The purpose of this study is to explore understandings of leadership and creativity and how they are seen to connect in particular arts organisations located in Adelaide. Creativity and artistic practice are generally agreed as being at the core of an arts organisation's mission. The subjects of the study are arts organisations in receipt of government subsidy. Given changes to the environment for subsidised arts organisations, particularly over the past decade, the study explores the possible impact of differing expectations of the leadership role of arts organisations and the possible impact on the organisation's creativity.

This study investigates the dynamics of inter-organisational collaboration and their role in demand stimulation in the performing arts. While the literature suggested methods and outcomes of collaboration and its role in demand stimulation, recent media reports indicated very few South African Performing Arts Organisations (PAOs) were involved in any form of collaboration. Therefore before the theories on could be tested the reasons behind the limited collaboration in South Africa had to be investigated.An exploratory investigation was conducted in two phases. The first phase focused on collecting the opinions on all aspects of collaboration from strategic decision makers in PAOs to form a set of guidelines for collaboration. In phase two these guidelines were validated by the same strategic makers through a self-administered questionnaire.From the results emerged a set of barriers to and enablers of collaboration. In addition, several contextual factors emerged that greatly impact collaboration and its effectiveness as a marketing tool. The political history of South Africa in particular has created a divide, not only in the performing arts industry but in the audience as well, that makes collaboration extremely difficult. PAOs need to be able to use collaboration to mobilise support from other economic sectors in order to bridge this divide. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

I sought to find out whether this was a tension between artistic and commercial in the career of visual artists, and if so, how this tension was managed. In attempting to uncover information which could address the research question I undertook in-depth career history interviews with artists which covered their time at art school through to their current practice. The career history method was deliberately chosen in order to address the research question at a tangent as both the literature, and my own personal experience of the field of contemporary visual art, had suggested that the topic of artistic and commercial was a sensitive one. By framing the interviews around the experiences the artists had through the time period of their training and career, I was able to approach the research questions indirectly from the perspective of the artists. Through analysis of the interview transcripts the framework of Bourdieu's capitals arose as one that would capably explain the activities which the artists were undertaken and I used this as a framing device for the empirical chapters in the thesis. In exploring ideas of cultural, social and economic capitals in relation to how artists describe the activities they undertake during their career it became apparent that the broad structures of cultural capital needed further refinement in their application to the careers of visual artists. In the thesis I chose to elaborate further on the concept of artistic capital which has, until now, been unexplored by scholars. I have developed an understanding of artistic capital as a subcategory of cultural capital with particular application to the field of contemporary visual art – with the potential for wider application beyond the thesis. The three capitals of artistic, social and economic proved a capable structure for understanding whether there was a tension between artistic and commercial and how artists managed this. Through this research I have found that artists come to believe, during their early career and training through art school, that there is a tension between artistic and commercial as this is perpetuated by institutions and art world participants through their exclusion or dismissal of commercial aspects of the visual art field. Through their careers they come to realise that this tension is less prevalent than they thought and that they are able to manage these two aspects of artistic and commercial more effectively. However, artists continue to be faced with instances where this tension is imposed upon them by other art world players who perpetuate the belief that there is an inherent, unresolvable tension between artistic and commercial. These individuals attempt to shield artists from this perceived tension later in their careers when artists are already adept at managing the competing priorities of artistic and commercial without the two creating tension.