Anders Rykkja

Leadership models in the cultural and creative sectors are frequently based on collective, shared, or distributed structures. In recent decades, research on these plural forms has yielded insights in the form of typological models and empirical studies. This article seeks to examine two issues in the literature on plural leadership that have received insufficient attention. The first is how cultural organizations combine and integrate multiple leadership models. The use of horizontal co-leadership at the macro (organisational) level alongside either vertical or horizontal leadership of embedded projects managed by teams is one example. Little is known about how the existence of distinct leadership styles at the macro and meso levels influences the career paths of individuals and organizations. The second is an inquiry into the evolution of leadership models in cultural organizations over time. This is especially important when an organisation transitions from a startup to a successful enterprise and expands its operations internationally. To empirically investigate these issues, we propose a single case study of Snøhetta, a multinational architecture firm. The results of this case study allow for a better understanding of how forms of collaborative leadership style can influence the career paths of people and organizations, and how it is possible to find a balance between the paradoxical institutional logic on which management and leadership of creativity is based. In other words, how the constellations of relationships that are generated make organizations with this leadership style more resilient and sustainable by virtue of being more transparent, open, and generous.

Showcase festivals are industry events comprising artist showcases and conferences. It may be argued that showcase festivals are an understudied offline field, since their role in configuring and maintaining a festival-like arena and providing a meeting place for the music industries remains largely unexplored from a scholarly point of view, as well as underappreciated and underestimated within the mainstream academic community. Their purpose is to present artists hoping to attract the attention of the core audience: industry professionals looking for new talent to sign and represent. The article provides an empirical study of the Nordic showcase festival by:Larm using theories of gatekeeping, fields and capital.

The chapter investigates the unisex fashion brand Linjer’s adoption of crowdfunding as a business model. Our analysis focuses on how crowdfunding lends itself to processes of value co-creation and production between brand and consumers. An argument is that the consumption of symbolically charged goods like fashion, transfers cultural meaning to the individual consumer. At the same time, by consuming these goods, consumers also produce value. Seen from this perspective, crowdfunding becomes a brand development strategy based on consumer participation in processes of ascribing value. Additionally, the case exemplifies that the mechanism governing crowdfunding is more than just a fundraising tool.

Cultural production has stood at the forefront of crowdfunding adoption representing some of the first crowdfunding campaigns on record. This development emerged as part of comprehensive value chain reconfigurations in the cultural sector, which were triggered by the advent of digitalization on the one hand and the downsizing in public funds on the other. As a result, the emerging phenomenon here labelled as ‘cultural crowdfunding’ (CCF) has captured the imagination of researchers and practitioners. The study of CCF is of high relevance, as it presses creators to strike a balance between the commercial and the non-commercial, the economic and the cultural outcomes, as well as the authentic and independent versus the mass dictated and dependent. In this chapter we review earlier research on CCF and identify core themes and key studies representing such themes. Later, we outline an agenda for future research, while also suggesting some implications for practice.

Over the last 15 years, online crowdfunding has emerged as a decentralised, alternative micropatronage platform for raising capital for projects and businesses with for-profit and nonprofit goals. Concurrently, a growing body of literature has been published on crowdfunding as a new and innovative funding mechanism. Most of this literature focuses on the success of campaigns, finding that two factors usually determine their performance: firstly, the quality of the campaign’s presentation and its communication of the project or venture to potential contributors, and secondly, the choice of service model (investment versus non-investment).

Fewer studies investigate what motivates adoption among entrepreneurs as promoters and how crowdfunding is used as a business model at the sector level. The objective of this thesis is to shed light on which factors motivate or inhibit the use of crowdfunding by artists and cultural entrepreneurs, as well as on how crowdfunding is used as a business model in the cultural and creative industries. A critical realist stance is adopted, and the thesis integrates findings from exploratory, intensive (qualitative), and extensive (quantitative) research designs to address these questions, using the Nordic countries and Spain as an empirical context.

Several empirical and theoretical advances are made in this thesis. The primary contribution of this study's empirical research is that it finds that claims that crowdfunding in the cultural and creative industries (CCI) represents a "viable" alternative or "democratisation" of funding and financing arrangements are not supported by an analysis of cross-sectional campaign data. Instead, the evidence favours "winner-take-all" market structures. Important theoretical progress was made by showing that the micro perspective alone is insufficient for understanding the motivations behind – and the adoption of – cultural crowdfunding. Mesolevel (platform environment, industry category, and the configuration of production systems) and macro-level (configuration of institutional environments and arrangements) structures and mechanisms are also relevant in understanding what drives or impedes the adoption and use of crowdfunding. This thesis makes a significant contribution by considering these contexts in order to unpack differences in motivations that help to explain how crowdfunding is actually being used by artists and cultural entrepreneurs. Most of these promoters adopt crowdfunding out of necessity due to a lack of alternatives. In a few project- and industry-specific circumstances, crowdfunding serves as either a complementary or substitutive source of funding.

Using longitudinal data, this thesis is one of the few contributions that exist that describe and explain the various forms of cultural crowdfunding. Being aware of and responsive to geographical contexts, institutional settings, and project types demonstrates the value of a focus on object specificity. It also demonstrates the value and benefits of combining methods to unpack crowdfunding as a phenomenon in ways that few other studies of cultural crowdfunding have accomplished.