Can governance help dealing with professionalization? A multiple case study in eight nonprofit performing arts organizations

Nonprofit organizations have to deal with a plurality of goals and logics. At the beginning of the organization's life, artistic values are at the center of the project of performing arts organizations. Reaching a critical size the founding members, who are artists and volunteers, have to deal with professionalization of management. Ideological tensions can be important for two main reasons: artists and managers have different values (Chiapello, 1998) and the professionalization process questions the roles and missions of volunteers who can feel their values being denied over managerial preoccupations (Sainsaulieu and Laville, 1997; Dansac et al., 2013; Dansac, 2017). Through a multiple case study lead in eight performing arts organizations, we observe and describe how volunteers, board members, artists and managers set up governance mechanisms that aim at regulating professionalization in order to reach an alignment between "goals and values of the project" (Hoarau and Laville, 2013). We observe that, in some cases, professionalization can lead to redefining the missions of board members and broaden the scope of their action, in order to achieve a more democratic functioning.