Artists as public sector intrapreneurs: an experiment
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Artists as public sector intrapreneurs: an experiment Jessica Sherrod Hale
&
Joanna Woronkowicz
Accepted: 8 September 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract As organizations grapple with changing environmental conditions, they face problems that are novel, ill-defined, and complex. These emerging problems require creative problem-solving and innovative solutions. Intrapreneurs can galvanize creative activity and develop fresh strategies in organizations. One way t h a t o r ga n i z a t i on s h av e s ou g ht to p r om o t e intrapreneurship is through artist residencies, which are programs that invite artists to work in unconventional environments, such as public agencies, businesses, and universities. In a controlled experiment, we test whether artists act as intrapreneurs in solving a novel, ill-defined, and complex problem in the public sector context. Our results indicate that artists bring intrapreneurial characteristics, such as openness and divergent thinking abilities, to group problem-solving settings. Moreover, we find that groups of public sector workers who collaborate with artists may develop more creative solutions than groups collaborating without artists. Our results suggest that artists serve as resident intrapreneurs,
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-020-00417-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J. S. Hale (*) : J. Woronkowicz O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Bloomington, 1315 E 10th St, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA e-mail: [email protected]
J. Woronkowicz e-mail: [email protected]
bringing openness to new insights and creativity to generate new ideas. Keywords Intrapreneurship . Innovation . Creativity . Collaboration . Problem-solving JEL classifications L26 . Z10
1 Introduction Private sector businesses and public sector agencies alike must contend with rapidly changing environmental conditions from myriad sources, such as technological advancements, globalization, and demographic shifts. Like private sector organizations, public agencies respond to these problems by innovating, and their success hinges on the work of creative employees (Windrum 2008). However, unlike the private sector, public organizations suffer from several barriers to innovation, particularly a culture of risk aversion (Cinar et al. 2019). The lack of incentive for innovation results in an adverse selection problem, where creative minds seek careers in other sectors that incentivize creativity and innovation (Borins 2001). Organizations have heeded the call for innovative solutions through a variety of interventions, including arts-based interventions, like artist residency programs (Berthoin Antal 2014). Artist residencies in non-arts sectors emerged in the 1960s in both public and private settings (Stephens 2001), and the number of residencies has grown rapidly (European Commission 2014). Artist
J. S. Hale, J. Woronkowicz
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