A Resource-Oriented Approach to Performing Arts Organizations: An Ethnographic Study of Dance Companies

Abstract

This article explores the organizational practices of large dance companies in Europe. To capture intangible and intrinsic aspects, a multi-sited ethnographic study at the Vienna State Ballet and Berlin State Ballet was conducted. By putting artistic processes at the core of the inquiry, the resource-oriented approach to the organization of such work comes to the fore. Following a resource-oriented understanding of organizations, the categories of reconfiguring, coordinating, co-creating, coaching, and preserving are induced. These five categories are understood as capabilities to deploy and develop resources, offering new insights about how such organizations create and sustain artistic achievement.

Keywords:

• Artistic achievement
• arts management
• dance
• organizational practices
• performing arts organizations
• resource-based view

Notes

1 Subsidies are granted as direct government funding, as opposed to the US, in which the large proportion of arts funding is indirect (tax deductions for gifts to nonprofit arts organizations).

2 The author conducted interviews in the interviewees’ preferred languages (English, German, Spanish, or Italian).