Visions on success
The success experience of creative entrepreneurs with differing backgrounds
Jeroen Spetter
Msc. Business Administration
Track: Entrepreneurship and Management in the Creative Industries Student number: 6129749
First supervisor: Msc. Erik Dirksen Second supervisor:
30-05-2016 First draft
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. —Mark Twain
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 5
Chapter 1: Career success ... 7
1.1 Conceptualization of career success ... 7
1.2 Career success criteria ... 8
Chapter 2: The Creative Industries ... 11
2.1 Motivations ...11
2.2 Contextual features ...13
Chapter 3: Perception of success ... 16
3.1 Performance measurement systems ...16
3.2 Mental models ...17
3.2.1 Selection system orientation...17
3.3 Influencers of mental models ...19
3.3.1 Education and experience ...19
Chapter 4: Method Section ... 21
4.1 Research rationale ...21
4.2 Research method ...22
4.3 Unit of analysis ...23
4.4 Data collection process ...24
4.5 Quality of research ...26
4.6 Data analysis method ...27
Chapter 5: Results section ... 28
5.1 Success criteria ...28
5.1.1 Profitability ...28
5.1.2 Growth ...30
5.1.3 Innovativeness (subjective or objective) ...31
5.1.4 Contributing back to society (subjective) ...33
5.1.5 Personal satisfaction (subjective) ...34
5.1.6 Satisfied stakeholders (subjective or objective) ...35
5.1.7 Public recognition (subjective) ...36
5.1.8 Transcendent purpose (subjective) ...37
5.1.9 Differences and similarities...38
5.2 Additional success criteria ...40
5.3 Justifying and tweaking ...42
5.5 Selection system orientation ...44 Chapter 6: Conclusion ... 47 References ... 51 Appendices ... 55 Appendix I ...55 Appendix II ...57 Appendix III ...58 Appendix IV ...59 Appendix V ...60
Introduction
Success is the “raison d'être” for companies and it is a key motivator for entrepreneurs to start or run a business. The entrepreneur is the founder who establishes and remains in charge of a business and determines what success entails and how to get there as an organization. Personal values and preferences of the founder(s) play a big role in this process. Hambrick and Mason (1984) stated that organizations are reflections of the values and cognitive bases of powerful actors in the organization. A traditional and obsolete perception of the concept success solely focusses on financial success. In most industries we see that companies are aimed at reaching financial performance and personal gain.
Industries in which a broader perceptions of success have been prevalent are the creative industries (Turbide & Laurin, 2009). The somewhat anomalous features of these industries are attributable to the fact that the people that work in these industries operate on the border of two separate fields, namely the artistic field and the economical field (Feinstein, 2009, p. 206). Currently these industries are getting more popular, as creativity has become the decisive source of competitive advantage (Florida, 2004). The growing role of creativity in our society fosters the growth of new creative ventures. Especially in urban areas like Amsterdam, the amounts of creative businesses increase (Amsterdam Economic Board, 2012). These creative businesses operate in various industries, including art, craft, design, fashion, filming, advertising, architecture, publishing, media and cultural heritage (DCMS, 2001). The creative industries attract both entrepreneurs with an artistic background and with a business background. People with different knowledge and experience have different understandings about what is valuable and what can lead to success (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). Therefore this inquiry focuses on the possible differences in the success experience of creative entrepreneurs with varying
backgrounds.
The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the knowledge about entrepreneurship in the creative industries by providing a clearer view on the relation between the background of entrepreneurs in the creative industry and their personal success experience. This will give me the opportunity to grasp the value set and the perceptual world of the creative entrepreneur. This explanatory research is focused on how creative entrepreneurs in Amsterdam, with different backgrounds, experience entrepreneurial success and where their success derives from. I will answer the following research question: How do entrepreneurs in the creative industries, with differing backgrounds, experience success and which actors are perceived to be key influencers of their success? This research question can be divided into two subjects. The first subject
focuses on the nature of success, which refers to the success criteria of entrepreneurs. The second subject focuses on the actors that, perceived by entrepreneurs, make them successful, which refers to the selection system orientations of the entrepreneurs. In the creative industries the success of organizations is namely affiliated with the evaluations of different actors in the field, the so called selectors. The theory about selection systems (Wijnberg, 2004) suggests that there are three distinct groups that influence the valuation process in the creative industries, namely markets, peers and experts. The evaluation of these actors can be decisive for the success that an entrepreneur experiences.
In order to answer the research question I will use qualitative research methods to determine to what extent an entrepreneur's background shapes his/her understanding of success. By conducting semi-structured interviews with 13 creative entrepreneurs I received in-depth information about the link between their background and their success experience. For this investigation the professional background of an entrepreneur is subdivided into education and prior work experience, because these factors are dominant in the professional development of an entrepreneur. This is in line with multiple inquiries about entrepreneur’s backgrounds that have been published over the past years (Jo and Lee, 1996; Beckman, 2006; Denker and Gruber, 2008).
In the first section of this thesis the concept of career success will be discussed and the different types of career success will be set forth together with focal success criteria. In this theoretical part the study of Heslin (2005), Conceptualizing and evaluating career success, will be used as an important source. Thereafter the contextual and individual factors of career success will be explained in order to get a profound image of the influencers of career success.
Subsequently the theory of selection system orientation will be explained as it is a helpful tool to determine where entrepreneurs in the creative industries derive their success from. Besides that, the influence of education and prior experience of entrepreneurs on the way entrepreneurs
experience success will be discussed. Then, the empirical part of the thesis is explained, which is a qualitative research that is conducted in the form of thirteen in-depth interviews with creative entrepreneurs with different backgrounds. Thereafter the results will be presented in the analysis section and in the last section the conclusions and main implications of this research will be set forth.
Chapter 1: Career success
Career success is defined as the positive psychological or work-related outcomes or
achievements one has accumulated as a result of one’s work experience (Judge, Cable, Boudreau and Bretz 1995, p. 486). An extensive amount of research has been done about facilitators and predictors of career success (e.g., Korunka, Kessler, Frank & Lueger, 2010; Wyld, 2011; Halabi, Lussier, 2014) but less scholarly attention has been devoted to the investigation of how success is conceptualized and experienced by entrepreneurs. Career success for entrepreneurs is distinct from that for employees in general, because some dimensions of career success, such as
promotions and job level, are irrelevant for entrepreneurs as they are always located at the top of an organization. Nevertheless, for convenience purposes the term career success instead of entrepreneurial career success will be prosecuted in the upcoming text. In this section the literature about career success will be reviewed in order to get a profound view of the different aspects of career success and the success criteria entrepreneurs believe in.
1.1 Conceptualization of career success
The literature about career success for a long time only focused on objective career success which is defined by verifiable attainments, such as pay, promotions, and occupational status (Nicholson, 2000). These factors can be characterized as directly observable, measurable, and verifiable by an impartial third party. Besides the objective success criteria there are several intangible factors that play a decisive role in a person's perception of success. Everett Hughes was one of the first scholars to acknowledge the importance of these intangible factors. Hughes highlighted the dual meaning of career success. In his book Men and their work (1937) Hughes made a distinction between objective (extrinsic) career success and subjective (intrinsic) career success. Subjective career success is defined as: an individual’s reactions to his or her unfolding career experiences (Hughes, 1937). Factors such as work-life balance (Finegold & Mohrman, 2001), sense of meaning (Wrzesniewski, 2002), purpose (Cochran, 1990), transcendence (Dobrow, 2003) and contribution from work (Hall & Chandler, 2005) can be considered subjective success criteria.
The inquiry of Heslin (2005) intends to encourage theorists and researchers to focus on a broader range of subjective success criteria. The study, drawn on social comparison theory, focusses on the belief that people evaluate their objective and subjective career outcomes relative to other-referent, as well as self-referent criteria. This implies that one’s definition of success can
be influenced by personal standards (self-referent criteria) and by the comparison of one’s self with others (other-referent criteria) (Heslin, 2005, p. 118). This results in four types of success criteria, that is to say the objective self-referent success, objective other-referent success, subjective self-referent success and subjective other-referent success. In this format success criteria can have different meanings depending on the reference point one takes. If someone, for example, gets promoted to a higher function, this person can feel very successful. Let’s say this is because of the higher income he/she receives then he/she did before. This is an objective self-referent success criterion, because the income is a verifiable, extrinsic factor and the success derives from the person’s prior situation. The same situation could have been experienced as much less successful if the person’s peers would have been promoted as well and got the same salary rise. In this case the success criterion is still objective but the success would derive from the person’s peers (other-referent) and would reduce the feeling of success as the relative success is perceived as minimal. The point of reference one takes to determine one’s success therefore is an important aspect in the investigation of career success.
Ituma et al. (2011) take it a step further by suggesting that the underlying meanings that are attached to the success criteria need to be taken into account when operationalizing career success. By investigating career success in a non-Western country, Nigeria, they found out that a traditional orientation towards career success in the form of objective factors is dominant in Nigeria. According to the research the objective and subjective dichotomy is insufficient to capture the complexities and nuances within a collectivist orientation, like in Nigeria, where careers have a more community focus. That is why Ituma et al. introduced a new typology that includes, besides the objective and subjective classification, another dimension that is described as ‘personal’ and ‘relational’ outcomes. This refers to the orientation of the outcome of the success criterion. If the outcome has a focus on individual and personal benefits, the criterion is classified as ‘personal’. If the outcome is oriented towards benefits to and benefits from
relationships with others the criterion is classified as ‘relational’. This typology results in four domains of career success: objective/subjective classification and personal/relational
classification. The classification displays a more nuanced understanding of career success criteria by taking the context into account.
1.2 Career success criteria
In order to assess one’s career satisfaction and to compare different beliefs of success
the main indicators of career success. Greenhaus (1990) introduced a career satisfaction scale that has been widely adopted in the career success literature. These standardized measurements contain 5 statements about career success (sample item: ‘I am satisfied with the success I have achieved in my career.’) that were rated by the respondents. Moreover career success
measurements are mostly framed in categories called success criteria. Friedman and Greenhaus (2000) for example had over 800 business professionals rate the relative importance of 15 potential indicators of their career success, which resulted in 5 categories of career success, namely: status, time for self, challenge, security, and social.
In order to identify a comprehensive list of possible success criteria for entrepreneurs in the creative industries I reviewed the literature about success criteria. This resulted in a selection of 12 articles (see Appendix I) that discuss success criteria from different angles. Namely from the perspectives of: (creative) entrepreneurs, employers in the creative industry, business professionals and nonprofit leaders. These different analyses of success criteria are relevant to develop a broad range of terms that could define business owners’ success in the creative industries. Subsequently I narrowed down the list of 86 criteria by taking out the irrelevant or overlapping criteria. This resulted into a manageable list of 8 criteria that are most relevant for this inquiry. The criteria are described in the following section.
Profit and growth are crucial criteria to entrepreneurship and are all expected to relate closely to wealth generation, which are objective success criteria. Innovation can be described as the urge to introduce something new or different into the market. This criterion can be both objective or subjective. Innovation is often seen as an antecedent of profitability and growth of a firm (Roberts, 1999). In this case innovation is perceived as an objective criteria for success, as it is an antecedent for wealth generation. Some entrepreneurs may be more interested in the
creative function of innovation that fosters the development of a certain discipline or industry (Turbide and Laurin, 2009, p.64). In that case innovation is perceived as a subjective criterion for success. Contributing back to society refers to the motivation to contribute to social and
environmental welfare beyond the direct economic, technical, and legal interest of the firm (Gorgievski et al., 2011). This form of philanthropic behavior is often described as social entrepreneurship. Having the urge to find solutions for cultural-, social- or environmental problems as an entrepreneur is a subjective criterion for success. Personal satisfaction is an umbrella term for the subjective success criteria: family-related objectives, personal
development, social contacts or time flexibility which represents the personal gratification of an entrepreneur. It refers to the aspects of entrepreneurship that have a direct influence on the private life of an entrepreneur. The sixth criterion derives from the motivation to keep clients,
employees and other stakeholders satisfied. Satisfied stakeholders, especially customers and shareholders, may lead to monetary, objective, gains such as profit growth. But the emotional gratification that derives from pleasing stakeholders can also be seen as a subjective success criterion. In that sense stakeholder satisfaction has some overlap with the criterion personal satisfaction. The seventh criterion is also a subjective criterion, namely public recognition. This criterion refers to the intrinsic rewards an entrepreneur experience when his/her work is
recognized by manner of an award or a different type of special attention. Positive attention from peers is also a primary motivator for entrepreneurs (Corman, Perles and Vancini, 1988). In some cases entrepreneurs find themselves successful when they feel that they can contribute to a bigger purpose and that one is convinced that this is the work one was meant to do (Hall et al., 2005). A sense of calling does not necessarily have a religious connotation according to . ‘A calling’ is an individual’s experience toward any career domain, that causes the feeling of serving a greater good, a transcendent purpose (Hall et al., 2005). In chapter 2 about the characteristics of the creative industries this subject will be extensively explored.
Although success criteria can be helpful in setting out the main drivers of career success, such indicators are not necessarily sufficient to validly assess each respondent’s subjective career success. In order to get a comprehensive image of the manner in which a creative entrepreneur defines success, we need to take the personal values and motivations of the entrepreneur into account as these are important aspects that affect subjective career success. The study of Gorgievski, Ascalon and Stephan (2011) demonstrates the importance of taking one’s value set into account at the investigation of entrepreneur’s subjective success. They studied the
relationships between entrepreneurs’ understanding of success and their personal values and found out that personal value orientation is a potential predictor of success criteria. They used four categories of value orientations (openness to experience, transcendence,
self-enhancement and conservation) to find out the underlying values of the various success criteria. Besides personal factors that influence how people evaluate their experiences and attainments, contextual factors also play a significant role in the evaluation process of people’s success. Lau , Shaffer and Au (2007) among others have confirmed that the context in which a person works influences the way he/she will identify entrepreneurial career success. On the basis of Heslins (2005) dichotomy Lau et al. (2007) studied the importance of other-referent success criteria for entrepreneurs in a collectivist society, namely Greater China. The research pointed out that, given the enhanced orientation toward others in collectivist societies like the one in China, other-referent criteria are perceived as more important. Besides the macro-approach of entrepreneurial context, the context can also be analyzed on meso-level, which refers to the characteristics of an
industry or specific business sectors. In line with my thesis contextual factors concerning the creative industries are of interest. Hence the following section will set out the main
characteristics that are typical for the creative industries.
Chapter 2: The Creative Industries
One of the fundamental differences between the creative industries and other industries has to do with the valuation process of a product or service. In the economical world value is mostly interpreted as something that can be quantified. Monetary value is the leading format in which value is expressed. Prizes therefore are nothing but perfect and neutral representations of cultural value (Velthuis, 2003). In the artistic world cultural value and prizes are dichotomized which results in two unrelated spheres: the cultural value and the economic value of a product or service (Velthuis, 2003). This is why the market value of a cultural product is particularly difficult to determine. The subjective nature of a creative product causes that there is major uncertainty about the success outcomes of these kinds of products (Caves, 2000; Wijnberg and Gemser, 2000). Caves (2000, p. 74) described this phenomenon in the creative industries as the fact that nobody knows. Entrepreneurs that try to predict its consumers perception of a
product/service, grasps at straws. In the following section more of these anomalous features of the creative industries will be set forth, in order to understand the context of the creative entrepreneur.
2.1 Motivations
Success is defined as ‘the thoroughly positive perception of a performance’s result’ (Abfalter, Huber & von Vopelius-Feldt, 2006). If success involves the positive perception of a
performance’s result, motivation is the internal drive that activates a person to reach this positive result. In order to better understand the way that entrepreneurs in the creative industries interpret success, it is essential to investigate motivations of creative entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs per se.
Estay, Durrieu and Akhter (2013) researched the reasons why entrepreneurs start their own business. They suggest, among others, that entrepreneurs have different work-related motivations than employers have and that these motivations are linked to certain personal traits of the entrepreneur. The most often tested personal traits of entrepreneurs are: accomplishment, autonomy, creativity, locus of control and risk taking (Cromie, 2000). This implies that (creative)
entrepreneurs are motivated by the commitment to accomplish things, to work without
interference of others, to create new things or perceptions. Besides that (creative) entrepreneurs are characterized by their attraction to risk taking and the belief that they can control their
environment. These antecedents for entrepreneurial behavior shed light on the logics of action of entrepreneurs and may also have implications for their perception of success. The urge to be creative, for example, may have a relation with an entrepreneurs’ definition of success which relies heavily on innovation. Therefore it may be assumed that entrepreneurial motivations play a role in entrepreneurs’ experiences of success.
Hans Abbing (2002), in his book Why are artists poor?, asked the relevant question: What are the attractive qualities that people in the art world associate with art? He declared that the “sacredness of art” is an important aspect that appeals to artists and other actors in the art world. Subsequently this is a potential motivator for entrepreneurs to operate in the creative industries. The association of art with sacredness dates back to Romanticism. Since that period people have tended to call what they perceive as sacred objects and activities art and vice versa. And still nowadays many artists and art lovers experience art as intrinsically sacred (Abbing, 2002, p. 23-24).
The sacredness of art can be linked to the fact that some people in the creative industries are motivated in their work by a ‘sense of calling’. If a person feels a ‘sense of calling’ in his or her career this means that one is convinced that this is the work one was meant to do (Hall et al, 2005). A sense of calling does not necessarily have a religious connotation according to Hall et al. (2005). ‘A calling’ is an individual’s experience toward any career domain, that causes the feeling of serving a greater good, a transcendent purpose. A sense of calling is a common
phenomenon in the creative industries. In the longitudinal study about musicians, Dobrow (2004) investigated the features of people who experience their work as ‘a calling’. This resulted in the following characteristics: passion, identity, need to do it/urgency, engulfs consciousness,
longevity, sense of meaning and self-esteem. Kris and Kurz (1987) described the sense of calling as a historically recurring feature of artistic biographical narrative and Caves (2006)
characterized this inner drive as the ‘art for art’s sake’ ideology. Art for art’s sake refers to ‘the urge of artists for undertaking artistic work for its own sake’ which is related to the Romantic view that artists have the inner necessity in order to realize some internal vision’ (Caves, 2006, p. 536).
In his work about artistic labor markets Menger (1999) highlights the fact that the ideological nature of creatives may reverse the meaning of success and failure. This means that other forms of success may be more appealing to the artist than merely monetary success.
Menger (1999) suggests that people who practice a creative profession are even willing to forego monetary gains in order to accomplish subjective values like personal satisfaction and peer group recognition. Compared to conventional motivators, that lend towards monetary gains, it can be expected that entrepreneurs in the creative industries may have a broader perception of what makes them successful. This means that their success not merely derives from objective success criteria (like profitability or growth), but to a great extent also from subjective success criteria (like contributing to the society or a transcendent purpose). In fact, a lot of studies confirm that entrepreneurs in art-related markets consider criteria other than profits and financial growth in defining their success (Saylor 1987; Soldersson, Fiorito, and He 1998; Summer and Schrank 1979). Paige and Littrel (2002) for example investigated the business of art-related retailers and found out that small-business owners in this sector use different criteria for defining success than entrepreneurs in other types of businesses. Retailers of handmade art crafts focus on both
tangible and intangible criteria when they define success. Surveys with 1000 craft retailers in nine southeastern U.S. states resulted in the finding that people who work in art related markets have a strong focus on the product, on the materials and on preserving a culture or tradition (Paige & Littrell, 2002).
2.2 Contextual features
Heslin (2005) associates the standards people use to evaluate their experiences and attainments with the type of market their career is pursued in and the organizational culture they are
confronted with. Following Heslin (2005), winner-take-all markets are typical influencers of people’s reference framework during the evaluation of success. Winner-take-all markets are characterized by very big rewards for high performance, relative to the performance provided by other players in the market. This is similar to the Olympics, where the golden medals are handed out to players that outperformed their competitors, rather than based on absolute achievements. Besides that, winner-take-all markets tend to have a very small amount of successful players and a large amount of losers, while there is not much difference in talent or effort. This results in massive differences in income and other rewards (Heslin, 2005, p. 121). Examples of winner-take-all markets are markets of software development, academe, consulting and law.
Multiple markets within the creative industries can also be characterized as winner-take-all markets, where approximately 20% of new offerings are commerciwinner-take-ally successful and 80% of creative projects fail to recover their costs (Caves, 2002). For example in the market of motion pictures this phenomenon is rather salient. Motion picture box office revenues are highly
concentrated and unevenly distributed. De Vany (2006) pointed out that just 20% of movies earn 80% of revenues. Similarly, only very few artists in the music industry are exceptionally
successful. Besides the movie industry and the music industry, winner-take-all markets are also applicable to markets for fine art, fashion, books and photography (Frank and Cook, 1995).
It raises the question: why are so many people still attracted to work in these kinds of industries? Frank and Cook (1995) explain this on the basis of psychological and social processes. A lot of people for example overestimate their chance of being successful in these industries. Moreover the conspicuous successes of the few ‘winners’, propagated by popular publications and television programs, motivate people to follow in their footsteps. The
consumption of such star-oriented media is liable to increase the salience of objective and other-referent criteria of career success. Which means that people who participate in winner-take-all markets are likely to use more objective and other-referent criteria of career success, because they are heavily exposed to the objective successes (income or status) of their referent group (Heslin, 2005, p. 122).
Another contextual aspect that can affect the way people conceptualize their career success, also described by Heslin (2005), is the difference in organizational cultures. This phenomenon is described with reference to two prototypical organizational cultures, namely the ‘market’ and the ‘clan’. In a market culture there is a contractual relationship between the organization and the individual, based on quantifiable values, which are financial rewards. The qualitative aspects of this relationship are minimal which results in a strong sense of
independence and individuality among the individual. That is why in market cultures objective and self-referent success criteria are salient. The opposite of the market culture is the clan
culture, which is much more focused on a committed relationship between the individual and the organization. This is reflected in the compensation system of these kinds of organizations since it is not limited to monetary gains. Rituals and patterns of belonging play an important role in a clan culture, as they signify and cultivate a person’s sense of belonging and status (Heslin, 2005, p. 123). Heslin correctly states that subjective and other- referent criteria are more salient in clan cultures than in market cultures. This is consistent with the characteristics of most markets in the creative industries, because a strong collective sense prevails.
Anand and Watson (2004) described that tournament rituals, which are a key feature of clan cultures, in the creative industries have an important function in the organizational field of creative industries. They refer to the solidarity thesis, originally proposed by Durkheim (1965), which explains how rituals induce social solidarity and social order in an organizational field. Their study focusses on one of the most popular tournament rituals in the music industry: the
Grammy awards. The findings suggest among others that rituals play an essential role in
distributing prestige in situated performances and in enacting a highly charged ceremonial form designed to attract the collective attention of the field (Anand & Watson, 2004). So depending on the industry, creative entrepreneurs have a rather strong collective sense which is influenced by rituals like award ceremonies that amplify this feeling of togetherness.
In this chapter a variety of characteristics of the creative industries, that are related to the experience of success, were discussed. Following the literature the creative industries have some distinctive features that indicate that creative entrepreneurs may have a different understanding of success than other entrepreneurs have. On the basis of the theory that was described, it is plausible that the success experience of actors in the creative industries are both focused on subjective success criteria and on objective success criteria. Besides that, reaching success is uncertain and there is a strong focus on the product and the production process, instead of the payment that follows. In some cases certain features of a market or industry are decisive for people’s perception of success. It was described that in winner-take-all markets objective other-referent success criteria are prevalent. Besides that, in industries with a market culture, objective self-referent success criteria are more prevalent and in a clan culture, subjective other referent success criteria are more prevalent. Therefore, in these clan cultures a strong collective sense prevails. Lastly it was described that creative entrepreneurs may have the feeling of serving a greater good with their company.
Chapter 3: Perception of success
3.1 Performance measurement systems
Entrepreneurs and managers use information from the internal and external environment in order to find out how their company is performing. Based on this information entrepreneurs make choices and develop strategies in order to reach success. Performance measurement systems are sets of indicators that entrepreneurs and managers handle in order to measure their performance. Traditionally most of these indicators were focused on monetary values such as growth, profit and return on investment. Especially for creative products or services these type of
measurements are rather insufficient, as lots of aspects of a creative product or service are not measurable. This phenomenon is strikingly explained by the academic Henry Mintzberg (1998):
A great deal of the conventional manager‘s control is exercised through formal information. Such information plays a rather limited role for the orchestra conductor. When a conductor reads or processes information on the job, it is more about scores than about budgets. For him, musical information provides a much more relevant and direct way of judging performance. Just by listening with a trained ear, the conductor knows immediately how well the orchestra has done. Nothing needs to be measured. How could it be?
On the basis of this vision, it is plausible to state that traditional measurement systems are inefficient in the creative industries, as numerous unquantifiable values occur in these industries. Since the 1990’s scholars began to question the relevance of using solely financial indicators, as these measurements were not focused on the long-term strategy of companies but merely on short-term success. The balanced scorecard is one of the fruits of this philosophy, as multiple dimensions that are primarily based on non-financial indicators, are taken into account in this performance measurement system (Kaplan and Norton, 1992). Four perspectives in combination with the financial perspective are integrated in this approach, namely: customers, growth,
innovation and internal business-process perspectives. These indicators are linked to the long-term strategy (mission statement) of the firm in order to measure both short- and long-long-term performance (Turbide and Laurin, 2009). Although this approach did have a lot of influence in multiple industries, there was also a lot of criticism on this theory. Some scholars argued that this approach was incomplete, because a wider set of stakeholders should be incorporated in the system. Therefore Atkinson, Waterhouse and Wells (1997) added the following stakeholders to
the framework: employees, the community and governments. The development of new measurement systems are useful for the creative industries because they focus not merely on financial indicators. Moreover both short- and long-term success are taken into account and there is a link between the performance measurements and the firm’s mission statement. As creatives are more focused on the quality of the product or service and the evaluation of stakeholders, than on the eventual output in monetary terms, these perspectives are valuable for creative
entrepreneurs.
3.2 Mental models
Mental models are the internal representations that individual cognitive systems create to interpret the environment, which include concepts, categories, prototypes, identities, ideologies, worldviews and stereotypes. Denzau and North (1994) argued that people with shared
backgrounds and experiences have shared mental models and ideologies. Moreover, they state that individuals with different learning experiences will have different theories to interpret their environment. This implies that one’s background is an important influencer of one’s perception of the environment and consequently affects the way success is experienced. The research on mental models has important implications for the perception of career success. Entrepreneurs use mental models to assign meaning to events and frame a situation that occurs in the strategic environment of their company (Zhao & Parry, 2012). Following Bhansing (2013), selection system orientation can be seen as a specific type of mental model, as it can indicate which cues entrepreneurs extract from their environments and how they interpret and react to those cues. The following paragraph will explain the theory of selection systems and the relevance of this theory for entrepreneur’s perception of success.
3.2.1 Selection system orientation
As was mentioned in chapter 2 the value of most cultural products is generally hard to determine as the standards for evaluating a cultural good are diffuse and unclear. This abnormal
characteristic of artworks requires a deviating approach, because the applicability of models and concepts of ‘normal’ economics is put in doubt (Wijnberg, 1995, p.221). Wijnberg (1995)
proposed a framework, the selection system, that suggests a new perspective on this problem. He described that firms in creative industries, which are directly competing with each other, form networks of structurally equivalent enterprises. These networks are social systems that have their own internal dynamics and their own “rules”, mostly informal and often even unconscious, that
serve to perpetuate its separate existence (Wijnberg, 1995, p. 223). Whether a firm is successful within a particular network depends on the firm’s capability to occupy a profitable position in product space and the capability to defend the “territory” against competitors. The position of every actor in a network is influenced by the dominant selection system.
Three types of ideal typical selection systems are prevalent: market selectors, expert selectors and peer selectors (Wijnberg, 1995). Selection system theory suggests that the essential core of a competitive process in the creative industries consists of convincing the selectors of the value of the goods or services the competing organizations produce (Bhansing, Leenders & Wijnberg, 2012). This implies that in order to be successful, firms need to be selected by the dominant selectors in their network. In the case of market selection this means that an organization's success is determined by consumers, for example at grocery stores. When the producers and selectors belong to the same group or industry, such as in academia, peer selection prevails. Expert selection will occur in an industry when the dominant selectors have acquired expertise in a given domain, such as journalists and critics. In reality, these ideal types will occur alongside each other, for example market and peer selection. Sometimes different types of selection are tiered, which means that the producer needs to pass through one selection stage in order to get to the next selection stage. This is comparable with a stage-gate process. But in most cases, one type of selection prevails (Wijnberg & Gemser, 2000).
Selection system orientation suggests that a major task for entrepreneurs is to identify the dominant selectors (Bhansing, 2013). As was noted before, entrepreneurs may serve multiple groups of selectors, who may have different views about what is qualitatively justified. Entrepreneur’s cognitive systems, such as selection system orientations, give them their perceptions of their organization’s performance. Bhansing (2013) correctly states that it seems logical that each manager will be experienced and educated in the area they are responsible for. So their orientations are likely to differ from those of managers responsible for other
organizational objectives. To some extent the same applies for entrepreneurs as entrepreneurs that differ in their background will have different orientations.
In this inquiry the selection system orientation of 13 entrepreneurs will be investigated in order to find out which actors in the market play a decisive role for the success of the
entrepreneurs and why this is the case. The determination of these key figures sheds light on the way that entrepreneurs with different backgrounds experience their strategic environment. I propose that entrepreneurs with a business background will be most likely to focus on consumers (market selectors) and that entrepreneurs with a cultural/creative background will be most likely to focus on experts or their peers.
P1: Entrepreneurs with a business background, are more likely to have a market orientation than entrepreneurs with a cultural/creative background.
P2: Entrepreneurs with a cultural/creative background are more likely to have a peer or expert orientation than entrepreneurs with a business background.
3.3 Influencers of mental models
3.3.1 Education and experience
An entrepreneur’s educational background says a lot about an entrepreneur’s cognitive
orientation and field of interest. Formal education namely indicates a person’s knowledge and skill base (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). A person that studied, for example, mathematics generally can be expected to have a somewhat different cognitive orientation than a person educated in cultural analysis or history. Moreover a person’s value set and cognitive preferences are reflected, to some extent, in their decisions about education (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). To some extent, because not all people make their study choices seriously. Nevertheless it can be assumed that an average student with a business or economics curriculum will have different cognitive preferences and may have different thoughts about success than students which are enrolled in a humanities program.
Despite little scholarly attention towards the effects of formal education on corporate outcomes, it is plausible that entrepreneurs with an administration degree are educated to pursue short term performance (Hambrick & Mason, 1984) and thus may be mostly oriented towards market selectors. Collins and Moore (1970) argued that business schools are not particularly well inclined or equipped to develop innovative or risk-taking tendencies. The analytic techniques learned in a business program are geared primarily to avoiding big losses or mistakes. This implies that entrepreneurs with a business background may have less tendency to be innovative, as experimenting takes too much resources, and the return of it may take too much time.
Besides the educational experiences, entrepreneur’s cognitive and emotional features are also influenced by the experiences they have had during their careers (Hambrick & Mason, 1984). Therefore prior work experience is a key factor in the investigation of entrepreneurs’ success experience. The nature of the industries and companies in which an individual has been active is relevant for the way that he/she interprets the environment. For example, an
entrepreneur who has a lot of work experience in a highly commercial industry may attach his/her definition of success mostly to monetary values. What seems clear is that entrepreneurs’
career experiences shape the lenses through which they view their environment (Hambrick & Mason, 1984, p.200). Based on the different backgrounds of the groups of entrepreneurs certain characteristics of the entrepreneurs’ visions on success can be formulated. Regarding the fact that business studies are mainly focused on objective values, most entrepreneurs with a business background will prefer objective success criteria, as they are used to key performance indicators (KPI’s) and other “hard values” that are specific and measurable. KPI’s are quantified variables that measure the performance of an organization. This method was developed by D. Ronald Daniel and Jack F. Rockart of McKinsey & Company in the 70’s, its popularity increased during the 90’s and it is still an often used method. Professor and management consultant Peter Drucker described the desire for quantified measurements in business environments:
It is not possible to manage what you cannot control and you cannot control what you cannot measure! (Weber, 2005)
In contrast, entrepreneurs that have a cultural or creative background, may focus more on subjective success criteria, as they are more familiar with “soft values”, like innovation, the community or personal ideologies. The concepts of cultural/creative backgrounds and business backgrounds, will be defined more specific in section 4.3.
On the basis of the theory that has been discussed, I formulated the following propositions:
P3: The success experience of creative entrepreneurs with a business background is mostly focused on objective success criteria in comparison with creative entrepreneurs with a cultural or creative background.
P4: The success experience of creative entrepreneurs with a cultural or creative background is mostly focused on subjective success criteria in comparison with creative entrepreneurs with a business background.
Chapter 4: Method Section
This thesis explains how entrepreneurs in the creative industries, with different backgrounds, define success. In order to answer the research question: How do creative entrepreneurs with a business background and creative entrepreneurs with a cultural/creative background experience entrepreneurial success?, I used qualitative research methods. The following chapter explains the research design, how the research was conducted, which entities were analyzed, how the data was collected and how the data was analyzed. Finally, the quality of the research will be
discussed.
4.1 Research rationale
The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the creative entrepreneurship research and career success research by providing a clearer view on how entrepreneurs with different backgrounds experience success. In this section I will explain which choices I made in order to investigate this topic and how it matches the objective of this thesis.
The creative industry is a growing industry that seems to appeal to a lot of entrepreneurs (Amsterdam Economic Board, 2012), although it may not seem a very profitable industry. Yet the rising interest for creativity causes that numerous people with different backgrounds seek their fortune, whatever this may imply, in markets that sell creative products or services.
Following the literature about career success, people who work with creative products or services have a different understanding of success compared to people that work outside the creative industries. This diversity of backgrounds and creative entrepreneur’s atypical idea of success inspired me to investigate how entrepreneurs in the creative industry actually experience success, and how their background could possibly influence their definition of success. This explanatory research sheds light on the success criteria of creative entrepreneurs in the city of Amsterdam and investigates the link between the background of an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur’s experience of success, which has not been studied before in the creative industries literature. Therefore this research will contribute to the academic field by providing a better understanding of the motivations, values and goals of creative entrepreneurs. Moreover it will provide insights into the selection system orientation of the respondents, which is important in order to identify the focal actors that are perceived to contribute to their success. According to extended self-theory (Belk, 1988), entrepreneurial firms are a natural extension of entrepreneurs. Thus understanding the career success or favorable career outcomes of these individuals will give us
some insights into the success of their firms. Subsequently this will shed light on how
entrepreneurs in the creative industries lead their companies and where their decisions are based on.
4.2 Research method
This inquiry is based on qualitative research in order to get information about the target
audience’s perception of success. I will conduct semi-structured interviews since it will allow me to gather in-depth and more contextual data than when using quantitative methods. The
interviews will provide me with data about the respondent’s success criteria, their selection system orientation and the development of their vision of success. I chose to use a deductive research approach, which works from the more general to the more specific. It allowed me to find out to what extent the general theory about career success applies to the context of the creative industry. Besides testing theoretical explanations to particular cases in practice, new and emerging themes about this topic will be taken into account as well. During the interview I applied an open approach, which resulted in some very interesting insights about the
respondent’s success experiences. Therefore this research not only investigates the applicability of career success theory into practice but also refines the existing body of career success
literature by adding interesting observations.
I used multiple case-studies in order to get a profound and detailed view on the specific context, and at the same time it gave me the ability to study a variety of markets that exist in this specific context. The markets that are represented in this study are markets of
fashion, theater, movie, fine art, photography, advertising, and music. Following the definition of TNO these markets are all incorporated in the creative industries. TNO uses a definition based on the SBI-classification (SBI, 2008) within the following clusters: arts and cultural heritage, media and entertainment and creative services (Rutten, Koops and Roso, 2010). TNO sees the creation, production and operation as the core of the creative industries. In this study I used a broader definition, developed by CBS (CBS, 2010) which also incorporates the distribution of products and information (retail), as I think that the curation of art can also be seen as a creative process. In Appendix II I added an overview of the specific sections I included in my research. The grey section and the lower left section are incorporated in my definition of the creative industries.
The interviews were conducted at one point in time per interview, which can be characterized as a snapshot method. Although the respondents gave information about their current thoughts and knowledge about success, some of the entrepreneurs elaborated on their
changing thoughts about success. This gave me the opportunity to analyze their success experience in multiple moments of time.
4.3 Unit of analysis
In order to narrow down the research area, I focused on small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) in the creative industries. Understanding success from the perspective of the business owners is important with regards to SME’s due to their dominant role in determining the firm’s direction and performance (Masurel, Montfort, & Lentink, 2003). In order to identify SME’s I used the definition of the European Union (EU recommendation 2003/361). The main factors determining whether an enterprise is a SME are staff headcount and turnover or balance sheet total. During my research I only had the opportunity to determine the amount of staff members, as the majority of the respondents were not comfortable with providing any financial numbers about their corporation. Therefore I took staff headcounts as the focal measurement. Following the definition of the European Union, all the involved companies fall under the micro category, as they all have 10 or less people employed.
The focus of this thesis is mainly on the influence of the backgrounds of entrepreneurs in the creative industries, so I conducted the interviews with entrepreneurs with two types of backgrounds, namely a business-related background or a cultural or creative background. The backgrounds of the entrepreneurs are defined by their prior work experience and their education. These two aspects are main influencers of an entrepreneur’s background. In order to be specific I focus only on these two aspects of background. I defined the backgrounds by using definitions of the CBS. The prior work experience of the respondents is tested against the standard industrial classification. I classified the respondent’s prior work experience by looking at the industry their prior employer was operating in and the respondent’s position within that company. Besides that I classified their education on the basis of the standard education classification of the CBS (SOI 2006). Respondents that are assigned to the group with a cultural background received an education in the category of ‘humanities, social sciences, communication and art’. Respondents that are assigned to the group with a business background received an education in the category of ‘Economics, business, management and administration’.
4.4 Data collection process
In order to find entrepreneurs that fit these criteria, I contacted Novel Creative Consultancy, a company that has an extensive network in the creative industries, and I worked for them as an intern. They helped me to select 20 prominent entrepreneurs from the creative industry in Amsterdam. After I checked which entrepreneurs were available for an interview, 14
entrepreneurs were left. I made sure that a broad variety of industries were represented, in order to get a broad perspective of the research area. This resulted in 8 different industries, including the industries of fine art, fashion, music, advertising, photography, performing arts, film and books. Unfortunately one respondent cancelled the interview at the last minute, because of a very busy schedule. I tried to reschedule the appointment several times, but this didn’t work out. It resulted in two separate groups of 13 entrepreneurs, namely 7 respondents that have prior work experience in a business-related environment and a business-related education. This group is called ‘Entrepreneurs with a predominant business background’. 6 respondents that have prior work experience in a cultural or creative environment and a cultural or creative education were assigned to the group ‘Entrepreneurs with a predominant cultural/creative background’. I used ‘predominantly’ because there are cases in which the categorization of the respondent’s
background is not fully cultural or business-related. The two groups of entrepreneurs include 8 males and 5 females ranging from 24 years till 39 years old (see tables 1 and 2).
Table no. 1
Entrepreneurs with a predominant business background
Entrepreneur code
M/F Age Profession Education Work experience
B1 F 29 Owner of an Art
Gallery
Msc. Law & Economics, LLM. International criminal law, LLB. Dutch law
Clifford Chance (legal secretary), Wladimiroff Advocaten (support lawyer)
B2 M 39 Photographer, owner of a fashion label
BBA. Marketing Communication
ING (consultant), Hugo Boss (account manager)
B3 F 23 Music retailer Bsc. Medicine, Entrepreneurship (minor)
LUMC (student assistent)
B4 M 36 Musician, creative director/producer
Mcs. Management, BA. Music
Lausanne Consulting Group (consultant), L’Oreal (intern)
B5 M 32 Creative consultant Msc. Business Studies, BA. International Management
THEY (Junior Strategist), Lemz (Junior Strategist)
B6 F 29 Owner of a creative agency
BA. International Business and Languages
Johnny Loco (Sales Manager), Heineken (ambassador)
B7 M 30 Owner of a creative agency
Msc. Business Economics, Bsc. Economics & Business
N=5 (trainee), Binck Bank (commercial employee), Delight Agency (account & strategy)
Table no. 2
Entrepreneurs with a predominant cultural/creative background
Entrepreneur code
M/F Age Profession Education Work experience
C1 F 29 Owner of a fashion
label
AMFI Fashion & Branding, Msc. Sociology
Diesel (PR & Marketing), Transactive (researcher)
C2 M 33 DJ, Creative
consultant
MA. Conflict sciences en human rights, RMA. Cultural analysis, BA. Liberal Arts
CARE (research associate), Studio 80 (Adjunct Director)
C3 M 33 Owner of a
crowdfunding platform for art
MA. Communication and information sciences, BA. Art History
Stedelijk Museum (Press and PR), AFK (Grants officer), FOAM (project manager)
C4 F 32 Owner of a dance
company/writer
MA. Cultural Analysis, BA. Literature Studies
Novelist & musician
C5 M 33 Musician, film
producer/director
BA. Film, cinema, video studies, Conservatory
Certo (Film director), Sebastian Film (owner), Allegri film (assistant director)
C6 M 37 Owner of a
photography exhibition, art consultant
History of Art, International management
Christie’s (junior specialist), Droog (Gallery manager), FOAM (project manager)
Subsequently I was able to interview 13 entrepreneurs in the creative industry. The interviews were all conducted in April 2016, mainly at the interviewees’ offices. Some took place in a public cafe and one interview was conducted via Skype, as the respondent was working abroad. I started every interview by asking if I was allowed to record the interview and explained that it would be an anonymous interview. I decided to do this for the benefit of the quality of my data as it allowed the respondents to speak freely about personal or business related topics, without any concerns. Instead of the respondents’ names I assigned ‘entrepreneurial codes’ as a reference to the respondents. The codes B1 to B7 refer to the entrepreneurs with a business background and the codes C1 to C6 refer to the entrepreneurs with a cultural background.
The interviews I conducted were semi-structured. I used an interview protocol (see Appendix V) that consists of 24 questions, structured by 6 topics: motivation, success,
performance measurements, reference framework, selection system orientation and influence of background on success experience. All these topics relate to the theory that has been discussed in chapter 1, 2 and 3. During the interviews the same topics were discussed, but sometimes in a different sequence. When other interesting themes came up I showed interest to get to know more about these topics. Most interviews took around 60 minutes, with one exception that lasted 110 minutes. After I recorded the interviews I transcribed the interviews using the program otranscribe which is a handy online tool to transcribe interviews. The transcripts are to be found in the appendix.
4.5 Quality of research
A lot of personal values and motivations came about in the data. Therefore it was a difficult process to find out which values really could be labeled as success criteria and which were of less value for the respondent. That is why I did a member check in order to increase the credibility of the data. In other words: I asked the respondents questions to verify my
observations. If an interviewee for example said: ‘I like to be creative, to think out of the box and come up with new ideas’. I would ask a question like, ‘So you feel successful when you work on innovations?’ to verify if this was a success criterion for the respondent. At the end of the
interview I recapitulated the major criteria that were discussed in order to find out if these criterion were really valuable to the respondent. This benefitted the value of the data, because misunderstandings were eliminated.
Some of the respondents that I interviewed were involved in projects that were financed by government money. Therefore, in order to avoid biases, I made sure that there is an equal
distribution of profit driven entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs that were sometimes involved in non-profit organizations. Hence this research on the success experience of entrepreneurs is based both on for-profit and non-profit perspectives.
4.6 Data analysis method
Once I finished transcribing the interviews I started coding the interviews. I used a deductive coding approach, which means that the theoretical framework, described in chapter 1 to 3, is used to direct the data analysis. Inchapter 1 the main success criteria were described on the basis of a comprehensive review of the literature about success criteria. This resulted in a selection of 8 success criteria that functioned as codes during the analysis phase. Yin (2009) described coding as ‘an interpretive technique that organizes the data and demarcates segments within the data’. I used a marker to highlight the text and I used a pencil to assign a theme or category to the text. After I labeled parts of the interviews by themes and categories, I refined the codes. An overview of the basic codes I used is attached in Appendix IV.
During the data analysis new themes and categories emerged, which were gathered in a list of ‘new insights’. Once I finished coding I displayed the data in tables in order to contrast and compare the different cases. Then I excluded irrelevant data, summarized the data and started interpreting it. The following section shows the result of this process and will give insight into the differences and similarities within the data.
Chapter 5: Results section
In the following section the success experience of the different groups of creative entrepreneurs will be discussed. Therefore the success criteria that were described in chapter 1 will be
examined and the deeper meaning of the success criteria will be explained by means of objective and subjective features. Besides that self- and other-referent criteria will be appointed in order to determine with whom creative entrepreneurs compare their success. Moreover the changes within the success experience of the respondents will be set forth. Then in the following section the selection system orientation of the respondents will be investigated to find out which actors in the market are decisive for creative entrepreneurs’ success. At the end of this chapter the main similarities and differences between the two groups of entrepreneurs will be discussed, along with some possible explanations for the occurring trends.
5.1 Success criteria
5.1.1 Profitability
Commercial issues were discussed extensively during the interviews, as they play a big role in the practices of an entrepreneur. Nevertheless, most of the entrepreneurs in both groups see profitability not as their core goal. The biggest reason for this trend is that the creative
entrepreneurs’ success experience is not affiliated with wealth generation. This means that the majority of the entrepreneurs that were interviewed didn’t value commercial gains as a goal per se. Instead, they saw profitability as the means to achieve a higher goal or purpose. All
entrepreneurs acknowledged that profit needs to be made in order to keep the business running, but the majority said that making money is not their primary goal or motivation. One of the respondents (B2) made this clear by explaining: When I worked for the ING, I earned a lot of money, but I didn’t feel like I was happy or successful. During the starting phase of my current company my income was very low, but I really felt I was doing something that made me
successful.
Furthermore only two out of seven entrepreneurs (B6 and B7) described that making profit is a success criteria for them. B7 for example made the following statement: I think I am successful because I made sure that every year my company is doubled in terms of profit,
revenue and growth. In this case the urge to make profit is prevalent and this refers to a monetary definition of success. The respondent (B7) described that the parameters of his company
monetary understanding of what success entails.
Some of the respondents said that they see making profit as a necessity in order to realize the higher goals they are passionate about. In this case the respondents spoke about “financial stability” or “a solid financial basis”. It gives the entrepreneur a sense of security and a sense of calmness, because they can focus on the aspects of their company they are really passionate about. In some cases the respondents explained they had two sorts of projects, namely
commercial and artistic or autonomous projects. The entrepreneurs tried to balance the two types of projects in order to keep the business running and to be able to do the work they are
passionate about.
Another respondent (B4) declared that in the past some of his projects were financed by the government, but that he wanted to be fully self-sufficient as an entrepreneur. He said he wanted to prove to other people in the industry that he could realize his ideas without public money. Another respondent (B1) said she didn’t value profit as a success criterion but she did value revenue, because she was not out on making lots of money. B1 explained this by means of a little anecdote: B1: First I was interested in making money, I thought, but when I eventually made some good money, I realized that it wasn’t really what I was looking for. It shocked me. This citation makes clear that certain experiences can lead to changing ideas about success. In this case the respondent’s definition of success used to be monetary, but after experiencing that she was unsatisfied with earning a sum of money, she adjusted her definition of success. Therefore she wants to reinvest the most of the money she makes back into her company, in order to achieve its higher goals.
In some cases this change of criteria occurs in opposite way. In the group of
entrepreneurs with a cultural/creative background only one respondent said that profitability is a success criterion for her (C1). The respondent described that in the beginning of her career she was mainly focused on the creative aspects of her company and she had a very romantic perspective on entrepreneurship. She said this view was mainly influenced by the media, who describe the fashion industry only from the outside and leave out the tough sides of the industry. During her career she experienced that running a business largely is just making products that people want to buy. Therefore C1 declared that she is recently getting more interested in the “numbers” of her company. She declared the following: C1: I think that profitability and revenue are also very important for my success as an entrepreneur. I happen to focus more on numbers nowadays.
Five of the respondents made clear that they don’t see profitability as a criterion for their success. Similar to group B, some of the entrepreneurs use a strategy which can be characterized
as cross-subsidization. This means that commercial projects, that provide more income, are alternated with projects that are more satisfying to the entrepreneur, but which are less profitable. For most entrepreneurs this is a way to survive in the market. C6: A balance between commerce and artistic integrity is where I try to build my business on, because I think that these two aspects don’t necessarily exclude each other. The majority of group C has a strong focus on the product and on the production process, and they subsequently measure their success as an entrepreneur on the basis of the quality of the product. C4: I feel much more connected with the product and the production process, than with the final result or the money that people pay for it. This implies that the success experience of the respondent is not necessarily related to the financial gains of their company.
Although most of the respondents didn’t value profitability, some of them compared their personal financial situation with the financial situation of others. C2 for example told about his group of friends that worked at big firms and made a lot of money. He declared that he compared his own situation with theirs and by doing that he realized that profitability is not his primary goal.
5.1.2 Growth
Another objective success criterion that has been discussed extensively during the interviews is growth. This criterion seems to be very popular in group B, as 6 out of 7 people explained they find it important that their company keeps growing in terms of resources. In most of the cases respondents described that growth made them feel a successful entrepreneur, because it confirms that they have good entrepreneurial capabilities. The data point out that when it comes to growth the entrepreneurs in group B mostly compare their own growing pace with the growing pace of other entrepreneurs. This implies that for the majority of group B growth is an other-referent objective success criterion. B3 for example said: I really like the feeling of building a company that grows, the feeling that you make progress which other people don’t make. Another
respondent in group B (B1) also used other-referent criterion. She discussed her vision on growing in the creative industries during the interview. In her opinion, the company she leads didn’t grow as fast as companies of befriended entrepreneurs that are active outside the creative industries. The interesting point here is that she didn’t blame herself or her entrepreneurial competences for failing to grow faster. Her statement was that the slow growth pace could be justified by the ambitious goals she has and the highly competitive climate that prevails in the market for fine arts. As described in the theory section the market for fine art is a winner-take-all-market, so high competitiveness is prevalent in these markets, which declares the statement of
B1. The justification of the slow growth by B1, implies that some entrepreneurs compensate other-referent success criteria with success criteria that are self-referent. In other words: the intrinsic motivation of B1 to set additional goals influences the way she looks at the success criteria growth. This means that entrepreneurs’ perception of success is based on different criteria that influence each other.
Some respondents placed side notes with their definitions of the term growing, as they prefer to grow in an organic or sustainable way. This means that a company grows in a certain pace, so the company won’t get into financial trouble, and the continuity of the firm will be secured. Therefore ‘continuity’ is also an important success criterion that was mentioned by the respondents in this group. This criterion is also mentioned by the respondents in group C. C1 for example explained that she wants her company to grow, but not too fast. C1: I like to grow my company in a responsible, healthy and organic way, because I believe than it will be sustainable. Last year I had an investor, that wanted me to grow in a short timeframe. That didn’t felt right for me. I believe that growing takes time.
For the entrepreneurs in group C growth is of lesser value, concerning their success experience. Only three out of six described growing as a success criterion. This trend is probably referable to the monetary connotation of growth. Most of the entrepreneurs in group C described their motivation to grow in impact and not in resources. Impact is the influence that a company has on something, which is perceived as subjective success criteria. Besides that group C is more retained when it comes to growing. An explanation for this may be that they have a bigger motivation to deliver quality goods or experiences, instead of reaching a lot of people. C4 explained this by saying that the ultimate success for her is not bound to quantitative values, but to really make a difference for someone.
5.1.3 Innovativeness (subjective or objective)
The majority of the respondents said they felt successful when they used their creativity in order to develop new ideas. This is an attitude that results from the motivation to foster the
development of an artistic field. Other respondents value innovation because they want to stay competitive in the market. Besides that the feeling of making new things or ideas excites them. B1 stated: It is like you’re playing God when you’re developing something that doesn’t exist yet. It has to do with pushing something in a direction, but you’re not sure where it will lead to. This excites me. (...) I think this has also to do with the fact that you’re part of the Zeitgeist. You’re pushing certain buttons that currently enact a reaction, but in the future they may not.
