Managing and enhancing the intangible heritage: the experience of “Literary Parks”

In recent years, the concept of cultural heritage has changed to include artistic, archaeological, architectural and environmental heritages, including intangible forms of these. The potential of intangible heritage has yet to be fully exploited, and there are many opportunities for its enhancement and protection still to explore. The meaning of intangible heritage in social development, and its social and cultural potential is described through a case study of the Literary Park circuit in Italy. The Italian experience shows that there is potential in setting up networks in remote areas, and in the process of recognizing and enhancing the intangible heritage of a country. Heritage, particularly intangible heritage, is an alternative approach to promoting a sense of belonging and active participation in a community. It can attract financial resources and boost social development of the local cultural ecosystem. Surveys and interviews are used to assess the limits and potential as well as strengths and weaknesses of Literary Parks

Managing and enhancing the intangible heritage: the experience of “Literary Parks”

In recent years, the concept of cultural heritage has changed to include artistic, archaeological, architectural and environmental heritages, including intangible forms of these. The potential of intangible heritage has yet to be fully exploited, and there are many opportunities for its enhancement and protection still to explore. The meaning of intangible heritage in social development, and its social and cultural potential is described through a case study of the Literary Park circuit in Italy. The Italian experience shows that there is potential in setting up networks in remote areas, and in the process of recognizing and enhancing the intangible heritage of a country. Heritage, particularly intangible heritage, is an alternative approach to promoting a sense of belonging and active participation in a community. It can attract financial resources and boost social development of the local cultural ecosystem. Surveys and interviews are used to assess the limits and potential as well as strengths and weaknesses of Literary Parks

Disruptive crisis management: lessons from managing a hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic

Purpose Healthcare organizations worldwide were badly hit by the "surprise" of the pandemic. Hospitals in particular are trying hard to manage problems it caused, searching for solutions to protect the health of citizens and reorienting operations. The implementation of resilience solutions in the coping phase and the ability to react promptly and redefine activities is essential. Integrating crisis management and resiliency literature, this paper discusses how health organizations were able to cope with adversity during the crisis. Design/methodology/approach The research is conducted through a case study of a large Italian hospital, the Gemelli Polyclinic Foundation, which was one of the leading hospitals in the Italian response to the pandemic. Findings The case reports actions taken in order to continue functioning and to maintain core activities despite severe adversity. The overall response of the Gemelli was the result of the three types of response: behavioral (effective leadership), cognitive (rapid resource reallocation) and the contextual reinforcement (multiagency network response). The authors highlight how an integrative framework of crisis management and resiliency could be applied to healthcare organizations in the coping phase of the pandemic. The experience of the Gemelli can thus be useful for other hospitals and organizations facing external crises and for overall improvement of crisis management and resilience. Responding to crisis brings the opportunity to make innovations introduced during emergencies structural, and embed them moving forward. Research limitations/implications The paper focuses only on the coping phase of the response to the pandemic, whereas building long-term resilience requires understanding how organizations accumulate knowledge from crises and adapt to the "new normal." Originality/value The paper responds to the call for empirical studies to advance knowledge of an integrative framework of crisis management and resiliency theories with reference to complex organizations such as healthcare

Philanthropy patterns in major Australian performing arts organizations

Taking a management perspective in the field of philanthropy, this study examines 12 Australian major performing arts organizations over 19 years (2000–2018), which were identified as vulnerable and struggling with overreliance on public grants. Underpinned by theories that integrate understandings of external and internal resource management—resource dependence theory and the resource-based view—we uncover insights into what drives the increase in their philanthropic income. Using data from 228 annual reports and interviews, we present an original taxonomy that identifies organization-donor relationships and organizational efforts in nurturing philanthropy. We uncovered the interplays between donor engagement and positioning philanthropic staff in terms of organizational structure. Longitudinal financial and narrative data demonstrate that external resource management through donor engagement and internal resource management through organization structure emphasizing philanthropy have a significant impact on the growth of organizational philanthropic income

Financing Sustainability in the Arts Sector: The Case of the Art Bonus Public Crowdfunding Campaign in Italy

This paper addresses the conditions that can facilitate the long-term effectiveness of civic crowdfunding fundraising strategies. While previous studies have provided a broad picture of the possible conditions for fostering effective fundraising strategies, most have considered the implications of fundraising only for management or only for cultural policy, neglecting an integrated approach that contemplates the needs of both. Thus, this work integrates cultural management and cultural policy perspectives by discussing a specific exploratory case study: Art Bonus, a cultural patronage tax incentive strategy introduced by the Italian government in 2014, which also includes civic crowdfunding features. To the best of our knowledge, Art Bonus is the first national civic crowdfunding platform supported by a national government. As an innovative and unique platform, its analysis is particularly relevant. This work analyzes the system’s functioning and the results obtained in its first years of operation (2014–2016) by accessing the public database relating to the donations transited through the platform. While the initiative effectively channeled more fundraising resources into the cultural sector, the results also illustrate potential points for improving such a system

Strategic or struggling? Exploring Sustainability in cultural organisations. Italian and international perspectives

The debates on the management of public and non profit organisations are still tackling the unanswered issues of sustainability. In the cultural organisations in particular, the theme has greater relevance, where creating value for society should be ensure although the scarcity of financial resources and government cut-backs. Indeed being sustainable is not the mission of cultural organizations, whereas it is a precondition for ensuring enhancement of cultural heritage in an unstable economic environment. This research contributes to the ongoing debate over sustainability in the arts and cultural sectors, through a qualitative inductive approach of multiple case studies. Four areas has been took into consideration, as representative of different perspective of how sustainability has been strategized and included in the reform of the public sector. The results indicate that in order to be sustainable, arts organisations, seek autonomous and different ways to handle the issue. This includes strategize actions, restructure their internal organisation, attract philanthropic support, encourage sustainable management practice and, generally, diversify their funding

Where Is Berlin? Cultural Commons and Urban Policy Among Real and Virtual Walls

“Poor but Sexy” is Berlin, in a well-known institutional slogan. The city has experienced a unique evolution since the end of World War II and the Cold War years, attracting creative talents who crafted a metropolitan and cosmopolitan network of fertile connections and exchanges. Berlin appears to be structured in micro-areas: kiez8 is the urban and social unit, a small commons where shared views and actions define the neighbourhood. Since the fall of the Wall, the Berlin community has lived in a multiple-layered town whose dynamics revealed many contradictions, due to the virtual walls and maps that end up opposing to the elaboration of a consistent metropolitan strategy. This article discusses the role of cultural commons in urban development, which do not fit a unique model or mechanism. An effective administrative action can encourage the diffusion and location of creative industries and cultural enterprises, generating a sustainable value chain for Berlin’s identity, based upon cultural commons

Value co-creation in non-profit organisations: The evolution of philanthropic strategies as entrepreneurial activities

How do non-profit performing arts organisations use philanthropic strategies as entrepreneurial activities in order to create value for donors? Government cut-backs after the global financial crisis have forced non-profit organisation executives and boards to diversify their income base to include philanthropic giving, necessitating the development of philanthropic strategies as entrepreneurial activities in order to create value. In doing so, they have sought to co-create value with donors through philanthropic strategy. Co-creating value with donors has led to non-profit organisation executives and boards to introduce new strategies for philanthropic giving, as discussed in the paper. Using transverse data from 2016, that entails analysis of annual reports from performing arts organisations, this study examines philanthropic cocreation strategies as entrepreneurial activities from a process perspective. Results demonstrate that attention towards philanthropic strategy differs by organisation in its entrepreneurial thrust, thus co-creating value to a varying degree

Le caratteristiche del sistema contabile dei musei diocesani

I musei diocesani in Italia rappresentano una realtà complessa, in rapida crescita e presente in modo capillare su tutto il territorio. Si tratta di realtà gestite da diverse tipologie di enti, con regole di funzionamento a cavallo tra il diritto civile e quello canonico. Il presente lavoro vuole indagare quali siano i sistemi contabili utilizzati dai diversi musei diocesani cercando di fare luce su di un ambito in cui necessità informative e norme contraddittorie spesso rendono caotica la misurazione della performance. Attraverso un questionario somministrato ad oltre 54 realtà, la ricerca arriva a definire un quadro complessivo della situazione attuale e dei possibili futuri sviluppi

University Collections:Managing the artistic heritage behind the University ivory tower

The management of university museums and collections has been an issue for decades as they have played a crucial role in supporting the three missions of the higher education system: research, teaching and making academia’s resources available for public use. In this paper, we focus on the Italian case, where the enhancement, management and accessibility of university collections are all part of the evaluation system for universities. Our aim in this work is to propose a reconnaissance of university art collections in Italy and investigate the three managerial challenges defined by the Council of Europe: accessibility, financial sustainability and communication of university collections. The findings show that Italian universities hold an enormous cultural heritage, mainly undervalued, both in terms of number of artworks and in terms of the artworks’ economic value. In addition, Italian managerial approaches show significant critical issues regarding the three managerial challenges