What do board members in art organizations do? A grounded theory approach
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What do board members in art organizations do? A grounded theory approach Odile Paulus • Christophe Lejeune
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 2012
Abstract This paper explores the characteristics and activities of board members in art organizations. It describes two case studies within international artists’ residencies in France and Germany. Adopting a grounded theory approach, our study identifies the different characteristics of board members such as friendship, competence and diversity, together with board activities such as controlling, advising, legitimating, helping, exchanging and deciding. The contributions of this research are twofold. First, contrary to most governance literature, the independence of board members and board monitoring roles do not seem to be important issues for the two art organizations involved. Instead, friendship and networking appear to be key factors for the board, helping the organizations to be successful by giving them more chance to survive and grow. Second, as specific board members in the two cases studied, executive directors play a continual role of ‘‘governance entrepreneurs,’’ building and managing various board-related organs to counterbalance the influence of fund providers. In this way, executive directors attempt to satisfy their predominant public fund providers and to help the artists’ residencies survive. Keywords
Board members Governance Grounded theory Art organization
O. Paulus (&) EM-Strasbourg Business School, LARGE, Universite´ de Strasbourg, Avenue de la foreˆt noire, 61, 67085 Strasbourg, France e-mail: [email protected] C. Lejeune EM-Strasbourg Business School, HuManiS, Universite´ de Strasbourg, Avenue de la foreˆt noire, 61, 67085 Strasbourg, France e-mail: [email protected]
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O. Paulus, C. Lejeune
1 Introduction The board is considered as a central mechanism in the nonprofit sector (Anthony and Young 2003; Cornforth 2001; Glaeser 2002; Hopt 2009; McFarlan 1999; O’Regan and Oster 2002), as well as in the art sector (Adizes 1972; Turbide et al. 2008; Radbourne 2003). In its 2007 survey, the US Alliance of Artists Communities found that more than 50% of art-related organizations had used consulting firms for board-related development issues, which indicates the importance of the board within cultural and artistic organizations. Authors studying governance in the art sector (Adizes 1972; Agid and Tarondeau 2007; Turbide et al. 2008; Radbourne 2003) have highlighted a tension between artistic success and financial health. It is a question of survival for art organizations to be successful in both areas. They need to be recognized for producing good art, and they need to be able to collect enough financial resources. Radbourne (2003) also reports on the increasing demand for performance measures and board accountability by mostly public funding agencies. Turbide et al. (2008) suggest that bridges can be rebuilt between art organizations and funding agencies by bringing everyone around the same table. Does this imply
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