Entrepreneurship in creative industries: a case of theater from Italy

Abstract

Scholars have long overlooked entrepreneurship in the performing arts. The difficulty of making firms operating in these contexts economically self-sufficient and the consequent dependence on public funding have long diverted the attention of scholars from this topic. Only recently, especially thanks to the advancements in theory on entrepreneurship, the phenomenon has begun to be examined in these contexts. This paper, which is mainly based on literature on entrepreneurship and on nascent literature focused on arts entrepreneurship, aims at exploring the entrepreneurial phenomenon with reference to a specific art: the theatre. It is focused on a firm operating in Italy, whose institutional system is characterized to be of particular, although decreasing, support for firms operating in cultural industries. The case study identifies the dimensions of entrepreneurship, declined considering the specificity of the activity and the context in which the firm operates.

On the interplay between the entrepreneurs' challenges and the business performance: empirical study and evidence from emerging economies

“…There are many reasons that make entrepreneurs vulnerable to such challenges. The most important is the lack of financial resources (Belwal et al, 2014;Cavada et al, 2018;Choto et al, 2014;Cristina et al, 2018;Karadzic et al, 2015;Rivetti and Migliaccio, 2015) that is bank loans are rarely provided and constrained by bureaucratic and other barriers. Other important financial challenges are the lack of financial support from the government (Dhewanto et al, 2020;Tleuberdinova et al, 2019), limited profit and limited growth in sales and revenue.…”

“…Other important financial challenges are the lack of financial support from the government (Dhewanto et al, 2020;Tleuberdinova et al, 2019), limited profit and limited growth in sales and revenue. Such challenges can inhibit many individuals from taking advantage of the opportunities they see in the market, preventing them from becoming entrepreneurs (Rivetti and Migliaccio, 2015). On the other hand, the lack of financial resources restricts the firm's ability to grow given it limits its investment in the development of material, Research and Development (R&D) and human resources, possibly leading to bankruptcy (Cristina et al, 2018).…”

“…Ceptureanu and Ceptureanu (2015) and Wagdi and Hasaneen (2019) found that the most significant challenges entrepreneurs face are governmental challenges. Governmental challenges include bureaucracy (the restricted rules, regulations and procedures to open and operate your business), high taxation (Rivetti and Migliaccio, 2015;Tleuberdinova et al, 2019), corruption (Rivetti and Migliaccio, 2015;Areiqat et al, 2019), poor government policies (Areiqat et al, 2019), lack of legislative support (Wagdi and Hasaneen, 2019), unstable regulations (Rivetti and Migliaccio, 2015), poor legal environment and lack of tax incentives (Wagdi and Hasaneen, 2019), lack of institutional efficiency (Cavada et al, 2018), lack of security (Alon and Shneor, 2017;Islam et al, 2019), negative attitude (Choto et al, 2014). Islam et al (2019) explained that there is an apparent and biased lack of support for female entrepreneurs from the government.…”

Artist residencies as specialist accommodation: cultural entrepreneurship during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…While the subject of entrepreneurship has been studied from a multitude of disciplinary perspectives (see for example Ahmad, 2015;Rivetti and Migliaccio, 2015;Swedberg, 2006;Yodchai et al, 2022), research on artist residencies has been overlooked from the aspect of hospitality. Instead, most research on artist residencies is based on organization theory and management studies, and as a consequence there is only passing mention of the subject in the hospitality literature.…”

“…Instead, most research on artist residencies is based on organization theory and management studies, and as a consequence there is only passing mention of the subject in the hospitality literature. According to Rivetti and Migliaccio (2015), the lack of research on entrepreneurship in the performing arts is because of the dependence of most relevant businesses and organizations on public funding. However, before the COVID-19 pandemic the cultural and creative industries were considered as growth drivers of development, increasing therefore the need for research on the topic (Liang and Wang, 2020).…”