Closed and Open Collaboration in the Arts

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of open collaboration in the context of the visual arts field. The paper focuses on understanding if open collaboration manifests itself in fine arts museums in North America, and if so, how it is structured and motivated. Furthermore, an understanding is developed for how organizations and stakeholders are affected by the practice of open collaboration. The paper addresses these topics by studying, through the qualitative case study approach, two major fine arts museums in North America and how they approach collaboration within the organization. The data source is comprised of exploratory and in-depth interviews with twelve practicing arts professionals from major arts institutions. Interviews are supplemented with a comprehensive document review from the museums used in the case studies. Results suggest that the open-source paradigm has affected the way collaboration is perceived in the visual arts field. Museums are more so inclined then in previous years to undertake instances of collaboration and are driven by five major motivations to do so. The motivational factors behind open collaboration in the context of museums are: a desire to remain relevant in the age of online participatory culture; adapting to a shifting museum value proposition model; a desire to proactively evaluate museum practices; a drive to create a common good; and a practical need for resources and sustainability. Moreover, it emerges that the main effect of undertaking instances of open collaboration is that its practice influences other ways of operating or relating at the organization. However, limited empirical evidence is found to understand how the public is affected, since audiences were not included in the study sample and no concrete success measures were implemented by museums in order to understand the benefits of open collaboration on audiences. This presents a limitation in the study and an area for future research.