Barbara Slavich

New trends of managerial roles in performing arts: empirical evidence from the Italian context

Since the 1990s the Italian performing arts sector has been characterized by juridical, social and economic changes, due, for instance, to new technologies, increasing environmental competition and contamination among different artistic realities. These new trends have increased the industrys complexity and forced organizations to undertake processes of internal reorganization. In particular, Italian organizations have faced such challenges through the recruitment and training of human resources with managerial competencies. Accordingly, nowadays managerial roles seem to be more critical than artistic ones. This paper aims to investigate “the state of the art” in terms of internal reorganization experienced by Italian organizations operating in the performing arts. In so doing, it draws on the resource-based perspective and discusses the results of an empirical investigation conducted through the administration of a questionnaire.

Wishing Upon a Star: How apprentice-master similarity, status and career stage affect critics’ evaluations of former apprentices in the haute cuisine industry

This article explores how the similarity between a master’s and former apprentice’s products influences critics’ evaluations of creative professionals’ work. Through apprenticeships with well-known masters, creative professionals manage the competing demands for novelty and familiarity typical of creative industries and find their optimal balance. To gain positive evaluations, creative workers must demonstrate their offerings’ comparability with their former master’s, yet some degrees of novelty. An analysis of international haute cuisine chefs reveals an inverted U-shaped relationship between similarity of apprentice’s and master’s products, and critics’ evaluations. Furthermore, the analysis shows that apprenticeships with high-status masters and those that occur late in the apprentice’s career change this inverted U-shaped relationship into a positive one. The article concludes by highlighting the consequences of being a mainstream or a maverick with respect to the master in the creative industry and by discussing possible strategies for creative professionals to gain critics’ recognition.

Managing Creativity: A Critical Examination, Synthesis, and New Frontiers

This article aims at providing definitional clarity on creativity and a systematic understanding of its management in organizations. By drawing on the results of a content analysis of creativity definitions in 440 scholarly publications in the field of management between 1990 and 2014, this study clarifies how scholars in the management domain have defined the concept and identifies core categories shared by these definitions. It also brings together these conceptual categories into an integrative multilevel framework of relevance for managing creativity in organizations. The framework outlines a view of managing creativity, which involves managing interconnected processes as well as dualities, such as processes-outcomes, individuals-collectives, and permanent-temporary creativity units. Finally, it paves the way to new research frontiers for the domain.