1,721,019 research outputs found
How Status Affects the Unconventionality of Opera Repertoires: Conflicting Criteria for Status Distinction, Aesthetic Conventionality and Repertoire Nonconformity in Italian Opera
No full textIn this paper, we examine how status affects cultural organizations’ willingness to challenge the dominant logic of status distinction in their field by raising the unconventionality of their repertoires. We hypothesize that opportunities for middle status organizations to improve their status position serve as strong incentives to violate dominant status-based expectations and raise the unconventionality of their repertoires. We also predict that the risks of status loss and commercial failure that stem from similar actions are major constraints upon the willingness of high and low status organizations to program unconventional operas. Concealing unconventional repertoires under conventional forms or visual appearances (aesthetic conventionality), however, increases their freedom by promoting the legitimacy of their offerings, thereby protecting their position in the status hierarchy from the social penalties that arise from repertoire unconventionality. A statistical analysis of Italian opera house repertoires from 2004 to 2011 strongly supports these hypotheses.This article examines how status affects the willingness of cultural organizations to challenge the dominant logic of status distinction in their field by raising the unconventionality of their repertoires. The author hypothesizes that opportunities for middle-status organizations to improve their status position serve as strong incentives to violate dominant status-based expectations and raise the unconventionality of their repertoires. The author also hypothesizes that the risks of status loss and commercial failure that stem from similar actions are major constraints on the willingness of high-and low-status organizations to program unconventional operas. Concealing unconventional repertoires under conventional forms or visual appearances (aesthetic conventionality), however, increases their freedom by promoting the legitimacy of their offerings, thereby protecting their position in the status hierarchy from the social penalties that arise from repertoire unconven-tionality. A statistical analysis of the repertoires of Italian opera houses from 2004 to 2011 strongly supports these hypotheses
Strategic Practices and Italian Opera Houses’ Performance: the Innovation Dilemma
No full textIn this article it is explored the effect of innovation on Italian opera houses’
performance. Innovation is measured as the number of new opera productions staged
by a theatre (i.e., “new” in terms of set designs, costumes and stage directions not
previously used by any other opera house). Opera houses’ performance is measured as
occupancy rate and ability to attract private grants. Our sample includes two Italian
operatic institutions: 1) lyric and symphonic foundations, and 2) teatri di tradizione.
Data collected from 2007 to 2009 show that among the sampled institutions, only the
lyric and symphonic foundations are able to increase their occupancy rate from new
opera productions. Moreover results highlight that the ability of opera houses to collect
private grants is positively affected by the number of new opera productions, meaning
that innovation plays a key role in strengthening opera houses’ fundraising
capabilities. This is particularly important in the Italian opera scenario where the
severe consequences of the economic crisis and decreased public funding to opera
houses have sharpened competition for scarce financial resources
Scaling Deep or Scaling Up? How Relational Mechanisms Affect the Scaling of Social Innovation
Full text linkWhile literature on social entrepreneurship has recently turned attention to how social enterprises manage the relational dynamics of social innovation, most empirical studies have focused on the formation of partnerships and alliances as a driver of the development of social innovation. This paper contributes to the scholarly debate by further unpacking the relational mechanisms required to ensure the partnership success in scaling social innovation. By problematizing the relationship between relational mechanisms and the achievement of different scalability objectives, we hypothesize that the development of social innovation partnerships characterized by process-based trust is conducive to their success in better serving the needs of a given community (i.e., scaling deep) in particular under conditions of environmental uncertainties, while brokered access and formal mechanisms enhance partners’ ability to expand their initiatives in new communities (i.e., scale up). We develop our context- specific hypotheses in the Italian social innovation field based on an original database of Italian social innovation partnerships
Product Innovation in Cultural Industries: Key Challenges, Success Factors and Antecedents
No full textThe pursuit of product innovation by cultural organizations is typically associated with the risks that come with novelty. However, few studies have analyzed the major challenges that cultural organizations face when dealing with the risks of product innovation. Moreover, the antecedents of product novelty in the cultural context remain largely unexplored. This volume bridges these gaps by identifying the different approaches adopted by cultural organizations to renew their product offerings and the strategic challenges, key success factors, and unexplored determinants of product innovation in cultural industries. The first part of the book integrates various streams of literature concerned with the evaluation of novelty in order to identify the strategic challenges faced by cultural producers in their pursuit of product innovation and the key factors responsible for the success of product novelty in the cultural context. Furthermore, it analyzes the determinants of product innovation in an attempt to highlight its enabling and constraining factors and shed light on its unexplored external and internal antecedents. In the second part of the book, the opera industry is used as a setting for studying and discussing some undertheorized antecedents of product innovation in cultural organizations. The research described in this book is distinctive in that it integrates different streams of literature to foster the understanding of product innovation in cultural industries. Moreover, the book identifies new research directions to guide research on the strategic decisions made to improve the reception of new cultural products
Navigating the tension between tradition and innovation in cultural and creative industries: A critical literature review and research agenda
No full textManagement and organizational scholars have paid increasing attention to the role of tradition in strategy making. One trajectory of this literature has reached a consensus on the use of tradition as a resource to preserve valued rituals, support desired identities and bolster firm performance. However there is much less agreement about how firms can leverage their traditions to pursue innovation. Addressing this question is particularly important in cultural and creative contexts where respect for tradition and an orientation toward innovation often coexist in a dialectical way and organizations often face the challenge to mediate between adherence to a long-lived legacy and pursuit of innovation. Accordingly, I aim to synthesize and integrate the existing literature into a coherent perspective that delineates viable future research directions by asking the following fundamental questions: How can cultural and creative firms manage the tension between tradition and innovation? How can they accommodate the renewal of a tradition without stifling it? How can they use tradition as a resource for innovation in the present
Category Spanning and the Paradox of Strategic Conventionality in the Italian Opera
Full text linkWhile literature on categories has recently turned attention to how organizations can mitigate the “illegitimacy discount” (Zuckerman, 1999) of category spanning, most empirical studies have tested this effect in the context of a market-maker audience. This paper contributes to the scholarly debate by further unpacking the conditions in which a market-taker conservative audience can reward category spanning and the resulting hybrid products. By problematizing the relationship between degrees of categorical contrast and categorical features, we hypothesize that a conservative audience can positively reward organizations that blend the features of two high-contrast categories when the combined entity preserves the core features of the category that reflects conservative audience expectations while hybridizing peripheral attributes. Furthermore, we introduce the paradox of “strategic conventionality”: while producers strategically increase the conventionality (Durand & Kremp, 2016) of hybrid products to attract attention, external audiences penalize highly conventional hybrids based on assessments of perceived inauthenticity (Carroll & Wheaton, 2009). We develop our context- specific hypotheses in the Italian opera sector based on an original panel data of opera houses’ programming decisions
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