(Im)materiality of Knowledge: Study on Value Creation Beyond Intellectual Property Rights Based on the Chinese Improvisation Theater

Li-Min Lin, Yi Lin

Li-Min Lin’s research interest centers on performing arts in terms of creative industries and the performative aspects of economics. She is Yale Research Fellow (2015-2016), AIMAC Best Paper winner (2017), and director of a National Social Science Fund project on performing arts value creation.
Yi Lin, Peking University, specializes in arts manage­ment, marketing and inter­cultural communication of arts. She is Director, National Centre for Research into Intercultural Communication of Arts; Vice President, China Arts Administration Education Association; and Inspector and board member, Asia Theatre Education Centre.

ABSTRACT
As live performances become the “performing arts industry,” there is a tendency to prioritize text over intangible elements in value creation, leading to an overreliance on Intellectual Property Rights. This article explores what constitutes valuable knowledge in the industry. It first addressed this bias by emphasizing how “cognition” and “relationships” beyond the text should be incorporated into the discussion on intellectual property based on a case study of Improv’s League, a Chinese improvisation troupe. Then, the study analytically examines how the role of the audience serves as a temporal organizational structure and shows that a modus operandi for tacit knowledge transfer is possible. This study can act as a guideline for future research, contributing to forms of knowledge and the knowledge transfer and exchange theory, particularly in the performing arts industry.
KEYWORDS
Intellectual property rights; cost disease; value creation; improvisation; tacit knowledge; shared mind model; knowledge management and transfer