Cultural organisations and the emotional labour of becoming entrepreneurial

Abstract

This article examines the increasing significance of entrepreneurialism within UK cultural policy and the related implications for cultural organisations and workers. It examines how the entrepreneurial orientation set out in cultural policy and encouraged by national funding bodies depends on emotional labour. Through analysis of empirical research with UK cultural organisations, this article addresses the emotional labour in becoming entrepreneurial in relation to two themes or sets of relationships: the emotional labour of sponsor relationships and the emotional labour of audience relationships. The analysis of these themes examines the emotional labour being undertaken and related the implications and consequences of the increasing demands on what cultural organisations and workers are expected to do. The implications of these practices were addressed in two ways. Firstly, by connecting with existing analysis of artistic and economic logics and the cultural and creative industries to show how cultural organisations’ artistic autonomy is underpinned by their workers’ emotional labour. Secondly, by connecting with existing analysis on emotional labour and precarity to show that entrepreneurship as a response to the precarity an organisation faces does not equate with benefits to workers within those organisations and there are associated issues of overwork and sustainability. Whilst presented as a solution to addressing the challenges of funding and income diversification, becoming entrepreneurial rests upon the emotional labour of cultural workers.