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In a process termed “organizational centrifugalism,” this chapter describes how avant-garde artists sought new, alternative organizational spaces for innovations in the visual arts from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century and how new alternative marketspaces co-evolved with these new organizational spaces. Organizational centrifugalism begins with the denouement of the state-run Salon and Academy in the mid-nineteenth century; the rise of the dealer-critic system and other, non-salon alternative exhibition spaces of French Impressionism in the latter half of the nineteenth century; and through many new organizational spaces associated with Modernism such as formal artists groups, museums, great exhibitions, schools of art, and Modernist art itself. The ultimate effect of organizational centrifugalism is drawing avant-garde art closer to the public and eventually the masses. Excessive organizational centrifugalism, however, can be dangerous to the avant-garde art.

This second chapter provides a useful backdrop for understanding innovation beyond the conventional focus on mainstream technology and science by detailing the conceptual underpinnings of cultural innovation. First, the challenges of objectively assessing the worth of novel work in the various fields of art and architecture are explored through the philosophical views of beauty. Second, the strategies and models deployed over time by artists, patrons, and experts to characterize the merits of novelty in the creative fields are reviewed. Third, the economic principles that have been used to frame the value propositions associated with cultural innovations as articulated by cultural economists are explored.

There are certain accepted points that influence ethnographic work, even though they do not condition or fully determine it. They include the notion that in order to develop theories about human life, an ethnographer must study human activities and the way people interpret their realities in their every-day context and must also identify and then synthesise the conditions of the field, the perspectives of the participants, the latent meanings of the context and the researcher's own ideas for the grounding, generation and expansion of propositions about what is actually going on in the events and places researched. In this process, foreshadowed problems are accepted to frame the initial focus, but producing and analysing materials from multiple sources and perspectives are also important in order to prevent over-steering from private ideas and concepts. Once formed, ethnographic propositions, descriptions or theories are explored and tested in terms of their general scope against further data. Ethnographic field-notes are one of the most important foundations in this activity.

Conflicting theoretical perspectives present radical innovation as originating either from the core or the periphery of a system. Studies tend to bridge this divide by way of positions or roles. This paper proposes a process interface, where ideas from the core are radicalized on the periphery, inverting the established tendency of “tempering” of innovation. This approach realigns the primacy of the core in diffusing ideas and that of the periphery in reinforcing distinctiveness. Radicalization and tempering are interdependent, to the extent that the realization of one denotes other’s termination. Quantitative and qualitative evidence from the history of art lend support to the arguments, including breakthrough paintings, such as The Scream by Munch and Black Square by Malevitch. Radicalization is facilitated by simultaneously increasing differences and exchanges between core and periphery. The mobility of new ideas from the core to the periphery is likely to provoke resistance in a conservative environment. The collision of opposing social forces raises the stakes, making compromise less feasible or desirable.

Cafés are becoming a key aspect in the renaissance of urban living. They are often the key element in the gentrification of urban neighbourhoods, and their role as the ‘third place’ is becoming fundamental to many people’s lives. They are where people go to socialize, sip coffee and watch the world go by. Several studies have considered this phenomenon, often linking the renaissance of café culture to their former role, in their perceived ‘heyday’, as locations of development of political and philosophical ideas. In this chapter, we explore the growth of the small, independent cafés which are becoming the homes of micro-communities and where a range of social interchange take place, as well as the consumption of food and beverage.

From our research, adopting the role of flaneurs to observe and experience the atmosphere of a number of independent cafés, we identify and classify some of these micro-communities by identifying the bonds that hold them together. The essential feature underlying the success of these independent cafés is much more than the food and beverage, it is also the environment, a place where customers feel comfortable socializing in an active or, in many cases, passive, way – for example, drinking coffee and reading the paper in a comfortable environment.

We also observe that many independent cafés have a loyal following which compose their regular customers. We have referred to these micro-communities as ‘tribes’. From our observations, it appears that they are growing and that for many in society they are becoming an important part of daily life.

The process of commercialization of art is often referred to as “monetization,” denoting the use of art as an investment class. I discuss the reverse mechanism, defined as “Monet-ization,” where investment is overlaid with artistic value, and unproven art is imbued with aesthetic qualities. This mechanism is derived from a historical overview of key periods in the history of art, such as the flourishing of new genres in early 17th century Dutch art and the rise of Modern art in the early 20th century. An analysis of original data on the leading art collectors in the world in the period 1990–2015 highlights the tendency for collectors with an “investor” profile and eclectic taste to buy contemporary art. Combining artworks from diverse periods and styles, eclectic personal collections contribute to the conversion of economic into aesthetic value by way of spill-overs across genres and to the attribution by association of “old” value to “new” art. The “Monet-ization” process helps elucidate how paradigm shifts occur in the art world and how innovation survives under conditions of insufficient demand.

Companies inevitably interact and entrench in complex organic systems of business relationships with other. These business networks are not objectively defined, instead they are shaped by the subjective perception of actors. This inherent subjectivity is associated with the notion of network pictures, that is, a research tool that researchers or managers can use to grasp practitioner theories. In this chapter, we discuss how the importance of identifying these theories results mainly from underlying principles of sense-making theory, as well as from the idea around performativity. Drawing on these theoretical groundings, this chapter has two objectives: to explore how practitioners actually perceive their business surroundings and to assess the extent of overlapping between (IMP Group) academic theories and practitioner theories. To achieve these objectives, the researchers use a dimensional network pictures model previously developed in the literature to analyze the network pictures of 49 top-level managers across 17 companies from two very distinct contexts or networks: a product-based network and a project-based network. Among other practices, findings illustrate how practitioners tend to simplify what is going on in their complex surroundings, to personalize their relationships with those surroundings, and to think in a stereotyped way. Moreover, the juxtaposition between the captured practitioner theories and academic (IMP Group) theories show that these are not always overlapping, and are in some cases quite the opposite. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion of the importance of grasping actors’ views of the world, arguing that sense-making theory and the notion of performativity are the two main conceptual drivers justifying the urgency in making those views more visible. This research also adds to the research on the impact and suitability of IMP Group theories on managerial thinking and practice. Finally, this research reinforces the current call for further practice-based research in business network contexts.