepreneurship program within a conservatory, (b) 
an instructor in a graduate school of education within a major research university who teaches an 
entrepreneurship course for current and future educators, and (c) a practicing entrepreneur in the 
field of information technology who teaches entrepreneurship courses in a graduate school of 
business. All three panel members confirmed the content validity of the survey variables and items, 
offering minor wording and formatting suggestions that I incorporated into the final version before 
deployment. Subsequently, I asked a group of graduate students to review the questionnaire for 
clarity and functionality, and I also asked three public school music educators with varying levels 
of teaching experience to review it. In light of reviewers’ comments, I made minor adjustments to 
the wording and order of items. 
 After receiving IRB approval to proceed with the study, I delineated the sampling frame: 
K-12 public school music educators working within seven geographic zones designated by the 
New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA). These geographic zones were located in 
closest proximity to the host university, with many school music programs within each zone 
maintaining formal or informal connections to the host department. Thus, I surmised that educators 
teaching within those zones would be more likely to participate in the study than educators working 
elsewhere in New York. Using online personnel directories for all school districts within each 
zone, I compiled a database of 1,351 e-mail addresses, each linked to an actively-employed music 
teacher. I administered the survey over the course of four weeks, reminding potential participants 
about the study in weeks three and four. When commencing the questionnaire, participants were 
assured anonymity and asked to provide consent on the title page within the SurveyMonkey 
platform. 
 Once collected, I entered quantitative data into Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 
(SPSS) version 23 for analysis. After calculating response rates and confirming the absence of 
nonresponse bias (Creswell, 2014), I performed both descriptive and inferential analyses. The 
results featured below are descriptive; for complete results of bivariate and multivariate analyses, 
see Hanson (2017). Although findings might be transferable to an array of other contexts, true 



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generalizability is limited by the sample of volunteer respondents who participated (Alreck & 
Settle, 2003), as they represent only a portion of all K-12 music educators in New York State. 
 
 

Results 
From a sampling frame of 1,351 potential participants, 576 (42.6%1) completed the 

questionnaire, a broadly-representative sample of teachers from nine counties in central and 
western New York State. Both female (57.9%) and male (42.1%) teachers responded who worked 
at elementary (35.6%), middle (25.9%), high school (21.2%), or mixed (17.3%) levels. 
Respondents taught instrumental (55.2%), general (17.2%), vocal (9.2%), or mixed (18.4%) music 
classes within suburban (51.9%), rural (35.4%), or urban (12.7%) schools. On average, they 
possessed significant teaching experience (M = 19.4 years, SD = 8.7) and considerable longevity 
in their current positions (M = 14.6 years, SD = 8.1). A large majority (94.1%) had completed both 
a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree. Post-data collection, the reliability of the scales adapted for 
the questionnaire was confirmed, with Cronbach’s alpha estimates exceeding the threshold of 
acceptability (α = .70-.89). 
 
Research Question One: To What Extent Do K-12 Music Educators Report Familiarity, 
Experience, or Training in Entrepreneurship? 
  

Questionnaire results indicated low levels of formal entrepreneurial knowledge and 
experience among the music teachers sampled. A minority of teachers (20.6%, n = 116) reported 
being “familiar” or “very familiar” with the key tenets of entrepreneurship. Grouping the data by 
demographic variables revealed higher familiarity in male (32.2%) versus female (12.1%) 
respondents, and among those teaching music in high schools (30.5%) versus at other grade levels 
(18.5%). Regarding business experience, 26.1% (n = 147) of teachers reported a connection with 
business in their education or upbringing. Again, when grouped demographically, a higher 
incidence of business experience was reported by males (33.3%) versus females (20.7%), and 
among high school teachers (34.5%) versus teachers working at other levels (24.8%). Few music 
teachers—4.3% of all respondents (n = 24)—received instruction in arts entrepreneurship in their 
postsecondary education. Male teachers (7.6% of them) were far more likely to have taken an 
entrepreneurship course than female teachers (1.9%). Demographic grouping by school setting 
(suburban, urban, or rural) and teaching specialization (instrumental, vocal, general, or mixed) did 
not produce notable differences in the prevalence of entrepreneurial knowledge or skills. 

A large percentage of teachers—83.2% (n = 479)—reported launching entrepreneurial 
musical endeavors at their schools within the previous three years. Figure 1 displays the types and 
incidence of these endeavors. Popular ventures included those involving collaboration with outside 
musicians and organizations, new approaches to teaching creativity (improvisation or 
composition), and development of innovative music curricula. “Other” endeavors cited by 
respondents included creating music festivals, authoring instructional books for students, and 
establishing a music laboratory based on student interests.    
 
 
 
 
 
                                                             
1 Participant non-response (missing data) affects some percentages listed herein. 



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20%
23%
23%
23%

27%
30%

32%
33%

37%
38%

44%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%

INTERGENERATIONAL LEARNING
ALTERNATIVE GENRES/INSTRUMENTS

PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING
OTHER

TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES
INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS

NEW ENSEMBLE MODELS
UNCONVENTIONAL PERFORMANCES

INNOVATIVE CURRICULA
NEW APPROACHES TO CREATIVITY

OUTSIDE COLLABORATIONS

83.0% 78.9%
95.8%

17.0% 21.1%
4.2%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Very familiar with tenets of
entrepreneurship

Possessed business experience Took a course in arts
entrepreneurship

Did intend to launch a new endeavor Did not intend to launch a new endeavor

 
Figure 1. New musical endeavors developed in the recent past, by percentage of respondents who 
reported each endeavor type. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Research Question Two: Are K-12 Music Educators’ Intentions to Create New Ventures at 
Work Related to their Reported Familiarity, Experience, or Training in Entrepreneurship? 
  

The majority of responding music teachers (74.0%, n = 419) stated that they planned to 
develop and launch an entrepreneurial musical endeavor within the next three years. Generally, 
teachers favored the same venture categories listed in Figure 1, although “new ensemble models,” 
“interdisciplinary projects,” and “intergenerational learning” increased in popularity slightly. 
Figure 2 shows the percentage of teachers reporting familiarity with entrepreneurship, experience 
with business, and enrollment in postsecondary entrepreneurship coursework when grouped based 
on whether they did or did not intend to launch new musical endeavors in the near future. When 
compared to the 74.0% baseline level of intent reported above, the likelihood of future musical 
venturing increased by approximately five to twenty-two percentage points when a respondent 
possessed familiarity, experience, or training in entrepreneurship. 
 
Figure 2. Percentage of respondents with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills who did/did not 
intend to launch a new musical endeavor in the near future. 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 



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16.9%

18.4%

17.8%

10.5%

7.7%

3.4%

32.8%

29.2%

28.8%

30.1%

25.3%

16.7%

34.1%

33.9%

34.8%

40.3%

38.5%

39.1%

16.2%

18.5%

18.6%

19.1%

28.5%

40.7%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Generate buy-in

Estimate resources

Recombine existing means

Persistence

Opportunity recognition

Take chances/experiment

low neutral high very high

Respondents who reported being “very familiar” with the tenets of entrepreneurship were 
almost five times more likely to plan for future musical entrepreneuring (83.0%) versus continuing 
on a traditional instructional path (17.0%). Seventy-eight point nine percent of teachers with 
business experience intended to launch a new musical endeavor in the near future; only 21.1% 
with business experience did not. Put another way, experience with business was associated with 
nearly four times more ideation concerning new musical and pedagogical approaches. The vast 
majority of teachers who had taken a collegiate course in arts entrepreneurship—95.8%—were 
planning for future musical endeavors; only 4.2% were not. Among just those respondents who 
expressed intent to launch a new musical venture, 5.5% had taken a collegiate course in arts 
entrepreneurship and 94.5% had not. Among those who did not express entrepreneurial intentions, 
0.7% had taken a collegiate course in arts entrepreneurship and 99.3% had not. Thus, while 
teachers’ venture planning was not necessarily dependent on training via arts entrepreneurship 
coursework, not taking an arts entrepreneurship course almost guaranteed that they would not 
engage in musical venturing.  
 
Research Question 3: To What Extent are K-12 Music Educators’ Reported Familiarity, 
Experience, or Training in Entrepreneurship Related to Their Entrepreneurial Self-
Efficacy? 
  

Figure 3 displays respondents’ reported ESE levels as gauged via six Likert-type items. 
For descriptive statistical analysis, I combined the “very low” and “low” ESE responses since 
relatively few respondents reported very low confidence in the prompts provided. Teachers felt 
most confident in their abilities to take chances and experiment with instruction, and to recognize 
opportunities to develop new teaching methods or ensembles. They reported less confidence in 
their abilities to estimate time, resources, and personnel necessary for new endeavors, and in 
building consensus among colleagues in support of their vision for a new teaching venture. 
 
 
Figure 3. Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE) of respondents, by item. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  



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For further analysis, I averaged the percentages of respondents reporting high or low confidence 
in each ESE dimension to generate a summary percentage of teacher ESE. I did this carefully, 
keeping in mind that each ESE component stands alone and is not intended as part of a composite 
score. Figure 4 charts the percentages of teachers with entrepreneurial familiarity, experience, or 
training who reported high/very high or low/very low mean ESE scores. Teachers who were very 
familiar with tenets of entrepreneurship were nearly ten times more likely to feel confident in their 
capabilities to launch a new musical venture at their school (76.4%) versus feeling incapable of 
doing so (7.7%). Similarly, teachers possessing background experience in business reported high 
combined ESE (70.6%) approximately seven times for every one time they reported low ESE 
(9.9%). Arts entrepreneurship coursework was also a potent predictor of ESE. Sixty-nine point 
five percent of teachers who had taken an undergraduate or graduate course in arts or music 
entrepreneurship reported high levels of combined ESE, while only 9.7% of them reported low 
ESE. 
 
Figure 4. Percentage of respondents with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills who reported 
high/very high or low/very low mean ESE. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
When assessing the influence of entrepreneurial familiarity on the six ESE dimensions 

individually, two dimensions warrant closer examination. First, within the subset of teachers who 
felt very familiar with entrepreneurship, 79.2% reported high or very high confidence in their 
abilities to innovate by combining traditional teaching methods and existing resources in 
unconventional ways; just 9.5% of teachers within the high familiarity subset reported low or very 
low confidence in this dimension. By comparison, 40.9% of teachers reporting no familiarity with 
entrepreneurship felt as confident in this area, and 26.8% had little to no confidence in their 
abilities to practice this type of resourceful innovation. Second, 75.4% of teachers expressing high 
familiarity with entrepreneurship felt confident or very confident that they could stay persistent 
when new teaching ventures seemed to fail initially, and 7.6% within that subset did not. In the 
no-familiarity group, 49.3% reported similar confidence in staying persistent, and 10.5% felt little 
to no confidence in their persistence. 
 Similar disparities emerged when analyzing ESE in light of business experience. That is, 
when examining ESE scores based on whether or not teachers possessed business experience, the 
most significant disparities occurred in the same dimensions as above: combining traditional 
teaching methods and existing resources in unconventional ways (69.2% confident with business 

76.4%
70.6% 69.5%

7.7% 9.9% 9.7%

0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
90.0%

Very familiar with tenets of
entrepreneurship

Possessed business
experience

Took a course in arts
entrepreneurship

high/very high mean ESE low/very low mean ESE



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41.4%

33.5%

32.8%

21.3%

17.6%

19.8%

11.2%

30.7%

30.0%

31.2%

32.7%

26.7%

23.3%

18.0%

18.4%

25.3%

24.8%

29.0%

32.0%

30.9%

42.3%

9.5%

11.2%

11.2%

17.0%

23.7%

26.0%

28.5%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Resource support

Bend rules/make mistakes

Experimentation

Risk-taking

Creativity

Workload support

Instructional freedom

disagree neutral agree strongly agree

experience; 48.3% confident without) and ability to stay persistent (71.5% confident with business 
experience, 55.6% confident without). However, across all dimensions, the magnitude of business 
experience’s effect on ESE was slightly less than that of entrepreneurial familiarity. In a few 
dimensions, more teachers with business experience reported low ESE than teachers without, 
although by only a few percentage points.  
 The presence of arts or music entrepreneurship coursework in teachers’ postsecondary 
education generated an increase in the proportion of them reporting strong ESE. Teachers 
receiving formal instruction in entrepreneurship were most confident in taking chances and 
experimenting in their teaching—91.7% reported high or very high confidence in this dimension, 
and 0.0% reported low or very low confidence. However, fewer teachers who received 
entrepreneurship instruction reported confidence regarding their ability to estimate resources 
(62.5% high very/high confidence, 12.5% low/very low) or generate buy-in (58.3% high/very high 
confidence, 16.7% low/very low). While the segment of teachers in the no-coursework group 
reporting low ESE was similar to that of teachers with coursework (10% on average for both), the 
gap between the high ESE groups when sorted by coursework history was considerable. 
Approximately 8-10% more of the with-coursework group rated their feelings of ESE higher. 
 
Research Question 4: To What Extent are K-12 Music Educators’ Reported Familiarity, 
Experience, or Training in Entrepreneurship Related to Their Perceptions of Organizational 
Support for New Venture Creation? 
  

Figure 5 displays respondents’ perceptions of organizational support for new venture 
creation. I measured these perceptions in seven dimensions using Likert-type scales. Since 
relatively few respondents strongly disagreed with the organizational support statements, I 
combined “strongly disagree” and “disagree” responses for analysis. The item describing teacher 
workload was reverse scored; results for that item were adjusted to conform to the scale used for 
the other six items, where “strongly agree” inferred greater organizational support for 
entrepreneurship. Broadly speaking, teachers felt that colleagues and supervisors in their schools 
granted them adequate autonomy and creative license to use atypical instructional methods. 
However, their school organizations granted less leeway for experimentation and making mistakes, 
and did not appear generous in providing resources to support unconventional teaching ideas.  
 
Figure 5. Perceived organizational support for new venture creation, by item. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

 



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55.1% 48.3%
53.6%

23.5% 26.2%
20.2%

0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%

Very familiar with tenets of
entrepreneurship

Possessed business experience Took a course in arts
entrepreneurship

high/very high mean organizational support low/very low mean organizational support

As with ESE, I averaged the percentages of respondents strongly agreeing or strongly 
disagreeing with each organizational support statement to generate summary percentages. Again, 
I did this to broaden analysis, remembering that each dimension of organizational support stands 
alone and is not intended as part of a composite score. Figure 6 charts the percentages of teachers 
with entrepreneurial familiarity, experience, or training who perceived very high (strongly agree) 
or very low (strongly disagree) mean levels of organizational support for new venture creation. 
Those teachers who were very familiar with entrepreneurship were slightly more than twice as 
likely to view their schools as supportive of musical venturing (55.1%) as opposed to unsupportive 
(23.5%). When tabulated based on business experience, teachers with a background in business 
were more likely to feel supported as innovators (48.3%) versus not supported (26.2%). Arts 
entrepreneurship coursework also associated with perceived organizational support. The 
proportion of teachers who had completed coursework and felt strongly that their school supported 
entrepreneurial activity (53.6%) was more than twice as large as the proportion that perceived low 
support (20.2%). 
 
Figure 6. Percentage of respondents with entrepreneurial knowledge and skills who reported 
high/very high or low/very low mean organizational support levels. 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Several noteworthy aspects of individual organizational support dimension ratings 
emerged in the final analysis. While a vast majority of respondents who were very familiar with 
entrepreneurship (79.2%) perceived strong organizational support for their instructional freedom, 
a similar proportion of those with no entrepreneurial familiarity (73.8%) felt the same level of 
freedom. Risk-taking and experimentation also gleaned similar uniformity regardless of 
entrepreneurial familiarity. However, nearly half of the very familiar group (49.1%) reported 
strong organizational support of bending the rules and making mistakes in developing new 
teaching ideas, but in the no-familiarity group, only roughly one-third (34.9%) felt the same way. 
Even more pronounced was the disparity between the percentage of the very familiar group that 
agreed their workload was not a barrier to innovation (50.7%) and the percentage of the no-
familiarity subgroup that also agreed (20.4%). However, on the opposite end of that scale, a similar 
percentage of both groups—approximately half—felt that their innovative efforts were impeded 
by a burdensome workload. 
 Respondents’ business experience or lack thereof did not exert a particularly strong 
influence on their perceptions of organizational support for new venture creation. For most of the 
organizational support dimensions, the scoring differences between teachers with and without 
business experience were negligible. A slightly higher percentage of teachers with no business 
experience felt strong support for instructional freedom (71.1%) than teachers with business 
experience (69.4%). Still, more teachers possessing a background in business reported better 



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availability of resources for entrepreneurial endeavors (39.1% versus 24.8% of the non-business 
group) and a workload that facilitated innovative projects (35.9% versus 22.8% of the non-business 
group). 
 The presence or absence of arts entrepreneurship coursework in respondents’ educational 
histories produced varied results in many of the organizational support dimensions. Similar 
proportions of respondents with and without coursework perceived strong support of instructional 
freedom (approximately 70%) and pedagogical creativity (approximately 60%). Regarding risk-
taking, the proportion of the no-coursework group sensing low or very low levels of organizational 
risk tolerance was nearly twice as large (21.5%) as that of the with-coursework subgroup (12.5%). 
Coursework history was also linked to stronger perceptions of organizational support for bending 
the rules or making mistakes when developing an innovation (50.0% with coursework, 36.5% 
without), and for stronger perceived support of instructional experimentation (58.4% with 
coursework, 35.7% without). Nearly twice as many members of the no-coursework subgroup 
(33.3%) felt little support for rule-bending and mistake-making as compared to the with-
coursework group (16.6%). Differences of the highest magnitude emerged in the dimension of 
resource availability. Half of the with-coursework group (50.0%) felt strongly that resources were 
available within their schools to support unconventional teaching endeavors; the proportion of the 
no-coursework group that felt the same way was nearly half as small (27.5%). In fact, 42.0% of 
the no-coursework group reported minimal resource support compared to just 12.5% of the with-
coursework group. The final organizational support category, teacher workload, deviated from the 
trend outlined above. That is, when reporting the extent to which their workload impeded the 
development of new teaching ideas, 50.0% of respondents who completed arts entrepreneurship 
coursework felt strongly that their workload was a major barrier, while a smaller portion of the no-
coursework subgroup (42.8%) felt the same way. However, a similar proportion of both groups 
(about 25%) felt that their workload was not thwarting their entrepreneurial efforts. 

 
Discussion 

 Addressing the need for baseline data on the entrepreneurial behaviors, dispositions, and 
contexts of public school arts educators, this study surveyed music educators in New York State 
and measured their demographics, background in entrepreneurship, efforts to launch new musical 
endeavors, feelings of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and perceptions of support for new venture 
creation within their schools. Of 1,351 teachers, 576 (42.6%) responded, a cross-sectional sample 
evenly distributed by gender and teaching level, with a disproportionate number of instrumental 
music specialists (55.2%) and educators working in suburban schools (51.9%) participating. 
Results revealed high levels of entrepreneurial behavior and intention to launch new teaching 
ventures among responding teachers, despite relatively low levels of familiarity and formal 
experience with entrepreneurship. Only a small minority of respondents had experienced arts 
entrepreneurship education in their postsecondary degree programs. However, teachers who did 
possess familiarity, experience, or formal training in entrepreneurship were more likely to launch 
new initiatives, felt more confident in their abilities to do so, and perceived their work 
environments as more supportive of their entrepreneurial efforts. Teachers with little to no 
exposure to entrepreneurship fared considerably worse in these domains. Below, I discuss these 
findings in light of prior research, with the intent of framing an argument for expanding arts 
entrepreneurship education to include future PreK-12 arts teachers and similar constituencies that 
existing programming fails to reach in a significant way. 
 The first research question explored teachers’ familiarity, experience with business, and 
postsecondary training in arts entrepreneurship. A contradiction emerged in which most 



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respondents reported robust levels of entrepreneuring in their music teaching positions, yet few 
possessed formal understanding—the kind of expertise that hands-on business experience or 
entrepreneurship coursework provides. This is not necessarily surprising considering that, 
according to Ronstadt (1985), the era of “the educated entrepreneur” commenced only a generation 
ago. Less than five percent of respondents had taken a course in arts entrepreneurship in college 
or graduate school, a finding likely more indicative of the current positioning of such programming 
outside mainstream music curricula, and with the self-employment needs of future performers 
almost exclusively in mind (Cutler, 2010; Spellman, 2013), than of other explanations specific to 
this sample of music educators. Slaughter and Springer’s (2015) study of a national sample of 
music graduate students revealed that only 12% were certain that they were offered 
entrepreneurship coursework as undergraduates; the remaining respondents were not offered such 
courses or were unsure about the availability of them.  

When broken down demographically, male teachers and those working at the high school 
level demonstrated much higher levels of familiarity and experience with entrepreneurship. 
Although gender disparities in entrepreneurship are long established in the literature (Marlow, 
2014; Warnecke, 2013), one can only speculate why high school teachers within the current sample 
were more acquainted with its tenets. The popularity of new musical endeavors involving outside 
collaborators reflects the interpersonal foundations of innovation within bureaucratic 
organizations like school systems. As such, Gifford Pinchot III’s concept of intrapreneuring 
(1985)—using entrepreneurial approaches to create innovation within an organization or 
bureaucracy—better characterizes the efforts of these enterprising teachers. 
 Connections between respondents’ background in entrepreneurship and their intent to 
create new school-based musical endeavors in the future formed the basis of the second research 
question. Although most teachers surveyed stated their intent to launch a new endeavor in the near 
future, the impact of meaningful experiences with entrepreneurship was evident in the vastly 
higher incidence of entrepreneurial intention among respondents who reported significant 
familiarity, experience, or training in it versus those who did not. Most notable was the effect of 
postsecondary arts entrepreneurship coursework: 95.8% of the respondents who had taken 
coursework intended to create new musical endeavors at school in the near future. At the same 
time, 99.3% of teachers who did not intend to create new endeavors had not taken coursework. 
These results corroborate prior findings suggesting that new venture creation skills can be readily 
acquired by a diversity of students (Haase & Lautenschläger, 2011; Sundbo, 2011) and that 
effective entrepreneurship education should directly relate to increased entrepreneurial intention 
(Mueller, 2011; Rauch & Hulsink, 2015). It should be noted that some responding teachers 
possessing familiarity, experience, or formal education in entrepreneurship did not intend to 
practice entrepreneurial innovation at school in the future. Speculative explanations might include 
impending job changes or retirement, previously-established endeavors taking precedence, 
randomness, or that some respondents did not want to innovate at work despite having the 
knowledge and experience to do so. 
 The third research question probed the connections between teachers’ background 
experiences with entrepreneurship and their entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) or the extent to 
which they felt comfortable engaging in various aspects of the entrepreneurial process. Generally, 
the more an ESE dimension could be autonomously regulated, the more confident respondents felt 
in their abilities to achieve it. Dimensions involving resource acquisition and consensus-
building—those reliant upon the will of others—seemed more tenuous to respondents. Perhaps 
unsurprisingly, teachers who possessed familiarity, experience, or training in entrepreneurship felt 
vastly more efficacious in thinking and acting entrepreneurially than those with no background or 



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familiarity. Newman, Obschonka, Schwarz, Cohen, and Nielsen (in press) conducted a systematic 
review of 128 studies of ESE, and found that it positively influences “entrepreneurial motivation, 
intention, behavior, and performance” (p. 2) and is best facilitated through individual-level 
antecedents including work experience, education, and the presence of role models and mentors. 
In the current study, if a teacher reported being very familiar with entrepreneurship or experienced 
in running a small business, they tended to feel most confident in the ESE dimensions of creative 
recombination and persistence—both long established as foundational to successful new venture 
creation (Frese, 2009; Schumpeter, 1934). Formal training via arts entrepreneurship coursework 
was the most potent creator of high/low disparities in certain ESE dimensions. This was 
particularly true with risk-taking and experimentation, where none of the teachers who had 
completed coursework reported low or very low confidence in their abilities to take chances and 
experiment with new approaches to their work. The potency of coursework completion as an 
indicator of ESE faded in other dimensions, particularly estimating resources and generating buy-
in, suggesting that arts entrepreneurship educators might focus on these areas when designing 
future curricula and instructional activities. 
 The fourth and final research question examined associations among teachers’ background 
experiences with entrepreneurship and dimensions of perceived organizational support for new 
venture creation. Generally, respondents felt that their schools supported their autonomy and 
creativity, yet provided few resources for innovative teaching and little leeway for experimenting 
and making mistakes. Numerous researchers have established the deleterious effect of this chronic 
aversion to innovation in American schools (Berry, Byrd, & Wieder, 2013; Le Fevre, 2014), 
summarized by Hess (2006) as follows: “systematic investment in new, promising entrepreneurial 
efforts is simply not part of the culture of American schooling” (p. 14). Teachers who were the 
most familiar, experienced, and educated in the tenets of entrepreneurship perceived their schools 
to be the most supportive of their efforts to innovate. This finding begs questions of perception 
versus reality: Are these schools bold and innovative, or is it the entrepreneurial mindset of the 
teachers working there—a bias developed from their background and training—that is responsible 
for the perception of support? Perhaps entrepreneurially-minded teachers seek out positions in 
schools that are more open to their unorthodox methods; or, it could be that these schools are rather 
conventional and support for new venture creation is in the eye of the beholder. In certain 
dimensions of perceived support, including instructional freedom and risk tolerance, results were 
similar regardless of whether or not respondents reported familiarity or experience with 
entrepreneurship. Coursework completion performed better, but still produced mixed perceptions 
of these dimensions of support. This finding likely reflects the complexities of entrepreneurial 
context. Within the realm of social entrepreneurship, Newth and Woods (2014) observed that the 
“resistive effects of norms, customs, and institutional routines” within and among organizations 
“…both enable and constrain innovation processes to meet the financial, social, cultural, and 
political expectations of stakeholders” (p. 193). 
 Two dimensions of perceived organizational support of new venture creation warrant 
further discussion: workload and resource support. Close to half of the respondents agreed on some 
level that their burdensome workload presented a barrier to innovation and that their school was 
not particularly supportive in alleviating the burden. While respondents who reported being 
familiar with tenets of entrepreneurship or who possessed small business experience tended to feel 
more supported regarding their workload, those who had completed coursework did not. Quite 
possibly, this finding reflects a latent factor common to the with-coursework segment of the sample 
that was not assessed in the survey, such as their willingness to take on additional responsibilities 
beyond those required of them. Lack of resources tends to be one of the most common factors 



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undermining teachers’ motivation and job satisfaction in American schools (Herman & Reinke, 
2015; Shernoff, Mehta, Atkins, Torf, & Spencer, 2011). While familiarity with entrepreneurship 
and a background in business associated with mild increases in perceived resource availability, 
coursework completion exerted a strong effect. The percentage of teachers with formal training in 
arts entrepreneurship who perceived adequate to strong resource availability was twice that of 
untrained teachers. 
 The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project’s (SNAAP) 2015 survey of over 30,000 
undergraduate and graduate arts alumni (Skaggs, Frenette, Gaskill, & Miller, 2017), though 
generating somewhat limited data on the incidence and impact of entrepreneurship training among 
arts educators, warrants a closer look in light of the current findings. Across all arts disciplines, 
71% of arts alumni agreed that entrepreneurial skills were “somewhat” or “very” important to their 
livelihood, yet just 26% indicated that their postsecondary education helped them develop such 
skills. A more profound gap existed in the present study in which respondents reported a high rate 
of entrepreneuring yet little formal training or experience with it. The SNAAP study revealed that 
among all arts majors participating, music majors reported the lowest levels of coursework-based 
preparation in multiple aspects of the entrepreneurial process, such as ideation, risk-taking, and 
creative problem-solving. However, “arts education” majors (a category not defined by the authors 
that likely includes music education) felt much more confident that their coursework did 
emphasize these aspects of entrepreneuring. In fact, across all arts majors, arts education ranked 
near or at the top regarding the percentage of alumni who felt that their postsecondary education 
exposed them to an array of career options and a broad network of mentors, and did so by 
successfully integrating career development programming throughout the curriculum. This finding 
might be attributable to the fact that arts education programs are often situated within 
comprehensive liberal arts environments (47% of respondents attended a traditional four-year 
college, and 53% attended a special focus school such as a music conservatory or fashion design 
school). The SNAAP survey findings echo the results of the current study by suggesting that music 
education students pursuing a career in school teaching see the need for entrepreneurial skills, 
know that there are options within and beyond the conventional teaching career path that 
entrepreneuring might help unlock, and yet rarely learn crucial entrepreneurship skills via their 
postsecondary coursework.  
 Results of this study suggest several implications for practice, the most prominent being a 
widened scope for AEE programming. Though they contend with opportunities, contexts, and 
processes unique to their circumstances (Bridgstock, 2013), music educators and other school-
based artists are just as receptive to entrepreneurial approaches as self-employed artists—in fact, 
according to Beckman (2005), music educators might benefit more from entrepreneurial curricula 
than instrumentalists when one considers the challenges of teacher attrition. Expanding AEE to 
school-based artists can be accomplished  by “suffusing” it (Essig, 2009) throughout the 
curriculum in ways that are specific to the context of teaching the arts in schools, yet do not add 
to the already burdensome course load of most teacher preparation programs. Once better 
established within music education disciplinary circles, entrepreneurship programming should be 
designed to more effectively interface with female educators and those pursuing primary-level 
teaching positions. Further, programming should be largely experiential and focus particularly on 
venturing collaboratively, estimating time and resources, and achieving workload balance while 
pursuing entrepreneurial endeavors. 

In the future, additional survey studies could be undertaken to determine the nature of 
entrepreneurial arts teaching in disciplines other than music, in parochial and nonsectarian private 
schools, within community music schools, and across a more representative, national population 



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of teachers. Future studies can build a base of knowledge by addressing research questions like 
“What does entrepreneurial arts teaching look like in public schools?,” or “Does the process of 
arts venture creation in schools align with established frameworks from other avenues of AEE?” 
The former question could be addressed via targeted, descriptive research in the qualitative vein. 
Through observation, interviewing, and analysis of purposively-sampled, entrepreneurial arts 
educators, a deeper understanding of school-based arts venturing will emerge. Toward the latter 
question, a reexamination of the aesthetic value exchange (Bryan & Harris, 2015) central to 
conventional conceptions of arts entrepreneurship would likely uncover an intermingling of 
aesthetic elements, educational value, innovation, and student/teacher passion and fulfillment 
unique to school-based entrepreneuring—an alternative value exchange framework devoid of 
profit writ large. In addition, a unique opportunity exists for historical researchers to document the 
processes of new venture creation undertaken by entrepreneurially-minded influencers in music 
education’s past, such as Lowell Mason, Shinichi Suzuki, and Julia Ettie Crane. 

 
Conclusion 

Arts entrepreneurship involves a radical reimagining of the customary structures and 
processes associated with human creativity and is usually enacted by individual artists 
disassociated from bureaucratic organizations. The results of this study show that entrepreneurship 
can be a salient aspect of professional practice for arts educators working in bureaucratic public 
school systems. To be sure, there are several limitations to the findings presented herein. The 
sample was limited to educators teaching music within New York State and contained a 
disproportionate number of suburban and instrumental music educators. Latent variables within 
the sample that were not accounted for might be responsible for certain patterns in the data. The 
results described herein are descriptive and do not infer correlation or causation. All survey 
research depends upon volunteer participant groups that may not fully represent the population 
under investigation, and findings are based on self-reported data that varies in terms of objectivity. 
Despite these limitations, this study produced new insights that are likely transferable to a variety 
of teaching, research, and practice-oriented contexts. Knowledge, experience, and formal training 
in arts entrepreneurship was linked to greater entrepreneurial self-efficacy, more positive 
perceptions of organizational support for new venture creation, and an overall greater likelihood 
of innovative attempts to create unique educational value for students. 
 

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