Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Music Entrepreneurship

This essay aims to synthesize key elements in contemporary research on music entrepreneurship and provide a comprehensive understanding of current work on this topic. According to neoliberal ideologies, the advent of the digital age has transformed the music industry, and this is believed to have led to a paradigm shift in the way musicians approach their careers. Increasingly, musicians are told to embrace entrepreneurship, which will allow them to seize new opportunities and face the evolving challenges presented by the music economy. Discussing the work of scholars ranging from early theorists Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter to those in the present, this essay offers a critical review of academic research from business and management, economics, education, psychology, and sociology. It focuses on English-language writings from the US, UK, and Australia, but also discusses scholarship in French, German, Italian, and Spanish from researchers in Continental Europe. After discussing the history of the social roles of musicians and artists, the essay examines the differing ways that entrepreneurship is defined in various academic disciplines and the political assumptions they bring to this topic. The essay concludes that these differences are the main obstacle to developing an integrated perspective on music industry workers today.