Manninen, Kadja
(2024)
Exploring digital business models in performing arts through a dynamic capabilities lens.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
This PhD research is situated at the intersection of arts, business, and the digital realm. With a particular focus on the crisis-time practices during the Covid-19 pandemic, the thesis investigates how performing arts enterprises (PAEs) can deploy business models in the digital economy. The Covid-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst of digital transformation in many traditionally live activities-based industries, such as the performing arts sector. As live performance-based business models were made temporarily obsolete, the global health crisis marked a drastic drop in income for the sector, but also accelerated organisational decision-making, the adoption of novel digital technologies, and the development of dynamic capabilities (DCs) (Teece, 2007; Teece et al., 1997) in PAEs, which enabled the experimentation with innovative digital business models. Set within this context, this thesis explores the activities of UK-based PAEs to share insights into their recent digital business model innovations, and to discuss the implications of arts and cultural sectors’ pandemic-time ‘digital pivot’ for the post-pandemic performing arts landscape.
Although the ‘platformization’ (Nieborg and Poell, 2018) of work and leisure activities has created a prolific ecosystem for digital entrepreneurship, publicly funded, non-profit PAEs commonly lack the financial, time and human resources to engage in business model innovation (BMI) or embed digital technologies in their business models. This situation is further complicated by the mission of arts and cultural enterprises to create different types of value (e.g., cultural, social, and economic), which requires the complex task of balancing competing value creation logics. This research therefore sets out to explore how PAEs can better embrace the opportunities of the digital economy and build strong DCs required to engage in digital BMI.
Through addressing the following research questions: “How can performing arts enterprises deploy business models in the digital economy?” and “How do the dynamic capabilities of performing arts enterprises change in order to enable digital business model innovation?”, the thesis investigates innovative business models deployed by PAEs in the digital economy and the dynamic capabilities that enable PAEs to engage in digital BMI.
To facilitate the identification of digital business models deployed by PAEs, a novel theoretical framework is developed that draws upon Rex et al.’s (2019) categorisation of common (live activities-based) business models in performing arts, extending it to the context of the digital economy. Drawing on extant literature on business model research, arts entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities research, the thesis adopts a qualitative, multi-stage and multimethod research design. By combining semi-structured interviews, netnographic research and multi-method case study research, data is collected on existing and emerging digital business models in performing arts to determine their key characteristics and potential for sustainability and viability.
The research contributes to both theory and practice. First, with a focus on the Covid-19 crisis-time practices in PAEs, the thesis situates the concept of digital business model in the context of performing arts, advancing the work of Rex et al. (2019) and furthering understanding of the type of digital business models that PAEs are likely to deploy post-pandemic. Second, the thesis presents a novel conceptual model highlighting the dynamic capabilities that contribute to the digital BMI within PAEs and enable them to develop new business models for the digital economy.
The research also offers a range of implications for policy, as it provides policymakers with evidence of how the prevailing cultural policy supports the digital BMI process and development of critical dynamic capabilities in PAEs. Additionally, it pinpoints key issues and loopholes with the current arts funding infrastructure with regard to creative digital R&D and innovation in performing arts. These insights are particularly valuable to SMEs, as when seeking to engage in digital BMI they face considerably more challenges than larger, better-resourced peers. From a practitioner perspective, the research is valuable as it highlights potential digital entrepreneurial opportunities available for performing arts and provides guidelines for PAEs when designing business models for the digital economy.
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