Chapter 9: Becoming an Artist-Manager: The Managerial Learning of a Theater director¹

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the socio-economic intervention process carried out within a performing arts organization and analyze its contributions, particularly from the point of view of the development of managerial skills. The issue we raise is that of the ability of organizational members, especially that of the Director, to reconcile the tension between managerial skills and artistic skills, focusing on improving the organizational and financial performance of a cultural and artistic organization.

The performing arts sector is difficult to define (Barbéris & Poirson, 2013) as it covers a large number of disciplines (e.g., dance, theater, opera, music), sizes of structures (e.g., National Opera of Paris has 1,600 people, National Theater of Nice has 33, and most institutions, on average, have less than 10), status (association, direct labor, public cultural cooperation), and labels (National Drama Center, National Theater, Opera). This diversity requires various funding patterns, staff regulations, types of relationships with public and private funders, and, as a result, different managerial approaches. Beyond this disparity, the performing arts organizations have common needs to create, buy and distribute an artistic product, and they all “depend on the creative work of artists” (Chiapello, 1997). Further, they fall within a highly institutionalized context: activity, objectives and measures that are implemented are shaped by an institutional anchoring (Aman, Mazars-Chapelon, & Villeseque-Dubus, 2014; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977).