Amy Ng

From canvas to career: Decoding opportunity creation within art entrepreneurship and its effect on student confidence and motivation

The process of opportunity creation within entrepreneurship has been covered extensively in literature. However, there is a notable lack of qualitative analysis of the process within the field of art entrepreneurship. Art entrepreneurs strive to maintain a creative practice that is not only sustainable but also economically viable. To achieve this, individuals must align their resources with their desired outcomes to generate value that may be aesthetic, cultural or financial in nature.

The study focuses on tapping into inherent resources available to the individual through the process of self-discovery and creative ideation. By employing a theoretical framework based on principles of effectual thinking, I created a syllabus that employs an explorative approach to opportunity creation. The study involved eight Malaysian participants and employed a case-study design involving in-depth analysis of their experiences. This was done through facilitating processes that allowed them to connect the dots between who they are, what they know and whom they know, and combine it with cross-pollination and collaborative prompts to build on the process of effectual thinking, thereby facilitating them to achieve their desired outcomes.

The study analysed the cognitive and behavioural changes in students throughout the process, highlighting that the means and capacity for building a sustainable arts business firmly reside within the artist. The syllabus designed has shown to be versatile and highly replicable within arts education and has the potential to form a pedagogical foundation for teaching opportunity creation within art entrepreneurship.