Browsing by Author "Moisio, Saara"

The topic of the thesis is to understand how collaboration between Finnish municipal theatres and independent dance companies is challenged by differences in institutional pressures and conventions of operation. With the help of institutional theories on organizational fields, collaborative planning and conventions of art worlds the topic is approached with one main research question and three sub-questions. The main research question is: How do institutional pressures and conventions of operation challenge collaboration between Finnish municipal theatres and independent dance companies? This includes following sub-questions: How do cultural policy and public funding define the context of operation for municipal theatres and independent dance companies? What kind of institutional pressures does the context of operation place upon the two types of art organizations? What kind of conventions do institutional pressures maintain for defining the function, repertoire and relations of the two types of art organizations? Institutional theories on organizational fields and art worlds are applied for understanding how organizations' actions are both constrained and enabled in certain environments. Theory of collaborative planning provides a background for regarding what needs to be considered when embarking upon collaboration, and what kind of issues may rise as challenges when aiming for mutual agreement between partners coming from different organizational contexts. In collaboration, the fact that people's ways of acting and thinking in an organization are linked to certain context, cannot be ignored. According to the theories of organizational fields, this context includes institutional coercive, mimetic and normative pressures. Additionally, in art worlds the production of art works often follows existing conventions, which enable faster and cheaper realization. Applying these theories it is considered that institutional pressures maintain certain established production conventions in municipal theatres and independent dance companies. Furthermore, both institutional theories consider that the actions of state such as legislation and public funding, steer organizations operations in a field. By combining the theories it is assumed that cultural policy and public funding define different contexts of operations for municipal theatres and independent dance companies. The contexts of operations include different institutional pressures which maintain the established ways of operation, in other words conventions. When the conventions defining the function, repertoire and relations of the two types of art organizations differ significantly, collaboration might be experienced too challenging, as it would demand changes in the conventions of operation in both organizations. The study is conducted as qualitative interview research. The material is provided by semistructured interviews and their transcriptions. The sample of the research is formed by the directors of municipal theatres and independent dance companies. Interviewees are selected from four different municipal theatres and independent dance companies around Finland. The material is analyzed with qualitative methods such as thematizing, clustering and noting relations between variables. As a result of the analysis different established conventions defining the function, repertoire and relations of municipal theatres and independent dance companies are presented. The results also indicate that cultural policy and public funding produce the strongest coercive and mimetic pressures for the operations of these art organizations. Additionally, how they have been addressed in cultural policy through the years creates normative pressures for their operations. The pressures maintain different conventions of operation. The differences in these conventions place challenges for developing more formal forms of collaboration between the two types of art organizations as changing them is difficult in financially insecure situations. Changes in institutional pressures would demand changes in cultural policy and public funding as well as in the structures and practices of municipal theatres and independent dance companies. On the other hand, this does not mean that collaboration between the two types of art organizations could not be realized. Acknowledging institutional pressures and how they influence organizations operations, what kind of conventions they maintain, provides a basis for considering how existing conventions could be changed in collaboration. Realizing what lies behind organizations operations helps to overcome challenges and disputes in collaboration, and enables development of new ways of operation. However, still the most important factor in collaboration between municipal theatres and independent dance companies is that both have interest and desire for it. Through collaboration these organizations have possibility to respond to institutional pressures which cultural policy and public funding produce.