Management Between Art and Commerce. Balancing competing institutional logics in cultural and creative industries - A case study of Bonnier Books

Sammanfattning: Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been shown to have a great impact on both GDP and employment. Organizations within CCIs often face challenges due to the inherent tensions between art and commerce. This thesis explores how managers handle these challenges through the research question: How do managers within the cultural and creative industries manage their complex organizational environment deriving from competing institutional logics? While previous research on both institutional logics and leadership within CCIs are plentiful, there is a call for deeper understanding in the intersection between the fields. Previous studies mainly focus on tools for avoiding situations where institutional logics meet, while we examine how managers enable organizational cross-logic cooperation despite the competing institutional logics. This thesis explores an in-depth qualitative case study of management of competing logics within the publishing industry. We find that though the separation of logics as addressed by previous research is necessary to stimulate artistic creativity, cross-logic cooperation and unity are enabled through managerial relating and sensemaking capabilities. We also find that the formal power of the market logic and the strong informal editorial logic create a double power structure incorporating both Mintzberg's professional organization and Bourdieu's notion that cultural production in its freest state represents an economic world turned upside down.