Journal of Cultural Economics 26: 29–52, 2002. © 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 29 Presidents’ Prize Paper The Determinants of Artistic Innovation: Bringing in the Role of Organizations ⋆ XAVIER CASTAÑER Department of Strategic Management and Organization, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota, MN 55455, U.S.A. LORENZO CAMPOS iSOCO, Barcelona, Spain Abstract. This article deals with the determinants of artistic innovation by arts organizations. First, we define artistic innovation. Second, we review the literature on its determinants, identifying some gaps. In particular, we observe that existing research mostly focuses on macro-environmental factors and tends to ignore the role of the organizations themselves. Thus, drawing from the organizational literature on innovation we formulate testable propositions that relate organizational factors to artistic innovation. We hope that our focus on organizational factors contributes to a more comprehensive framework on the determinants of artistic innovation in particular and programming in general. Key words: artistic innovation, cultural economics, organizational determinants, organizational theory, performing arts organizations, sociology of arts 1. Introduction Despite some early research conducted in the late 1970s and mid 1980s (Mar- torella, 1977; DiMaggio and Stenberg, 1985), the determinants of arts program- ming in general and artistic innovation in particular did not start to attract sig- nificant scholarly attention until the mid and late 1990s (Heilbrun and Gray, 1993; Heilbrun, 1998; Alexander, 1995; Cloake, 1997; Campos and Castañer, 1998; Frey, 1999). In part, these new studies have been spurred by the claim that the arts sector suffers from an artistic deficit, i.e., that in their programming arts organizations favor commercial, risk-free works over more innovative pieces (Heilbrun and Gray, 1993). 1 In most of these studies, artistic innovation is associated with the programming of contemporary works (Heilbrun and Gray, 1993; Heilbrun, 1998). However, re- searchers typically do not define the concept of artistic innovation. Our first goal in this paper is to try to address this gap.