Strategic Cultural Center Management

Tomas Jarvinen

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000363104
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Art
• Sous-sujet: Art & Business

Strategic Cultural Center Management focuses on private cultural centers and their operational preconditions. The aim is to illustrate how to strategically manage a cultural center in varied external environments.

Analysing processes of organizational change, the author uses institutional and resource dependence theories alongside concepts such as business models, profitability, mission focus and quality management. The book examines theoretical and managerial implications, highlighting that cultural managers lean towards different strategies that diversify resource streams, facilitating agile strategic responses to institutional pressures.

Offering valuable theoretical, empirical and conceptual analysis, this book serves as an incomparable reference for researchers, postgraduate students, civic leaders and arts managers involved in the creative and cultural industries.

1Introduction to cultural centers

The aim with this first chapter is to frame the essence of a cultural center, why they initially were built and for what purpose. Some differences between different countries will also be presented. What is the idea behind connecting citizens with their culture as well as allowing them to learn from each other? Why build stages for multiple use, with restaurants and libraries and other services, all for a usually quite small entrance fee? Let us start by finding out the backdrop to the cultural centers.

This chapter will also present a conceptual framework for the whole book, as well as a short overview of the study in the form of a brief methodological introduction.

1.1What is a cultural center?

What exactly is a cultural center other than a big building with a palette of artistic activities? Well, cultural centers are venues in public use that create a platform for people to both practice and take part in cultural activities (Stenlund, 2010). They may for instance provide commercial concerts, theatre productions, standup comedy, musicals, or even be the home of the city’s symphony orchestra (Lambert & Williams, 2017). In this book, we refer to cultural centers as houses in versatile use for cultural activities. The concept also includes cultural institutions and cultural halls, although venues used for a single purpose (e.g. theatres) are not taken into account (Statistics Finland, 2017). The cultural center may also have differing names in different countries, such as the performing arts centers in North America (Lambert & Williams, 2017). Any big venue arguably could function as a cultural center, and that most likely was the case earlier. Generally, cultural centers do not have any artistic personnel of their own and mostly focus on productions (Silvanto, et al., 2008). Public cultural centers commonly describe their primary mission as to producing (by prioritizing and coordinating) exclusive cultural offerings to the community (Ruusuvirta, et al., 2012). Cultural centers are often seen as a tool for the municipality’s cultural planning and development efforts (Lambert & Williams, 2017). A vast majority of cultural centers are located in urban areas (Bogen, 2018; Kangas & Ruokolainen, 2012). The buildings of the centers vary a lot, and can cover both renovated former industrial, religious, commercial and military buildings, but also new buildings (Bogen, 2018). They are not even limited to buildings, as some centers are boats or barges.

Picture 1.1The entrance of cultural center Korundi in Rovaniemi, Finland.

The concept of arts facilities in residential areas in Finland was proposed during the Finnish cultural debates in the 1960s, followed by the expression ‘democratization of culture’ in the 1970s (Silvanto, et al., 2008). The main objective of cultural democracy was to highlight citizens’ activities, needs and understandings of culture (Kangas, 1988). During this ongoing debate, Finnish municipalities began to produce cultural services (Silvanto et al., 2008). Helsinki was the first city to plan a multipurpose center, and in 1984, Stoa, the first public cultural center, was opened. In Finland, the idea was to establish such a center in every part of the country, or at least every big city (Silvanto et al., 2008), which why cultural centers are mostly found in cities (Kangas & Ruokolainen, 2012). There, of course, were venues, such as the Turun VPK (2018) house in Finland built in 1892, that were used in the same manner before 1984 but simply were not called cultural centers then. Other similar examples of early arts or cultural centers’ in the larger parts of Europe that can be traced back to initiatives founded by labor movements as long ago as in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, are, for instance, the People’s Palaces and Union facilities in United Kingdom, Folkets hus in Scandinavia and Ateneos or Casa del Pueblo’s in Spain (Bogen, 2018).

Nevertheless, there are some substantial differences between countries which should be acknowledged. The majority of the private cultural centers in Finland were founded after the state initiative in the 1980s (Statistics Finland, 2017). In western Europe, the opposite seems to have taken place. States began to build their own centers in the 1990s, after the private initiative of the art labs in the 1960s, which became private cultural centers in the 1970s and 1980s (Fitzgerald, 2010). The North American equivalent, the Performing arts centers (PAC), were also founded in the 1960s (Wolff, 2017).

Picture 1.2The front of Turun VPK with flags, in Turku, Finland.

In 2017, there were 185 cultural centers in Finland, including 71 (38,37%) private cultural centers (Statistics Finland, 2017). Statistics Finland’s list is not comprehensive but gives an adequate picture of the situation. Of the 71 private centers, 28 are maintained by non-government organizations (NGOs), 26 by joint-stock companies, 7 by university fraternities, 4 by foundations, 3 by private citizens, 2 by parishes and 1 by a cooperative (Statistics Finland, 2017). Regarding management, 105 are maintained by municipalities directly, 6 by joint-stock companies owned by municipalities and 3 by the state. Interestingly, of the eight hybrid centers (both private and public), this study could identify four joint-stock companies, two NGOs, one foundation and one fraternity.

In a survey to 50 arts or cultural centers in Europe, Paul Bogen (2018) concluded that 93% of the respondents have private as opposed to public legal structures. A total of 27 were associations, 11 limited companies, 9 foundations, 1 co-operative, 1 partnership and 1 registered charity. European Network of Cultural Centres (ENCC) represents 3000 centers via their 14 national networks in 12 countries (Bogen, 2018). In order to get exact figures of the centers in Europe, we would have to take into account that not all European countries have national networks, and not all are members of ENCC. As a result, there could easily be more than twofold the number of centers in Europe than that of the members in ENCC. Thus, the numbers presented above of the legal structures of centers in Europe are not of course adequate but does give a sort of general impression about the status in Europe (Bogen, 2018).

According to a survey by the Finnish Cultural Foundation (2013), the Finnish think it is important to have opportunities to exercise and take part in local cultural activities, with an emphasis on venues, such as cultural centers. According to Kangas and Ruokolainen (2012), the majority of municipalities think that the cultural sector develops the community’s image and cultural heritage, economic development, citizens’ wellbeing and children’s cultural skills. On the Nordic level, researchers in Sweden and Norway indicate that cultural centers have the same impact on society (Ambrecht, 2012; Storstad, 2010). In North America, cultural centers, called performing arts centers, are seen as a part of the ‘creative and cultural industries, significantly influencing the cultural and economic vitality of communities’ (Lambert & Williams, 2017, p. 1).

1.2The jungle of organizational types

Beside the question on how to frame the mission of the cultural centers, as well as their financing as in subchapter 1.3, there is also the question of how to define their organizational types. Some are for instance joint-stock companies, some NGO’s, others are maintained by municipalities or by the state. Some may even be joint ventures between private and public owners. The two fundamental categories seem nevertheless to be private and public, with some alternative combinations.

Organizations are often divided into private or public (Bozeman, 1987; Rainey, 2003). Bozeman (1987) offered three dimensions of public character that define organizations: 1) ownership, 2) funding and 3) control. Different organizations fall differently within these dimensions, which is why categorization is difficult. Bozeman (1987) defined ownership as the maintainer of the organization, whether private organizations or the state. Funding refers to how the money generated by the activities of the maintainer, whether subsidies, tax revenues or sales of products or services. An organization, of course can have diverse ways of getting funding. The last dimension, control, concerns the question of who inspects the organization’s activities. Generally, the stakeholders carry through the inspection; the owner supervises the production, the customer (renter) the product (event) and society ensures that laws and regulations are followed (Bozeman, 1987). Many other dimensions have been presented throughout the years, but according to Boyne (2002), these three core definitions are the most used. They are mostly used in a simplified manner, and when significant differences are identified, it is not uncommon that only the ownership dimension is used to distinguish organizational publicity. In Table 1.1, the four cultural center groups are divided according to ownership and control.

Table 1.1Ownership and control

		Ownership
		Public	Private
	Public	b) The public centers	d) The centers maintained by governmental companies
Control
	Private	c) The hybrid centers	a) The private centers

Many types of cultural centers serve different community functions, which makes it difficult to study them (Lambert & Williams, 2017). According to Statistics Finland’s (2017) list of the maintainers of cultural centers in Finland, there seem to be three main groups of cultural centers in the country at hand: (1) the private centers; (2) the public centers; and (3) the combination private and public centers (the hybrid model). Also, some private centers are maintained by the municipalities that founded them, which would therefore present a fourth type of cultural centers, a group where the private centers are maintained by government agency. The same division applies in North America amongst the performing arts centers, even if Lambert and Williams (2017) do group hybrid arts centers under the public centers and some other smaller differences.

There may be different kind of entities involved in ownership, governance, management and operations that are not fully depicted here, but the following figure presents how the groups of cultural centers are situated in relation to each other, in a Finnish context.

The field of cultural centers seem to be swiftly changing as these different types of cultural centers emerge (Statistics Finland, 2017). It is therefore important to take into account the differing premises of the centers, especially when taking into account the emerging hybrid center types. Lambert and Williams (2017) emphasized the need to address the ‘hybrid mix of public administration, nonprofit management, and for-profit entrepreneurship competencies required of these leaders’ (p. 8).

1.2.1The private center

When the initiative to found cultural centers and maintain them is on a non-governmental basis, cultural centers are called private (Fitzgerald, 2010). Private centers can be divided into several subgroups: (1) a collective with no formal structure and no legal entity; (2) a collective with a structure and a legal entity; (3) a non-profit organization; (4) a for-profit organization; (5) an organization operating under the legal auspices of a local authority, such as a joint-stock company owned by the municipality (though this example is problematized in subsection 1.2.4); (6) a partnership between two or more organizations; (7) a social business, which is run like a business but with a non-profit motive; (8) an educational institution, either public or private; (9) a foundation, which in Finland are seen as non-profit organizations (Manninen, 2005).

According to Sandy Fitzgerald (2014)...