How entrepreneurial practices balance art and business: Insights into creative entrepreneurship in the European film industry

Relying on the literature on tensions and contradictions and the theory of practice, coupled with the literature on creative industries, this study uncovers how creative entrepreneurs balance the tension between art and business and respond to other challenges of creative entrepreneurship. The multiple case studies method is adopted by examining founders, cofounders and main employees of European film production companies. We reveal the perception of creative entrepreneurs towards the relationship between art and business. We explore different organizational and industry‐level challenges experienced by creative entrepreneurs and uncover the organizational practices they adopt to deal with the identified challenges. The research contributes to the phenomenon of creative entrepreneurship by introducing the practice perspective, to the literature on paradox and contradiction by exploring the micro‐foundations of tensions and paradox responses in high‐intensity situations and to practice‐based studies by investigating a domain‐specific practice theory and highlighting the agency of creative entrepreneurs in adapting practices necessary to deal with conflicting demands of creative entrepreneurship.