Doctoral Theses Featuring Craft

Searches of the doctoral theses’ indices for the UK and North America yield few works on craft business, marketing and branding. There are plenty of oblique references to such terms and the use of the term craft to imply skilled production, particularly in literary studies (e.g. Conor 2010), but few doctoral theses are dedicated to the study of craft as an enterprise and specifically, to the marketing of craft products. The theses identified below appear to be the only ones of note, with only 14 directly-relevant theses across the English-speaking world. Some Master’s theses have been identified in other literature reviews, such as Future Focus (2009) and within the researcher’s own searches, but these are difficult access, and may be of limited relevance to this study.

The key British theses that have directly approached the sector of craft production are Summerton (1990); Dormer (1992); Wood (1996); Fillis (1999) and Yair (2001). With the exception of Fillis (1999) none of these academics have directly considered the marketing/ entrepreneurship orientations of craft producers. Yair does examine the interaction of craft microenterprises with industrial producers and therefore the link between individual small craft enterprises and more established industrial production organisation and behaviour that may be relevant in the wider application of craft skills and organisation, with reference to Hillman-Chartrand’s dichotomy of ‘industrial’ and

‘handicrafts’ (Hillman-Chartrand 1983). In this way Yair establishes the links between the individual craft producer and other organisational forms as Banks (2010) does with the role of the craftsperson within the visual arts. However, while Yair (2001) seeks to affirm the value and status of the craftsperson within the industrial context, just as Banks (2010) reveals the craftsperson’s anonymity and subordinacy. These sources, therefore, establish the role of craft across contrasting arenas of production but complicate its status and individual identity in the sense of being a discrete brand.

Summerton’s thesis Designer Crafts Practice in Context (1990) looks at the wider socio-cultural location of the practice and does, at points, contemplate the identity of individual producers. Summerton also briefly considers the idea of microbusiness, through reference to an obscure ‘how to’ trade book from 1989 and the invocation of Charles Handy’s The Age of Unreason (1991) through the use of the ‘boundaryless’

career term. To be sure, the notion of a ‘portfolio career’, as coined by Handy, is a recurring feature of individual work within the creative sector, not just in craft.

Summerton approaches the practice of ‘designer crafts’ as a specific and different form of artistic production compared with gallery-based visual arts practice and invokes the idea of microbusiness while critiquing the structures in place to aid those working in the field of designer crafts. This thesis can ultimately offer a range of perspectives on the

“mediators, enablers and educators” (Summerton 1990 p. 91) involved in crafts production and some interesting perspectives on the initiatives of the late 1980s to aid the business side of creative enterprise with specific reference to crafts. It is a useful source when considering the aspect of assistance structures in the education, research and business support sectors which relate closely to this study’s review of its participants’ experience of such structures and the people involved in sectorial support and promotion.

The noted critic and craft writer, Peter Dormer, completed a doctoral thesis at the Royal College of Art in 1992, just four years before he died in 1996 and his seminal edited volume The Culture of Craft was (posthumously) published (Dormer 1997). His doctoral thesis, written within the art school environment, is, in part, practical – he learnt the skills of calligraphy and pottery – but is mainly about the link between conceptual thinking and “mechanical” skill. He dismisses the status of “craft in art argument”, to focus on this thinking/ doing element of craft practice and considers the work of Wittgenstein in this regard. These ideas are certainly useful to an understanding of the theory of production from a conceptual design and maker/ product development perspective, and also refer to themes within the marketing academy when considering the impact of philosophy in understanding marketing and consumption practice. Craft is held to have its own identity as a fluid creative process from thought to realisation, rather than merely a mechanical function for the production of other categories of art (Banks 2010) or being autonomous works of art in the Western conception, rather than some other quality of cultural form and/ or utility (Shiner 1994).

Fillis’s (1999) doctoral thesis examines the internationalisation process of smaller craft firms in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. This study adopts a mixed-methods approach and is firmly within the marketing discipline, although it does necessarily refer to material from cognate disciplines. Of the doctoral theses that the researcher could find, this is the only one that deals with the subject of the marketing of craft in a direct and sustained fashion. Its participants are drawn from a wide geographic area across the UK and Ireland and are researched using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches. Its topic of internationalisation is specific and ambitious given subsequent macro data on the industry category which shows that markets for the craft sector are mainly confined to the domestic arena (Knott 1994, McAuley & Fillis 2002; 2004, Burns et al. 2012). Indeed, Fillis considers barriers to

makers in respect of their work and marketing practice in general. Fillis formulates a typology of craft business owner/ manager characteristics (Fillis 1999 p. 317) which breaks down producers into four types: the lifestyler, the entrepreneur, the idealist and the late developer (Figure 2, belo) and these are typified with attendant behavioural

 Views self as artist rather than craftsperson

Figure 2: Craft Business Owner/Manager Characteristics Typology (Fillis 1999 p. 317)

Fillis’s study demonstrates that any type of owner/ manager is not necessarily marked by the will to internationalise, but perhaps, most importantly for the purposes of this

study, elaborates an owner/manager typology based on characteristics which may contribute to the construction of a brand through behavioural attributes and competencies and which therefore provide a powerful structure to explore and perhaps extend in view of personal branding techniques and experience.