Theresa A. Kirchner

Disruptive marketing and unintended consequences in the nonprofit arts sector

Purpose – This research is the first to examine disruptive marketing, a subset perspective of entrepreneurial marketing, and unintended consequences of marketing in the context of the nonprofit arts sector.Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory research has two components: development of a body of knowledge and conceptual model of disruptive marketing, its predictors, and its intended/unintended consequences based on pertinent literature and input from arts organization executive directors, artistic directors, and marketing managers; and preliminary assessment, with a qualitative study, of the operationalization of disruptive marketing and related factors in arts organizations.Findings – The study categorizes and analyzes qualitative study structured interview responses to outline commonality/lack of commonality among them and provide insight into perceptions of arts organization executive directors.Research limitations/implications – This initial study inaugurates an academic research stream on t...

Nonprofit Cultural Alliances: Initiatory Qualitative and Empirical Examinations of an Emergent U.S. Phenomenon

ABSTRACT This study examines the recent spontaneous emergence of nonprofit cultural alliance organizations in the U.S. Cultural alliances are community-based associations, formed by arts/cultural organization members, which provide member interaction, collaboration, networking, resource sharing, and professional education opportunities. This research accomplishes three objectives: (1) generation of a body of knowledge about cultural alliances, (2) development of a cultural alliance member satisfaction model, and (3) quantitative analysis of member survey data to assess services provided, service quality, and member satisfaction. The results indicate that the survey instrument is an important assessment tool for use by association boards of directors and executive directors.

Coopetition Among Nonprofit Organizations: Strategic and Synergistic Implications of Competition and Cooperation: An Abstract

This qualitative study assesses the extent and nature of coopetition among nonprofit arts organizations within a midsize metropolitan area based on results of structured, guided interviews of their executive directors. It focuses on cooperation among organizations that might view each other as competitors, assessing six general factors: competition, cooperation, barriers to cooperation, tactical considerations, strategic considerations, and evaluative considerations.

Measuring Efficiency of Not-For-Profit Marketing, Development, and Operations Resource Usage in the Performing Arts Sector: An Abstract

Effective marketing and fund development operations are fundamental to the success of not-for-profit organizations. Those organizations not only measure their individual health/effectiveness, they also come together in professional associations for both collective and individual benefit. Associations support their members by providing education/learning opportunities, sector information resources, networking/collaboration options, and advocacy, policy creation, and promotion/lobbying. This research focuses on efficiency measurement of symphony orchestra organizations using data provided by the League of American Orchestras (a professional association for orchestras), which “leads, supports, and champions America’s orchestras and the vitality of the music they perform.” It evaluates survey data from the 393 professional orchestras which completed the League’s annual member survey at least once during the years from 2003 to 2012. (Not all orchestras completed the survey each year.) “Efficiency” of individual symphonies is assessed year by year, comparing each orchestra’s productive output performance relative to its input resources with that of the other orchestras which completed the survey for the same year.

An Information Theoretic Approach to Assessing Asymmetrically Shared Relationships Between Variables: An Extended Abstract

“Information” is fundamental to statistics. The inverse relationship between the amount of “information” in an observation and the amount of “uncertainty removed” is well recognized. This research uses an information theoretic approach to investigate the relationships between types of knowledge (objective, subjective, personally relevant) and behavior (information acquisition and prevention activity) in the public health context of the H1N1 virus pandemic threat.

Assessing Organizational Financial Health of Nonprofit Arts Organizations

This study is the second in a series that analyzes, both independently and in the aggregate, the empirical inter-relationships of financial levels of government support, marketing/development investment and financial health of nonprofit performing arts organizations. Currently in the design stage, this study will build on the previous research to examine those and additional factors—levels of earned/contributed revenue, and artistic and administrative/finance expenses—assessing their correlational and causal inter-relationships with organizational financial health. It also is designed to analyze differences between pre-2008 (pre-recession) data and post-2008 (recession and post-recession) data to assess implications of significant changes in the macro-economic environment for nonprofit arts organizations. This preliminary study examines those factors using data from GuideStar, a database which contains financial reports of nonprofit organizations. The final study will evaluate existing data from the League of American Orchestras robust annual survey of member orchestras.

The Role of Marketing in Achieving and Maintaining Financial Health of Nonprofit Arts Organizations: The Case of the Symphony Orchestra Sector

Nonprofit arts organizations historically have struggled to survive and thrive, since their business models, including their marketing and fund development efforts, often develop reactively rather than being strategically planned and tactically managed to successfully target key stakeholder groups and individuals. In addition, both program ticket sales and contributions from all sources are often affected by changes in economic environments at all levels, which are not directly controllable by arts organizations. The challenges for arts organizations of achieving and maintaining sustainable financial health are serious ones, particularly in many countries which are moving towards government support models which require organizations to become more self-sufficient by improving their fund development and marketing programs.

Internal Competition and Cooperation at Art Museums: A Qualitative Exploration

Internal competition and internal cooperation and/or collaboration are constructs that are defined most often in managerial literature. The two constructs are generally seen as having a poor influence on outcomes in the case of internal competition and more positive outcomes in the case of cooperation/collaboration. However, outcomes in the nonprofit world are not so easily defined as in for-profit businesses. Further, the concepts on internal competition and internal cooperation are not well understood in the nonprofit arena. This research explores the concepts using qualitative in-depth interviews from a variety of U.S. non-profit art museums in order to begin the development of a better understanding of how the presence, intensity and nature of internal competition and internal cooperation manifest themselves.

Coopetition (Contemporaneous Cooperation and Competition) Among Nonprofit Arts Organizations

Coopetition (cooperation among organizations and individuals which may, in other contexts, view each other as competitors) is a concept that suggests that organizations with mutual interests can cooperate profitably at one level while competing at another. Ray Noorda, CEO of Novell, coined the term and proposed that often, in order to achieve strategic growth in an organization or industry, “You have to cooperate and compete at the same time.” Coopetition is viewed as an important research area in marketing strategy because of its potential to improve profitability and competitive advantage. This study broadens research on coopetition to an arena in which it has not yet been formally studied and quantitatively assessed - the nonprofit arts subsector, assessing its manifestation in that environment with both qualitative and quantitative studies.