Abstract
Although “entrepreneurship” has become a movement in arts career preparation programs, its application for school-based music educators remains unclear. This article suggests that intrapreneuring—entrepreneurial practice within large organizations—better encapsulates the balance of innovation and affiliation that teachers often pursue to enhance their motivation at work. Results from a survey of K–12 music educators suggest that intrapreneurial mindsets and behaviors predict higher fulfillment of teachers’ needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness—all elements crucial to healthy motivation. For many music educators, intrapreneuring may serve as an ideal pathway to increased motivation, career longevity, and a broader teacher-driven approach to education reform.
Have you ever wondered why animals migrate thousands of miles, often at great risk, only to move again months or weeks later? Often, they leave behind comfortable environs with adequate food and shelter to search for something new. Why not stay in the known rather than risk the unknown? Simply put, migration is a function of conditions and instincts. No habitat is perfect: Conditions fluctuate, necessitating the pursuit of new opportunities and resources elsewhere. Furthermore, most scientists recognize an organismic instinct hardwired in all forms of life, a yearning to explore, grow, and exploit possibilities within an environment. This is why a humpback whale will swim 5,000 miles one way to find food. The whale is a freelancer, adapting to conditions and instinctively motivated by growth opportunities. Humans are no different. The most enterprising migrators are known as entrepreneurs, and if you enjoy generating new musical value for your students by acting on outside-the-box ideas, you might be one, too.
What can music teachers do to stay motivated and remain interested in their careers? Here are some “intrapreneurial” ideas to consider.
Over the past twenty years, entrepreneurship has become a movement within arts education circles. Collegiate programs and centers for arts entrepreneurship—now numbering more than fifty in the United States alone 1 —teach students to be savvy marketers, divergent thinkers, and adept networkers. Unfortunately, school-based K–12 music teachers are often left wondering what entrepreneurial concepts like branding, risk tolerance, and bootstrapping mean for them as they navigate highly bureaucratic organizations—that is, if they engage with entrepreneurship education at all. Recent survey results suggest a lack of connectivity between entrepreneurship programming and preservice music educators. 2 Coupled with the capitalistic, even exclusionary undertones some ascribe to entrepreneurship, it becomes easy to question the injection of its tenets into artistic and humanistic endeavors. That would be a mistake.
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In truth, entrepreneurship comprises much more than career development skills. It represents a worldview, a commitment to transform ideas into enterprises that create economic, social, or artistic value. 3 Moreover, the idea of “internal entrepreneurship” or intrapreneuring 4 holds unique promise for music teachers in hierarchical school systems—the potential to disrupt convention while remaining in good standing within their organization. For Jersey City middle school music teacher John Flora, intrapreneuring means partnering with science colleagues and the Grammy Museum on a cross-curricular songwriting project focused on a personal passion: environmental conservation. In Lakewood, Ohio, orchestra director Elizabeth Hankins’s intrapreneurial vision for an ensemble where students could play “their” music on orchestral instruments birthed the Lakewood Project, the world’s first high school rock orchestra. Unorthodox teaching gives these and other educators a heightened sense of purpose and the ability to create increasingly meaningful and engaging learning experiences for their students. The fact is, music educators working in K–12 schools typically cannot practice rogue entrepreneurship. However, they can become intrapreneurs: enterprising workers who enhance large organizations from within through entrepreneurial ideas and actions.
Traditional American band, chorus, orchestra, and general music programs tend to be conservative, even risk averse, and certainly more re-creative than creative. With the stress that emphasis on performance brings and a robust market infrastructure undergirding the status quo, who can blame a music teacher for not feeling particularly innovative? Yet, despite the bureaucratic traditionalism that has historically underpinned school music, innovation and intrapreneurial thinking have shaped music education for generations. Envision a Mount Rushmore of music teaching. Veins of intrapreneurialism thread through the granite busts of Shinichi Suzuki, Julia Ettie Crane, and virtually any other music innovator you might choose to enshrine. Less conspicuous but still important are the micro-innovations pioneered by ordinary music teachers who bend rules and improvise in teachable moments every day. They too are intrapreneurs.
Research findings add credence to the notion that teachers can reshape K–12 music education from within its confines. Recently, several scholars have endorsed teacher-driven innovation in music education in response to issues of equity, accessibility, and relevance. 5 Researchers Dennis Thiessen and Janet Barrett 6 liken “reform-minded” music educators to skilled musical arrangers, orchestrating themes of tradition and reform into new ideas “that fit the available resources of the school and the particularities of the students and teachers involved in the change.” Educator Melissa Abramo’s self-study of her own music teaching career demonstrated that even when contending with traditionalism and structural hindrances, change agentry can be a successful and fulfilling approach to school-based music education. 7 Expositions of “place-based music education” 8 and “contextually specific” music teaching 9 describe how situational circumstances and teacher resourcefulness individualize the music classrooms of today. Scholars David Elliott and Marissa Silverman 10 frame “educatorship” as others have framed intrapreneuring: “the flexible, situated knowledge that allows one to think-in-action in relation to students’ needs, subject matter criteria, community needs, and the professional standards that apply to each of these.” 11
A crucial component of the intrapreneurial paradigm completes our migratory metaphor: Most animals do not venture alone. Survival depends on pack affiliation—when facing the unknown, collaboration breeds strength. Thus, unlike the prototypical independent entrepreneur, a school-based music educator longingly peering outside the box must balance individual dreams and social capital. This is the spirit of the intrapreneur.
What’s at Stake?
According to marketing guru Seth Godin, “people will go where they can grow.” 12 An alarming number of teachers believe the place they can grow is outside the teaching profession. Thousands of music teachers leave the profession every year, nearly half citing job dissatisfaction and demotivation as chief factors influencing their out-migration. 13 Teacher attrition negatively affects student learning, especially in underresourced school districts. 14 Furthermore, despite many iterations of top-down school reform, attrition persists. Many teachers simply never buy in. Others comply but see their pedagogical dreams—the very reasons they entered the profession in the first place—eclipsed by a system obsessed with thrift, time, testing, and tradition. This “reality shock” 15 is especially common in the time-constrained and resource-dependent reality of the music classroom. Could an intrapreneurial approach improve this scenario? Evidence suggests it could.
As it turns out, intrapreneurially focused schools elevate the processes and outcomes of teaching. Researchers studying intrapreneuring in nonmusical avenues of education have demonstrated its ability to enhance teacher motivation and student achievement. 16 Findings link educational intrapreneuring with increased responsiveness to student needs, 17 higher teacher job satisfaction, 18 better collaboration, 19 and increased tolerance for risk. 20 Two California studies found that the difference between high- and low-performing schools statewide aligned with the presence or absence of intrapreneurial climate factors, such as risk taking and distributed leadership. 21 Among other findings, the teachers and administrators in high-performing and rapidly improving schools strongly agreed that “mistakes are an inevitable part of innovation,” 22 whereas those in low-performing schools did not.
In all fairness, many factors not accounted for in this body of research likely affect the incidence of teacher-driven reform. Some teachers prefer a more conventional approach to their craft or have difficulty envisioning a reciprocal value proposition emerging in their organizational climate from endeavors requiring great personal effort and sacrifice. Others might believe that they cannot deviate sharply from the curricular traditions of their school or district and are at peace with that. In addition, established frameworks for reducing teacher demotivation and attrition produce notable results. These frameworks include mentoring, 23 financial incentives, 24 and improvements to working conditions (e.g., increased availability of resources or enhanced facilities). 25 Hence, some might wonder if intrapreneuring is simply a solution looking for a problem. The key is self-determination: volitional actions that enable teachers to act as the primary causal agents in their profession. Extrinsic enticements to remain in teaching may wane over time; intrinsic motives gain momentum. An intrapreneurial mindset promotes an internal perceived locus of causality, or feeling of self-determined, intrinsic motivation. 26 In music education, recent qualitative studies associate intrinsic motivation with high achievement, self-efficacy (belief in one’s capacity to be effective), and persistence in preservice and in-service contexts. 27 Thus, if music educators build empowerment through intrapreneurial change-making, envisioning and resourcefully pursuing the pedagogical opportunities they find most exciting, they may feel more motivated in their work and less apt to leave the profession.
Musical Intrapreneuring
Intrapreneurial music teaching is place-based instruction that modifies or supplants traditional instructional paradigms. It is enacted by passionate teacher-provocateurs possessing strategic vision, keen opportunity perception, and the ability to manage resources, risk, and growth to generate new musical value within a learning community. Intrapreneurial music teachers envision and create new musical endeavors that provide fresh opportunities to pursue both traditional and novel student outcomes. These are innovative teaching and/or performance ideas brought to fruition through the autonomous or collaborative actions of music educators to enhance student learning. An endeavor might be brand new and completely original or simply new to an individual teacher or school. In fact, a “new” endeavor might be well established and quite old—for example, a medieval or Renaissance music ensemble—but progressive when developed for K–12 participants. Most important, new musical endeavors break from convention and stem from teachers pursuing passions and resourcefully addressing student needs. Recent headlines tout examples, including the Louisville Leopards Percussion Ensemble, 28 Adam Goldberg’s PS 177 Technology Band for disabled students in Queens, New York, 29 and other “new alternatives.” 30 Equally intrapreneurial are countless less splashy efforts: a young general music teacher’s new bucket drumming brigade or a seasoned high school band director’s intergenerational concert combining ninth-grade instrumentalists and the local New Horizons Band.
A noteworthy case of true, build-it-from-within intrapreneuring occurred at Phoenix’s Arcadia High School due to the vision and ingenuity of music educator Richard Maxwell. A multiple Grammy Music Educator Award nominee, Maxwell took a conventional guitar class and resourcefully built it into the Creative Musical Arts and Sciences (CMAS) program, a one-of-a-kind educational enterprise. CMAS provides Arcadia students with immersive learning experiences in all aspects of the music industry: songwriting, recording techniques, live sound, event production, album releases, and more. Maxwell and his students even installed a full soundstage in his music room to facilitate hands-on learning. CMAS students mount at least 60 performances per year, all of which feature student songwriters performing original works. The program welcomes all students regardless of musical background, and participants earn fine arts, career and technical education, and even collegiate credit for their work. 31 According to Maxwell, “students know that they can come in and, no matter what their musical interest might be, they will be able to go as far with it as they can/want.” 32 Maxwell applied the same approach to his career as a music teacher. While his training in wind conducting might not have prepared him to lead a program like CMAS, his intrapreneurial spirit and commitment to grow and evolve breathed life into a remarkable musical opportunity for his students.
Exploratory Survey Research
Do the creative impulses and sense of promise generated through outside-the-box music teaching predict music educators’ well-being at work? As a first step to answering this question, I distributed an anonymous online questionnaire to public school music educators in New York State. The questionnaire asked teachers to provide demographic information and assess aspects of motivation and intrapreneuring in light of their experiences at work. For example, respondents rated the degree to which the following statement applied to their school’s organizational climate: “My colleagues and school leaders encouraged me to be creative and try my own teaching methods.” Respondents rated their workplace motivation using a similar rating system, for instance, agreement or disagreement with the statement “Most days, I feel a sense of accomplishment from working.” I based the questionnaire on previously established entrepreneurship 33 and motivation 34 scales and reinforced its validity by asking a panel of experts to review it. Of 1,351 potential participants, 576 (42.6 percent) completed it. Both female (57.9 percent) and male (42.1 percent) teachers responded, working at elementary (35.6 percent), middle (25.9 percent), high school (21.2 percent), or mixed (17.3 percent) levels. Participants taught instrumental (55.2 percent), general (17.2 percent), vocal (9.2 percent), or mixed (18.4 percent) music classes within suburban (51.9 percent), rural (35.4 percent), or urban (12.7 percent) schools.
More than 80 percent of the teachers I surveyed said they had developed new musical endeavors in the past or planned to do so in the near future. They initiated collaborations with musicians in the community, launched new ensembles, developed innovative music curricula, and incorporated music genres not normally taught in school. Some facilitated student-run record labels while others pioneered novel approaches to teaching improvisation. Interestingly, few (roughly 10 percent) reported being very familiar with the concepts of entrepreneurship or intrapreneuring, and even fewer (about 5 percent) received instruction in arts entrepreneurship as part of their undergraduate and/or graduate degree programs. Thus, for these teachers, intrapreneuring—creating new musical opportunities for students from within a school system—came naturally and served many educational purposes. It also required determination and resourcefulness. Less than 30 percent of respondents reported having the resources necessary for launching new learning projects. Only slightly more (36 percent) stated that their supervisors supported experimental teaching or allowed teachers to bend rules and make mistakes to develop innovative ideas. Perhaps, as Hess argued, “systematic investment in new, promising entrepreneurial efforts is simply not part of the culture of American schooling.” 35
The survey generated other interesting findings. Responding teachers largely felt confident about the intrapreneurial behaviors they could regulate themselves, such as recognizing opportunities, managing risk, and staying persistent. They expressed more uncertainty about tasks that required some degree of reliance on others, like gathering resources and getting others to buy into their vision. Teachers’ inclinations toward intrapreneurialism were not influenced by demographic differences with one major exception. Music educators in urban schools reported significantly more confidence in their abilities to be innovative than their counterparts in suburban and rural schools. Many of these teachers reported that the challenges they faced in underserved urban districts created opportunities to circumvent policies, take risks, and combine existing resources in unconventional ways. According to Schumpeter, 36 one of the forefathers of modern entrepreneurial theory, creative innovation—recombination of currently held resources—serves as the defining element of entrepreneurialism. Within my sample, music educators teaching in urban settings perceived little support for intrapreneuring even though they reported the highest level of confidence in creative innovation.
When compared to traditionalists, intrapreneurially minded teachers reported higher self-efficacy, stronger organizational support for their ideas, and fewer constraints affecting their innovative efforts. This effect remained consistent across a variety of teacher and school demographics. Does this mean intrapreneuring can actually predict healthier motivation at work? Yes, it does. Through a technique called multiple regression analysis, I found that an intrapreneurial mind-set and facilitative work climate accounted for upward of 50 percent of the variability of teachers’ perceived autonomy, competence, and relatedness—all elements crucial to healthy motivation (see Tables 1–3). 37 The aspects of intrapreneuring that most strongly predicted motivation included organizational risk tolerance, encouragement of creativity from supervisors, and teachers’ ability to persuade colleagues to buy into their visions for new educational ventures (see Figures 1–3). Other variables were more likely to reduce the likelihood of intrapreneuring and therefore more likely to undermine teacher motivation: uncertainty about students’ needs, a heavy workload, a lack of support from colleagues and family members, and problems with student behavior. Remarkably, the motivational benefits of intrapreneuring were not limited to seasoned innovators. Respondents with no track record as an intrapreneur who said they hoped to try it in the future also enjoyed increased work motivation. Simply planning for a growth-oriented future brightened their professional outlook.
Linear Model of Predictors of Workplace Autonomy
Linear Model of Predictors of Workplace Competence
Linear Model of Predictors of Workplace Relatedness
Diagram of autonomy regression model, with standardized weights (path coefficients) and Pearson correlations between predictors. *p ≤ .001
Diagram of competence regression model, with standardized weights (path coefficients) and Pearson correlations between predictors. *p ≤ .001
Diagram of relatedness regression model, with standardized weights (path coefficients) and Pearson correlations between predictors. *p ≤ .001
Making It Real for Educators
Everyone deserves a career that provides opportunities to dream, stretch, and grow. For many workers, this means migrating from one job to another to find the right fit. In fact, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, average workers will cycle through at least eleven different jobs before they turn fifty. 38 But K–12 music educators are often unable or unwilling to jump from job to job so frequently. Intrapreneuring can provide a pathway to help music teachers ensure that the job they have is the job they want. Instead of outgrowing their current jobs, intrapreneurial music teachers grow through them. To be sure, some school systems remain impervious to change from within and view unconventional ideas in a threatening or heretical light. Thus, music educators considering an innovative project should plan strategically while remaining sensitive to the realities of their teaching context. The following key questions and action items will help frame the initial stages of this process.
Is My Idea Intrapreneurial?
Does it excite you? Will it require you to depart from your conventional teaching practice and/or acquire new musicianship skills? Will it provide your students with a unique learning experience that also addresses local, state, and/or national standards and outcomes? If you answered yes to these three questions, you are a budding intrapreneur! Sometimes, intrapreneurialism rises out of necessity. If you feel determined to create a distinctive program despite the odds you currently face, you too are feeling the intrapreneurial impulse.
Where Do I Begin?
Start small and move slowly at first. Use a few minutes at the beginning or ending of a lesson to try an outside-the-box teaching idea. Discuss your vision for a new musical endeavor with a trusted colleague. If your concept shows promise, write a “business plan” for it—a summary of what you plan to do, why it is needed in your school, how you will attract student interest and district buy-in, and the resources required (including your time). This document will serve as your talking points for future meetings with administrators. If new ideas are a tough sell with your supervisors, be ready to provide something in return: extra bus duty, service on a committee, or some other way of solving a problem for them. Focus on the value your initiative will generate and acknowledge your “affordable loss” 39 —what you can reasonably afford to lose (and how even this downside has an upside for your students and the school community). Additionally, in keeping with a key attribute of the entrepreneurial mind, avoid becoming too attached to your idea. If the answer is a decisive no, let go of the idea and move on to the next one.
Be Accountable and Creative
For many educators, teacher evaluation is serious business! How can you balance your desire to be innovative with the scrutiny of today’s accountability movement?
Intrapreneuring and compliance with standards/accountability practices are not mutually exclusive. You can create a new musical experience for students and still exceed expectations for evaluation. Consider waiting to start a new endeavor if you are a new teacher or subject to a new set of accountability guidelines. Otherwise, segment your experimental efforts from your primary teaching assignment by scheduling your new endeavor during a free period or after school. Leverage your advantaged position, clear of the searchlights of scrutiny aimed at your STEM colleagues. Finally, think of ways to highlight opportunities for critical thinking, interdisciplinarity, and learning transfer that your new creation will bring. These areas form the basis of many of today’s teacher and student evaluation models, so place them at the center of the rationale for your idea.
Enhance Your Skills
A new organization,
How about Sustainability?
Successful innovators typically demonstrate perseverance to see an idea through and flexibility to adapt to unexpected detours as it unfolds. However, according to business pioneer Stuart Skorman, 40 serial entrepreneurs are driven by the thrill of growing an enterprise, not the obligation of sustaining it. Once the enterprise reaches viability, they move on to the next opportunity. While intrapreneurial music teachers cannot simply establish and scuttle programs at will, they should also avoid becoming overly concerned with the longevity of a new ensemble or curriculum. Even if the life span of a collaboration spans weeks instead of months or an interdisciplinary program falters after a year, it still generates significant value for teachers and students alike.
Epilogue: Growth and Opportunity
Like a migratory bird or a seedling bending toward light, a motivated person seeks growth and opportunity within his or her environment. Entrepreneurs know this, and their self-determined approach to generating value can be adapted for music educators working in school systems. Nothing motivates a student more effectively than a motivated teacher. 41 A commitment to school reform that places teachers’ growth, creativity, and needs fulfillment at the core of the educational enterprise will better motivate music educators and stem their exodus from the teaching profession. My exploratory survey research demonstrates that intrapreneurial music educators are more self-determined, more motivated, and better able to create pedagogical ventures that fulfill both the needs of their students and their own professional aspirations. Intrapreneuring might not be appropriate for every K–12 music teacher, but for those inclined to create and evolve, it may provide energy and direction that invigorates their commitment to a career in music education.
Footnotes
Josef Hanson is an assistant professor of music and the coordinator of music education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He can be contacted at