Sensemaking and Artistic Directors in the Performing Arts Sector

(disponible en anglais seulement)

Tracy Margieson, Lucy Taksa, Anne Kershaw, Hilary Glow

Tracy Margieson is a PhD Candidate at Deakin Business School. Her research focuses on organizational behavior in the performing arts, with a particular interest in artistic programming, perception, and decision making, and organizational change. Before commencing her PhD, Tracy held several leadership positions in various domains of arts management.
Lucy Taksa is a Research Professor and Deputy Director, Centre for Refugee Employ­ment, Advocacy, Training & Education (CREATE) in Deakin University’s Faculty of Business and Law. She has expertise in research management and strategy in higher education and the not-for-profit sector. Her research and publications focus on the past, present, and future of work.
Anne Kershaw is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin Business School and teaches in Deakin’s Arts and Cultural Management program. Her research focus is organizational behavior in the cultural sector, with a particular interest in collaboration, organizational change, and audience development. Anne originally trained as a museum curator before becoming an academic.
Hilary Glow is a Professor in Arts and Cultural Manage­ment at Deakin Business School. Her research focuses primarily on arts audiences, as well as the areas of arts and cultural impact, audience engagement and diversification, evaluation processes for arts and cultural organizations, and the impact of arts programs on people’s views of cultural diversity.

ABSTRACT
Artistic directors play a crucial role in the performing arts sector, often portrayed in literature as revered visionaries with little interest in the business operations of arts organizations that employ them. Such organizations prepare and disseminate job descriptions for this senior leadership role, outlining the experience and expertise required of artistic directors and their key responsibilities. By undertaking textual analysis of these documents, this paper provides insight into how the artistic director role is changing in Australia’s publicly funded performing arts sector. Through the lens of sensemaking (Weick 1995) and critical sensemaking (Helms Mills, Thurlow, and Mills 2010), it extends theorizing on the role of artistic directors and advances understanding of the complex relationship between artistic and organizational visions, prescribed programming mixes, and the increasing merger of organizational leadership roles of artistic director and executive director. Findings point to a broadening of the artistic director role as arts organizations grapple with funding cuts, relevancy, and viability.
KEYWORDS
Artistic director; artistic programming; arts management; performing arts; sensemaking; critical sensemaking