Managerialization of Cultural Organizations and Institutional Settings: the Transformation into Foundations and Managerial Rhetoric

Abstract

One of the key elements in the debate on the economics of cultural activities in Italy in the last few years is the process of institutional transformation into foundations (opera houses, the case of the Bienniale, the growing number of experiences within the museum sector: see Sciullo, 1998a; Bellezza and Florian, 1998; Canuti, 2000; Foà, 2002a; Franchi Scarselli, 2002; Urbani, 2002). The institutional form of the operative foundation indeed appears to be the chosen form of managerialization processes — or, using an even more ambiguous term — the ‘companization’ of cultural institutions.