How universities institutionalize ‘good’ managerial practices? Some evidence on the Italian cultural sector (original) (raw)
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The paper examines the role of Universities in the ‘managerialization’ process of the Italian artistic-cultural heritage. Universities are, in a very broad sense, institutions whose mission is to promote and support the dissemination of knowledge and the development of new skills in the society. They do so essentially through the research and teaching activities. At the same time, Universities, together with other institutional actors, “select” the knowledge to be transferred to the Students, via their undergraduate curricula and programmes, and the practices to be applied to the workplace, via professional masters and similar educational schemes. Based on the evidence of the proliferation of professional courses aiming at spreading the managerial culture into the Italian cultural sector, we adopt the new-institutionalism perspective to draw a quali-quantitative analysis of the offer of managerial masters (both first and second level) from Italian Universities. The main aim of the research is to observe if and how the dissemination of selected “good” managerial practices is attributable to isomorphic pathways based on the pursuit of legitimacy and consensus in a certain institutional context. In order to observe the presence of “normative isomorphism” in these processes, we here present a content analysis on the most recurrent profiles of masters activated by Italian Universities that are consistent with the issues of the cultural heritage sector.
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The extension of management discourse to public-sector entities in Italy comes up against a particularly interesting case in museums and art organisations. Here more than anywhere else, perhaps, the rhetoric of managerialisation faces serious problems in understanding the nature of such anomalous organisations, and de"ning frameworks for representing their performances. In such a context management knowledge often leads to radical con#icts with well established professional discourses (museology, museography, history of art, etc.). Rather than a simplistic, pre-de"ned and ready-to-use exercise in`performance valuationa, the article suggests a more modest approach, processual in nature, whereby performance representation is open to dialogue with the basic features of the substantive culture of the professionals and the central role they still occupy in the management of these kinds of organisation.
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The Italian public museums have been involved by a Reformation that has changed their status from non-autonomous museums to autonomous museums (Decree 171/2014 by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism). This change has had significant implications for the Italian museums, introducing new managerial practices that has an impact on the system museum overall. Usually, public museums are supported by public funds. The autonomy could be a first step in overcoming critical issues that could be found in museums, aimed at supporting strategic and decision-making objectives and evaluating performance. Often, the literature has revealed that the lack of managerial cultural is due to barriers (ideological, technical and, organizational) that do not permit the development of managerial practices. Through a documental analysis, it has been investigated the main management innovations and its accounting implications. Consequently, the degree of compliance of the museums with del legislator's request has been analysed.
Isomorphic and decoupling processes: An empirical analysis of governance in Italian state museums
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Purpose of the paper: This study, which adopts a situationist perspective, analyzes the governance dynamics of Italian museum organizations. It focuses on the role played by the actors involved in the governance practices of the national artisticcultural heritage, the institutional pressures brought to bear on the conduct of museum directors, and the initiation of isomorphic and decoupling processes by the actors. Methodology: We conducted field research to verify the presence of isomorphic and decoupling processes in the strategic behavior of directors who are responsible for Italian state museums. To this end, we developed descriptive, cluster, and crosstabulation analyses. Findings: The field research first detected a widespread emphasis on the protection of artistic-cultural heritage. Secondly, it revealed a tendency for museum directors to adopt isomorphic and decoupling strategies. Research limits: Although the situationist perspective enabled a more realistic representation of the phenomenon, it did not provide a set of prescriptive, ready-to-use governance practices. Practical implications: These new insights into the governance of museums from the situationist perspective should stimulate the sector's actors to review the use of predictive models and to acquire the skills needed to understand the competitive nature of institutional environments. The study should also show the way for further studies on the role of directors and a wider understanding of this topic. Originality of the paper This study gives the reader the opportunity to recognize isomorphic and/or decoupling processes as the inevitable result of a fragmented regulatory framework.
An empirical analysis of governance dynamics in the Italian State Museums
In Italy, the governance of the museum organizations is a widely debated topic. Through different paths of analysis Scholars have detected several critical factors that could adversely affect the capacity to express the real potential of a territory with a natural touristic vocation. This work analyses the governance dynamics of Italian museum organizations adopting a ‘situationist’ perspective in order to detect: the role played by the actors (e.g. directors/managers) involved in the governance of the National artistic-cultural heritage; the influence of the political system on the conducts of the directors of the museums; the power relations among these actors and the National Institutions. The work is divided into two parts. The first one aims at identifying the elements characterizing the governance of Italian museum organizations, using the Delphi Analysis with in-depth interviews to three key players in the museum sector. The second phase seeks to verify three main statements through an online survey involving the population of Directors responsible for the Italian State Museum: 1) there is a ‘gap’ between the contents of ‘Code of the cultural heritage and landscape’ and the organizational structure, internal processes and activities of the museum organizations; 2) the key actors in the governance processes adopt a strategic approach mainly directed to the protection of artistic-cultural heritage; 3) the initiatives aimed at enhancing the artistic-cultural heritage are limited. The work seeks to show the way forward for further studies on the role of directors, enabling a greater comprehension of the topic. The situationist perspective, while enabling a more realistic representation of the phenomenon, it does not provide the scholar with a set of prescriptive ‘ready to use’ governance practices.
The Professionalization Process of Cultural Manager: An Isomorphic View*
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The paper investigates the ‘professionalization’ process of the Italian cultural heritage. In particular, it aims to propose an own interpretation of the ‘professionalization’ process, as a dissemination of ‘good’ practices, adopting the point of view of new institutionalism theory. This theoretical approach frames the professionalization process, and then that of managerialization, as the material and symbolic conditioning that the institutions have on human behavior: the professional has the ability of government and management; through professional training will be ensured the dissemination of the same capacity and then the ‘good’ practices. In this scenario Italian universities seem to contribute to the dissemination of artistic-cultural heritage management practices. This research, which has purely theoretical aims, starts from a quick reference to the regulatory framework evolution and a synthesis of scientific debate on the governance of cultural heritage; then, it will propo...
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The Reform of Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (L.171/2014) has resulted in the restructuring of the Ministry and its organization, redefining the relations between the central and peripheral bodies and external stakeholders. The study is focused on the reform process that involves the Italian state museums highlighting the changes that led to a strengthening of the process of decentralization, streamlining tasks, and granting autonomy. The study begins with an analysis of the evolutionary path of public reforms in the museum sector and analyzes the law texts related to the Italian state museums through the network governance perspective.
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The Italian Ministry of Culture has been undertaking substantial reforms in the last decades, aimed at reorganizing both the museum sector and the local branches of the Ministry, the Superintendence system. By reconstructing the genealogy of these reforms from a management study perspective, the paper points out the overall misunderstanding of human resource issues in their design and implementation. Starting from the Pompeii reform in 1997 up to the Franceschini reform in 2014-2016, the authors focus on the main inconsistencies, omissions and mistakes undermining the effectiveness of change processes. The 'original sin' of museum reforms in Italy, mainly due the predominance of a legislative approach and the lack of a management perspective by the ministerial apparatus and law makers, calls for a new approach in organizational and HR terms.
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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.
Heritage
A discriminating, multi-disciplinary knowledge is a necessary expertise that all the actors who operate in the management, conservation, and communication of Cultural Heritage (CH) must have. They are, therefore, expected to be seriously prepared in many fields. However, a proper training program for them, which effectively combines humanistic studies with scientific ones, is difficult to be arranged when there is lack of comprehensive perspective in the education system. This paper introduces the experiences of the postgraduate programs that were established for many years at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. Through a calibrated mixture of theoretical background and practical applications taught by high-profile scholars, those programs proved to be effective in the preparation of figures later dealing with the CH at different levels. The clear organization of those specialized lectures, the innovation introduced with hands-on practical case studies and the adoption of s...