Organizing cultural projects through legitimising as cultural entrepreneurship
International Journal of Managing Projects in Business
ISSN: 1753-8378
Article publication date: 7 September 2015
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is a study of creating organization in the case of cultural projects; cultural entrepreneurship. This includes taking advantage of opportunities and using ones social capital through networks. It is a case study of Vandalorum which is an Swedish international art and design centre with a strong regional connection. They want to offer close collaborations between artists, designers and the creative industry. It is located in Värnamo in the south of Sweden and was inaugurated in April 2011 after an establishment process running over 15 years. Renzo Piano has created the architectural concept of Vandalorum, inspired by traditional Swedish materials and building techniques. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Through interviews with significant actors over many years and secondary analysis of data collected by others the authors describe and analyze the establishment process of Vandalorum Art and Design Centre.
Findings
The case of Vandalorum shows that organizing a cultural project like Vandalorum is characterized by no well-defined starting and stopping point, but – quite typically for entrepreneurship as an organization-creation process – builds momentum and legitimacy narratively.
Originality/value
The originality lies in answering the question that the authors chose to focus on, which is embedded in the opening story of Vandalorum: how can such a cultural project become legitimized in a place like that, outside and rather far from any large city? In a changed cultural landscape with reduced public contributions, the claim is that it is crucial to legitimize the idea and project in relation to the main/key stakeholders. Such legitimization is a key entrepreneurial achievement.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper has been developed from a Swedish article (Lindkvist, 2015) and earlier versions has been presented at the Sixth Nordic Conference on Cultural Policy Research in Copenhagen, 2013 and at the 22nd Nordic Academy of Management Conference in Reykjavik, 2013. The authors thank all readers and reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
Citation
Lindkvist, L. and Hjorth, D. (2015), "Organizing cultural projects through legitimising as cultural entrepreneurship", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 696-714. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-07-2015-0064
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited