SMEs, IT, and the Third Space: Colonization and Creativity in the Theatre Industry

Abstract

Abstract. We examine how small and medium-sized, professional, nonprofit performing arts theatres in the US can improve the strategic use of information technology (IT), as well as other aspects of theatre management for large, commercial theatre productions in the West End of London and on Broadway in New York City. In this article we use the epistemology of the third space developed by Bhabha (1994) and extended by Frenkel (2008). Although both authors were discussing knowledge transfer, we use their conceptualizations to characterize and explore more deeply the transfer process of culture (and thereby useful practices and worthwhile lessons) from small and medium-sized professional, nonprofit theaters to large-scale commercial theatres. We include a discussion of Nonaka's (1991) concept of ba, and how it relates to the third space. We specifically employ the metaphor of the third space developed by Bhabha (1994) to critique and understand the verbal and nonverbal cultural transmissions between small and large theatres. One of our contributions is to use the conceptualization and metaphor of the third space to understand the complex exchanges and relationships between small to medium-sized nonprofit professional theatres and large commercial theatres, and to identify what large commercial productions can learn from nonprofit theatres from these exchanges.

The Third Design Space: A postcolonial perspective on corporate engagement with open source software communities

“…At no point in this elaboration of the Third Design Space do we imply that it is an issue of corporate good or evil. In fact, it can be a mixture of both (Kendall & Kendall, , ). It is certainly true that themes of manipulation by large IT corporations for good and evil are found throughout the history of computing.…”

“…In fact, it can be a mixture of both (Kendall & Kendall, 2009a, 2009b. It is certainly true that themes of manipulation by large IT corporations for good and evil are found throughout the history of computing.…”

“…A postcolonial environment was also evidenced in the IT‐enabled environments between commercial Broadway productions and nonprofit theatres (Kendall & Kendall, , ). Using an interpretation of Bhabha's (, ) and Frenkel's () postcolonialism, the authors found six distinct deliverables that IT can successfully address when large commercial productions and small nonprofit theatre companies cooperate to share knowledge and practices for their mutual benefit.…”

“…Our engagements revealed practices more domesticated than the bazaar, but less structured and rule‐based than trading zones, common pool resources and ecosystems. We also enumerated the tangible and intangible organizational benefits from devoting resources to engage with open source software development (Kendall, Kendall, & Germonprez, ; Kendall & Kendall, , ).…”

“…So, we needed a metaphor that could capture the behaviour of two distinct cultures of software developers that were previously incompatible, but now had found the reasons for and the desire to collaborate closely with one another. From earlier work (Kendall & Kendall, , ), we remembered how powerful the research of Bhabha ( and 1996) and his interpreters (Frenkel, ; Huddart, ) was in making sense of such contexts. Bhabha explains how strongly dominating and loosely organized groups, despite foundational differences in values and asymmetric power relations, can develop shared cultures to produce something of higher value in a postcolonialism context.…”