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Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts Volume 4, Issue 2 
http://artivate.org pp. 1-2 
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Copyright © 2015, the author  

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION 
Linda Essig, Arizona State University 

As the first peer reviewed research journal in the field of arts entrepreneurship, Artivate: 
A Journal of Arts Entrepreneurship takes its role as a framer of the discourse in and around arts 
entrepreneurship seriously. To advance that discourse, in addition to the articles and book 
reviews that have been regular features of Artivate, we have invited members of our editorial 
board and staff to contribute short think pieces. In the second installment of our “Perspectives,” 
series, renown entrepreneurship scholar William Garnter writes, “My hope is that the articulation 
of reading lists in both entrepreneurship and the arts will help the arts entrepreneurship field 
coalesce in a way that we can develop a community of ‘writers and readers’” (p. 4). It is fitting, 
then, that the first feature article in this Summer 2015 issue of Artivate is a systematic literature 
review of definitions of the field. Woong Jo Chang and Margaret Wyszomirski examine journals 
in the fields of arts management, cultural policy, entrepreneurship, and nonprofit marketing 
published 2003-2013 to assess the defining characteristics of arts entrepreneurship in this body 
of literature and suggest a management-oriented definition of “arts entrepreneurship” as well as a 
road map for further research. 

Michael Seman explores arts entrepreneurship practice in the context of “music scenes,” 
which he defines as “spatially-based cultural agglomerations of human and physical capital that 
include musicians, consumers, entrepreneurs, technicians, venues, and studios” (p. 33). He 
applies economic cluster theory to a case study of music entrepreneurship in Denton, Texas to 
show how Denton’s music scene behaves as an economic cluster.  

Two articles in this summer issue explore pedagogy. Marco Thom studies higher 
education arts training programs in the US and Germany as a foundation for considering whether 
arts venture incubation might be a viable way for students to acquire the necessary skills for arts 
entrepreneurial success. He delineates a set of seven necessary skills that can be learned through 
residency in an incubator environment. Sonia BasSheva Manjon and Wen Guo contribute a 
reflective case study of the work of “Think Tank,” an engaged learning program that worked for 
over a year with the iconic a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock to introduce 
entrepreneurial thinking into their organizational learning.  

Taken together, these four articles on arts entrepreneurship theory, practice, and 
pedagogy, along with the perspectives of our editorial board members, represent an important 
step forward in the developing discourse in and about the field of arts entrepreneurship.