Special issue - Call for contributions
Entrepreneurship in the area of Cultural heritage revolves around issues of legacy management, i.e. the organization, value creation, preservation, mediation and representation of sociohistorical tangible and intangible cultural heritage. As such, its very essence is to transcend both time and space: on the one hand, by evoking cultural meanings of the past for contemporaries to making sense of and passing on for future generations; on the other hand, by building bridges between otherwise spatially disconnected communities. In this call for papers, we direct our interest to what happens in the intersection of cultural heritage and entrepreneurship.
Viewing cultural heritage as something that is used, rather than merely preserved, opens up an understanding of it as a contemporary organizing practice situated in time, space, and place (Smith, 2006). When brought into dialogue with entrepreneurship, heritage practices can be seen as spaces where not only the past but also possible futures are organized in the present. This raises questions about how entrepreneurial initiatives engage with cultural heritage to activate, negotiate, and localize the past in ways that shape future imaginaries and possibilities (Dey & Mason, 2018).
Our interest is grounded both empirically and theoretically. Empirically, this SI may include challenges for practitioners in the cultural field to balance cultural heritage values and entrepreneurship. Cultural values are here potentially at odds with economic ones; and cultural (dis)positions might clash with economic ones. Theoretically-wise, such conflicts have for instance been studied in terms of conflicting logics (Ellmeier, 2003), logics of practice (Scott, 2012), narrative legitimacy making (Lindkvist and Hjorth, 2015), storytelling (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001) and identity construction (Lo Verson, 2025).
This special issue also invites reflection on how decisions are influenced by temporal contexts and raise questions about how time is structured, how power is distributed, and how the cultural past is selectively activated to shape organizational futures. To continue, broaden and deepening these empirical and theoretical conversations, we welcome contributions that in one way or the other queries initiatives that aim to establish new forms of organized practices within the area of cultural heritage.
List of Topic Areas
ACE invites researchers, artists, and reflective practitioners from the business, art, and culture communities. We welcome empirical (qualitative and quantitative) and conceptual articles as well as artworks and reviews related to art and cultural entrepreneurship theories and practices. Its coverage includes, but is not restricted to:
• Archives
• Craft
• Designed lived environments
• Festivals and events
• Folk music
• Museums
• Oral history
• Performative/Living history
• Tourism
• World heritage
Key Dates
21 January 2026 at 13:00-15:00 (CET): Meet the editors online
15 March 2026: Closing date for submissions
Submissions should be prepared in accordance with the ACE submission guidelines available at https://open.lnu.se/index.php/ace/about/submissions
Special Issue Editors
Katarina Ellborg, katarina.ellborg@lnu.se
Marina Jogmark, marina.jogmark@lnu.se
References
Dey, P., & Mason, C. (2018). Overcoming constraints of collective imagination: An inquiry into activist entrepreneuring, disruptive truth-telling and the creation of ‘possible worlds’. Journal of Business Venturing, 33(1), 84-99.
Ellmeier, A. (2003), Cultural entrepreneurship: On the changing relationship between the arts, culture and employment. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 9(1), 3–16.
Lindkvist, L. & Hjorth, D. (2015), Organizing cultural projects through legitimising as cultural entrepreneurship. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 8(4), 696–714.
Lounsbury, M. & Glynn, M.A. (2001), Cultural entrepreneurship: Stories, legitimacy, and the acquisition of resources. Strategic Management Journal, 22, 545–564.
Lo Verso, A. C. (2025). Cultural Entrepreneurship and Field Dynamics: Narrative strategies for distinctive identities in unsettled fields. Organization Studies, 46(3), 325-354.
Scott, M. (2012), Cultural entrepreneurs, cultural entrepreneurship: Music producers mobilising and converting Bourdieu’s alternative capitals. Poetics, 40, 237–255.
Smith, L. (2006). Uses of heritage. Routledge.
