IT IS OKAY FOR ARTISTS TO MAKE MONEY…NO, REALLY, IT’S OKAY
This paperwritten by Robert Austin of the Harvard Business School along with Lee Devin of Swarthmore Collegeexamines the apparent conflict between artistic and commercial objectives within creative companies, taking as a point-of-departure a particularly energetic debate during a symposium at the 2007 Academy of Management meetings. The authors surface some assumptions that underlie such debates, compare them with findings from research on creative industries, and identify three “fallacies” that are purported to enter into discussions of art in relation to money.
This, in turn, leads the authors to propose a framework that can support more productive discussion and to describe a direction for management research that might help integrate art and business practices.
The paper concludes that despite an inclination to take offense that often attends the close juxtaposition of art and commerce, the interests of art, artists, and business can be best served if more commerce enters into the world of art, not less.