Passion or people? Social capital and career sustainability in arts management

Date06 November 2017
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/PR-02-2016-0023
Published date06 November 2017
Pages1835-1851
AuthorJulia Richardson,Uma Jogulu,Ruth Rentschler
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM
Passion or people? Social
capital and career sustainability
in arts management
Julia Richardson
School of Management, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Uma Jogulu
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup,
Australia, and
Ruth Rentschler
School of Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of social capital for career success and
sustainability among arts managers and the implication for human resource practice.
Design/methodology/approach This paper is a qualitative study comprising interviews with 73 arts
managers in Australia.
Findings While answering an occupational calling and having a sense of passion for the arts is a key driver
to embark upon a career in arts management, it is social capital that is essential for both objective and
subjective career success and thus for career sustainability. The authors also identify the value of education,
global experience and well-honed soft skills for building social capital.
Research limitations/implications The study is located in Australia arts management in other
national contexts and industries may be different.
Practical implications This paper identifies the need for arts managers to develop heterogeneous social
capital to support both career success and sustainability. It also indicates that whereas passion for the arts
may be an important driver, other skills and competencies are required. Both of these themes need to be
incorporated into human resource practice in the arts industry.
Social implications This paper demonstrates the growing need to acknowledge the impact of relational
social capital in the arts in an increasingly volatile work environment.
Originality/value This paper fills the gap in our understanding of careers that bridge both the arts and
management as professional domains of activity and extends understanding on the role of social capital in
management careers more generally.
Keywords Social capital, Qualitative, Career success, Career sustainability, Human resource practice,
Occupational calling
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
You can only survive on passion for so long. You need to approach it with other elements or you
wont get anywhere (Joe, Arts Manager).
While there is a growing interest in careers in the arts, we know very little about careers that
bridge both the arts and management. Moreover, while the impact of social capital on
individual career success and organizational performance is the focus of increasing
attention, we know very little about how it impacts on careers and Human Resource
Management (HRM) practice in specific industries and in different economic climates
(Bozionelos, 2015). Therefore, this paper explores the impact of social capital on career
success and sustainability in arts management. It also considers the implications for HRM
practices in the arts as an increasingly volatile industry (Rentschler and Jogulu et al., 2012).
Social capital (Bourdieu, 1986) has been a longstanding area of interest for both careers
and HRM scholars. Careers scholars have been especially interested in its impact on
Personnel Review
Vol. 46 No. 8, 2017
pp. 1835-1851
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-02-2016-0023
Received 10 February 2016
Revised 16 August 2016
21 November 2016
Accepted 6 February 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
1835
Passion or
people?
individual career success (see e.g. Cotton et al., 2011; Kim, 2013; Reiche, 2012), whereas HR
scholars have pursued more diverse lines of enquiry such as how HR practices impact on the
development of social capital (Wu and Lee, 2016) and the role of social capital as an
organizational and professional resource (Fernandez-Perez et al., 2012; Truss and Gill, 2009).
What is clear from both domains of scholarship, however, is the extent to which social
capital is an integral part of organizational life regardless of whether it is viewed from the
perspective of the individual or the employer. Little wonder, then, that social capital has also
been examined in the emerging literature on career sustainability (Bozionelos, 2015) and the
related area of sustainable HRM (De Pins et al., 2015). This shared interest clearly reflects the
impact of social capital on both elements of career sustainability, namely employability
(the extent to which the individual career actor has the opportunity to be employed) and
workability (the extent to which he/she is able to meet expectations regarding job
performance) (Lawrence et al., 2015). Drawing on a qualitative study located within a social
constructionist (Cohen et al., 2004) paradigm, this paper extends our understanding of the
impact of social capital further by examining how it functions in the arts industry.
There is an extensive body of conceptual and empirical scholarship examining the
careers of managers in the corporate sector. There has also been a growing interest in the
career experiences of performers in the arts industry (Dobrow, 2013; Kirschbaum, 2007;
Kosmala, 2008; Kostagiolas et al., 2015; Maitlis, 2005). Yet, we know very little about the
career experiences of arts managers (see Rentschler et al., 2012). Therefore, this paper
examines careers that span both the arts as a performance industryand management.
Drawing on 73 interviews with arts managers in Australia, we explore the role of social
capital on career success and sustainability. Given the broader social and academic
discourse about the value of answering a calling (Richardson and Arthur, 2013) and the
centrality of callingin careers in the arts in particular (Dobrow, 2013; Svejenova, 2005),
we also explore the impact of answering a calling on social capital, career success and
sustainability and the subsequent implications for HR practice.
The opening quote for this paper from Joe (one of our interviewees) speaks to the key
contribution of this paper by demonstrating that whereas arts managers may be passionate
about their respective field, they are aware that answering a calling and having a passion
for a career does not guarantee either career success or career sustainability. As we will
demonstrate, whereas pursuing a calling can have a positive impact on organizational
culture and industry culture (Pratt and Ashforth, 2003), it can also lead to conflict which
may inhibit the development of what was widely understood as an essential prerequisite for
both career success and career sustainability, namely social capital. It is, therefore,
something which HR managers should approach with some caution.
Located within a social constructivist ontology with its underlying assumptions about
the essentially relational nature of reality and social experience, our study generates new
knowledge about what it means to pursue a career in arts management and the implications
for HR practices. Previous studies (e.g. Dobrow, 2013; Kosmala, 2008; Maitlis, 2005) have
drawn attention to the complexity and challenge of pursuing a career as a performer in the
arts industry, particularly given the broad range of stakeholders involved. Maitlis (2005),
for example, argues that cultural industries offer a rich research context because their
products are experiential, [and] judgments about quality are subjective and shifting,
creating an uncertain, dynamic environment(p. 24). It is notable also that early studies
reported that career paths in arts organizations and the arts industry more broadly
are uncertain and ambiguous (Di Maggio, 1987; Kirschbaum, 2007) and are characterized
by barriers to entry imposed by organizational/industry insiders(Bourdieu and
Johnson, 1993). Given recent reports, it seems that this situation has continued, where a
decision to pursue a career in the arts, including arts management, remains something of
ariskyventure (Rentschler et al., 2012).
1836
PR
46,8

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