A Replicative Study Involving Commercial Art Galleries in Upstate New York

This study is a replication study of “Building Sustainable Success in Art Galleries: An Exploratory Study of Adaptive Strategies” by Discenza, Smith and Baker in Colorado state, 2006. Like the original study, the current study investigates changes in the gallery performances, gallerists’ perceptions of external factors (driving forces), and gallerists’ intentions to apply adaptive strategies. The current study focuses on small commercial art galleries in the second-tier art market in upstate New York, while in the original study the focus was Colorado state. An online survey is used to collect responses from gallerists (gallery owners or managers). Questions in the survey are categorized into five sections: (1) gallery characteristics; (2) gallery owner/manager characteristics; (3) changes in percentage of fiscal performance comparing the prior two fiscal years, (4) driving forces affecting gallery performance; and (5) a willingness to undertake each adaptive response in the coming fiscal year. Variables about driving forces and adaptive responses are rated on a five-level and a three-level Likert scale respectively. The analysis includes two parts: descriptive statistics that apply to the whole population, and a t-test analysis that is performed for the galleries reporting increased total sales and for those reporting decreased sales, thus examining the relationships between study variables based on the fiscal performances (sales). Mixed findings in the current study support the idea in the original study that the external environment of small galleries is complexed, and some adaptive strategies are still critical in the small gallery business. Inherently, the gallery business tends to ignore the competition, but, to a certain degree, is subject to the external economic pressures. The similarities and dissimilarities between the current study and the original study also suggest some changes in the gallery industry, especially with regard to the importance of Internet usage