The nonprofit arts and culture sector in the United States is uniquely situated in tension between its not-for-profit status and its growing role as a catalyst for regional economic growth. Since the mid-20th century, for metropolitan areas in particular, these organizations have become an integral part of local economies and visible symbols of regions as robust cultural centers. Their growth is increasingly viewed as a significant contribution to regional economic development. But concomitant

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... ith their newly defined roles as regional "economic engines," nonprofit arts and culture organizations also are increasingly pressed to adopt a "market orientation" with respect to both their audiences and funders. This dissertation is an investigation into how these changes have shaped the organizational structures and processes of the sector. The guiding inquiry of this research is how an increased "market orientation" in the sector is affecting organizational operations (especially expenditures), and ultimately, their constituencies. More specifically, this analysis explores the effects of marketization, defined here as dependence on earned income, agenda-oriented local corporate sponsorship, and outcomes-based foundation support, on organizational expenditures and constituency levels and composition. The present research assesses the relative utility of three organizational growth theories- resource dependency theory, institutional theory, and urban growth agenda theory-on the one hand, and the "crowding-out" hypothesis on the other hand, in accounting for the effects of increasing marketization on the size and composition of organizational constituencies. The first three frameworks suggest a connection between marketized revenues and the prioritization of organizational visibility and legitimacy, organizational professionalization, and production quality, with the end goal of constituency growth. On the other hand, the crowding-out hypothesis, though it retains a focus on revenue sources, suggests that revenue from ce [...]