Faculty of Business and Economics Department of Management Balancing the creative business model Essays on business models of creative organizations within and between institutional fields Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Applied Economics at the University of Antwerp to be defended by Walter Johannes VAN ANDEL Supervisors: Antwerp, 2020 Prof. dr. Annick Schramme Prof. dr. Koen Vandenbempt 2 Opening words The making of this dissertation has been a process taking many years. I started this journey in late 2014, with the full expectation that it was not going to be easy. Throughout the years, it has been at times challenging, exciting, exhilarating, humbling, frustrating as well as enlightening. Now that I’ve reached the end of this process, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to many people that helped me along the way. First, I would also like to thank all of the interviewees who made this research possible. Their cooperation was invaluable and I hope the insights provided by this thesis will prove both interesting and useful to them. For this dissertation, I was fortunate to have the guidance of a strong doctoral committee. Koen, thank you for guiding me from my first steps in the academic world in Antwerp, all the way until the end of this dissertation. Ever since the time you supervised me in our research on Creative Jumpers, your counsel has been instrumental in shaping my thinking on business models. Paul, I’m very grateful for your constant advice and encouragement throughout the years. I especially want to thank you for always including me in the many new and interesting projects you initiate, and for genuinely valuing my opinion in these matters. Pascal, thank you for taking me on your team, I wouldn’t have been able to complete this dissertation without your help and support. I would especially like to thank you for always letting me follow my own path in this research, while constantly stretching my thinking beyond my personal frame of reference. Annick, besides introducing me to the world of creative industries research, you have provided me with many opportunities for career as well as personal development. Thank you for always looking out for me, for including me in your projects, and for your continuous heartfelt advice along the way. Next to my promotors, I would also like to show my appreciation to the many wonderful colleagues that have worked with me throughout these years, all of whom I can gratefully call my friends. Carol, you were the first to encourage me to pursue a Ph.D. while I was working at the Global Education office at Western Illinois University. Thank you for all your years of love, support, and guidance. You have taught me that anything is possible, as long as you commit yourself to it. You are a unique person, and an inspiring example to many, and I am truly blessed for your continued presence in our lives. Adee, it was with you that I had my first experiences working as a researcher, and I look back on this experience with great joy and appreciation. Thank you for taking me under your wing. Thank you to my CCQO colleagues Arne, Giuliana, Hanka, Karina, Katinka, Lara, Liesje, Louis, Maria Francesca, and Thijs. Our team meetings and shared research expeditions have created some truly unforgettable memories which I will forever cherish. I would also like to thank my former colleagues at Antwerp Management School: David, Joke, Jos, Kim, Koen, Patrick, Steven, Tim, and Wim. I would like to extend a special thanks to Bart for his many years of support. I have learned a lot from our years working together in terms of teaching and doing research, but even more than that, I think back with great fondness on the many laughs we shared. A second special thanks goes out to Sofie, my research partner for so many years. Ten years ago we started at AMS together, and our working partnership has developed into a wonderful friendship which I deeply treasure. I’m looking forward to many more shared coffee breaks. 3 The support of my family has been incredible, and a special thank you goes out to them. First and foremost, I would like to thank my parents Jan and Marij for their continuous love and encouragement. Also, a big thank you goes out to my parents-in-law José Antonio and Laura Elena and my brothers, brother-in-law and sisters-in-law Ruut, Ester, Freek, Suus, José Antonio, Teffy, and Lorena. Thank you all for supporting me throughout this journey. Bedankt allemaal, muchas gracias. Finally, the biggest thanks of all goes out to Ana Laura and Max. Ana Laura, you have been incredibly supportive of me through this process. Your unwavering support, encouragement, love, patience, and commitment have anchored me through this challenging period. I could not have done it without you standing beside me. Thank you for providing me with distractions when I needed them, and for constantly reminding me there is light at the end of the tunnel. Te amo! Max, your arrival to our family has been the greatest gift we could have experienced, you light up our lives every day. I consider myself the luckiest person in the world to have such a lovely and caring family. With these important words being said, it is the moment to shift the attention to the content of this dissertation, which focuses on the business models used by creative organizations. Specifically, this dissertation has given me an interesting deep dive into the sector of architecture which has proven to be personally fascinating (after all, as G. Costanza famously proclaimed: “Nothing is higher than [an] architect”). As the artwork1 by David Sparshott on the cover of the print version of this dissertation symbolically illustrates, this thesis attempts to further understand how creative organizations function by taking them apart into a multitude of interconnected components. By taking this approach, I hope that this dissertation sheds more light into how the separate components by itself are all pieces of the puzzle, but won’t work together well unless they all are connected into one working machine. Walter van Andel This work was supported by the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, FWO) and its Odysseus research program. 1 Illustration: Anatomy of a Bike © David Sparshott - davidsparshott.com 4 Executive summary This dissertation focuses on business model solutions that small- and medium-sized creative organizations employ that can help them toward reaching long-term sustainability. The environment in which many creative organizations operate is highly complex and volatile and thus open for many tensions and conflicts. In order to fully understand how such an environment can play an influence on a creative organization, this dissertation at times takes on a specific focus on the sector of architecture. In recent years, the broader construction industry has been undergoing several significant trends that highly affect the manner of functioning of architectural firms. Traditionally, there is a threefold division of roles within a construction project that consists of 1) an architectural client as the lead instigator of a project, 2) an architect that is responsible for the design, and 3) a contractor that leads the construction and engineering aspects of the project. This traditional division is increasingly being challenged due to a number of trends, which greatly affect the position of the architect in particular. First, advances in technological tools have created more opportunities for other players within the construction value chain to take up parts of the architectural role. Technologies such as Building Information Modeling have allowed an amplified standardization of significant parts of the creative process with ready-made solutions. Second, the increase in new governance forms for construction projects, such as Public-Private-Partnerships and other forms of integrated project delivery has resulted in new power dynamics that increase the role and importance of capital-rich actors such as contractors and project developers as they take the lead in the organization of these consortia, and as such take over many of the responsibilities of the original client role. These trends have caused many architects to experience a decrease in their professional autonomy in projects: many architects are increasingly feeling undervalued and marginalized. Moreover, the decrease in architects’ professional autonomy in projects directly contradicts the desire for many architects to make a difference in society. This combination has led to the third trend which is currently being witnessed in the field of architecture, which is a surge in design activism. In light of these significant challenges to the original role of architects within the larger construction value chain, it is increasingly often stated that the profession of architecture is seeing a crisis of identity. From a strategic point of view, different responses can currently be seen in order to address this. Most architectural firms decide to focus even more on the original core premises of architecture: the act of designing a building (and/or the broader built environment). As such, these organizations are increasingly faced with an infringement on their activities and degrees of freedom to perform these activities, leading to pressures in what goals they can set, pressures on their internal and external relations, pressures on what organizational processes they can perform, and pressures that relate to knowledge and skill development. A second response is of a smaller group of architectural firms that take on the opposite approach and try to reexamine their role by expanding it. These organizations - as experts in aesthetics and socio-spatial solutions to contemporary challenges - attempt to take on a larger role in projects by either initiating the projects themselves or taking control of the construction phases.