Should I stay or should I go? How an organization may affect the locational choices of creative workers

The issue of what kind of factors affect the locational choices of creative workers has been a topic of increased interest over the past years, both in research and policy circles. This paper aims at investigating what is the role played by the presence of a prominent organization, whose attractive potential goes far beyond the city, in affecting the location choices of creative workers in a medium-sized city. Is there any effect, and if so, does it change over time and interact with other features of the local context? In addressing these research questions we present an explorative study on the locational choices of dancers working for a renowned contemporary ballet company based in a medium-sized city in Northern Italy. Through a qualitative analysis, we were able to delve into dancers’ motives of attraction (i.e. first decision of locating in the city), retention (i.e., decisions of remaining in the city), and satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the context. In so doing, we employed concepts and insights drawn from organizational theories of job embeddedness, which basically refers to the broad array of forces that affect a person’s intention to stay in a job. Results show the important role that the presence of a ‘flagship’ institution in a medium sized city could play in attracting dancers from other areas, who decide to move to a city even when they do not know anything about its amenities and there is no huge supply of job opportunities nor a dense creative district. Results also highlight that factors of attraction could differ from those of retention. Contributions to the literature on job embeddedness and city management are discussed.