Organizational Performance Evaluation in Cultural and Creative Industries Organizations: the Example of Estonia
The existing problems concerning Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) have been well mapped in Nordic and Baltic countries, nevertheless the relations between internal and external factors affecting the management in CCI organizations are less covered in academic literature. The current study is among the first to expand our knowledge about the relationships between Organizational Performance Evaluation (OPE), skills, (survival) challenges and creative freedom in CCI organizations.
Based on four studies, the doctoral thesis explains the different factors that affect attitudes towards and implementation of OPE. It is based on the data collected from ca 460 representatives of different CCI organizations, representing all 13 subsectors of the CCI in Estonia. The explanatory mixed-methods research design has been used for data collection and data analysis.
The first study of the thesis indicated that OPE is not widespread in CCI organizations in Estonia and none of the performance evaluation tools, proven their worth in other countries, are used either. CCI organizations face different kinds of challenges that correlate with their OPE practices; these challenges also explain their evaluation inactivity.
The findings of the second study show that a more challenging environment, leads to fewer OPE activities. As a major conceptual contribution, this study revealed that CCI organizations can be seen in terms of polarities – they are either “evaluation-friendly” or “evaluation-hesitant”.
The third study pays attention to the central role of analyzing and reporting as this particular variable predicts whether in “evaluation-friendly” CCI organizations the results achieved are compared with the set goals or not. The study also revealed that CCI organizations oriented towards learning and development are more likely to analyze their performance as a natural part of daily work.
The results of the fourth study confirm that when CCI organizations do not have to fight for their survival and their creative freedom level is high, they do practice more OPE compared to the CCI organizations that have difficulties surviving. As a conclusion it is possible to claim that CCI organizations could use OPE as a solution to overcome the constant struggle between creative freedom and survival challenges.
Click here to read the full doctoral dissertation.
Supervisors:
Ülle Pihlak, PhD., senior lecturer, Chair of Management, Estonian Business School, Estonia.
Professor Toomas Haldma, Ph.D, University of Tartu, Estonia
Opponents:
Professor Annick Schramme, Ph.D., Antwerp Management School, Belgium
Professor Martin Piber, Ph.D., The University of Innsbruck, Austria.
You can follow the defense on 22nd of November at 11:00-13:30 via live broadcast on EBS YouTube channel here or in EBS room 413.
