Management of Art Galleries – Business Models - Universität St.Gallen

Introduction 5 / 225for art galleries. Indeed, only Kirps & Fesel (2001) briefly address management-related issues onart galleries.The art market has been subject to a number of observations in recent years. These differ fromthe literature on art management since books on the art market are mostly practitioners’ accounts.Most authors position their books as “background reports”, rather than analytical andacademically sound observations. These books present key players in the market (Boll, 2009),explain the structure of the market (Dossi, 2007), depict stories of famous collectors or artists(Lindemann, 2006; Polsky, 2003), highlight how prices are built (Thompson, 2008), give adviceon how to collect and value art (Leyer Pritzkow, 2006) or just reproduce wisdoms of the artworld (Thornton, 2006). Whilst of little value to practitioners, these books certainly increasetransparency for the general reader. Interestingly, only Robertson (2005, 2008) started toanalytically observe players in the art markets and identify their roles and positions.While literature on art-related topics may help to understand the art dimension in the art gallerycontext, literature related to the business aspects will add specific business knowledge. Theconcept of business modelling is of primary importance, although it has only recently found itsway into the discussion of strategic management, for example in Amit & Zott (2010), Bieger etal. (2001), Chesbrough (2010), Chesbrough & Rosenbloom (2002), Treacy and Wiersema’s(1995), Nehls & Baumgartner (2000), Wölfe (2000), Teece (2010), Tomczak et al. (1999),Rüegg-Stürm (2000) and Linder & Cantrell (2000). The speed of change seen in business modelsacross different industries has sparked a lot of interest in the whole concept of business models.It has become increasingly difficult to attach the success of a company to a single product orbusiness unit. Instead, the success of a company might lie in its set-up of network partners,forming a symbiosis along the value chain. Following this development, common strategicmodels are insufficient to explain the success of a company. In fact, managers are no longermerely concerned with determining a strategy or programme for a company’s product, but ratherwith establishing business systems within a network (Bieger & Agosti, 2005). On the basis ofthese developments, several business model definitions will be compared to analyse the ways inwhich a company creates value in the market, cf. Bieger et al. (2002), Hedman & Kalling (2003),Morris et al. (2005), Osterwalder, Pigneur & Tucci (2005), Shafer, Smith & Linder, (2005) andStähler (2002). Baden-Fuller and Morgan (2010) highlight that business models help us toclassify our world and expand our understanding of business (Baden-Fuller & Morgan, 2010).The business model concept will therefore be useful as a tool to analyse and comparemanagement practices in art galleries.While discussing the business model, another topic from the field of strategic managementliterature will be addressed: success factor research. One of the founders of this research areadefines success factors as follows: “Critical success factors thus are, for any business, the limitednumber of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitiveperformance for the organisation. They are the few key areas where ‘things must go right’ for thebusiness to flourish” (Rockart, 1979, p. 85).