Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the case of Festivaletteratura, the most important Italian literary festival, which in the last few years experienced an internal struggle over its cultural offering and cultural identity. Part of the organizational staff, fearing an ageing of the audience, started an audience development project aimed at using the knowledge acquired as a source of cultural capital. Conversely, those organizational bodies not willing to change the cultural offering of the festival relied on symbolic capitals acquired over the years. We make sense of the moves and countermoves of the agents involved in this symbolic struggle through the concept of institutional work, aimed at maintaining or disrupting existing institutions, and show that the most relevant institution in this case is composed by the programme meetings, where the actual cultural offering of each edition of the festival is defined.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
More details on the questionnaire, the items and the procedure followed for the survey are not included in the paper due to space limits, and as they are not the focus of the work. Yet, they are available under request.
- 2.
Interviews were anonymized, but we indicate the organizational role of the interviewee: AO is administrative office, OC is organizing committee, and C means consultant.
- 3.
We used Nvivo to perform a wordcount.
- 4.
Interview with Ernest.
References
Abdallah, C., Lusiani, M., & Langley, A. (2019). Performing process research. In B. Boyd, T. Russell Crook, J. K. Lê, & A. D. Smith (Eds.), Standing on the shoulders of giants: Traditions and innovations in research methodology (pp. 91–113). Bingley: Emerald.
Abfalter, D., Stadler, R., & Müller, J. (2012). The organization of knowledge sharing at the Colorado Music Festival. International Journal of Arts Management, 14(3), 4–15.
Allen, K., & Shaw, P. (2000). Festivals mean business. The shape of arts festivals in the UK. London: British Arts Festivals Association.
Anand, N., & Peterson, R. A. (2000). When market information constitutes fields: Sensemaking of markets in the commercial music industry. Organisation Science, 11, 270–284.
Audience development and marketing, Grants for the Arts. (2018). Arts Council England. Retrieved from https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/Information_sheets_Audience_development_marketing_Project_grants_170518.pdf on 2018/10/31
Barlow, M., & Shibli, S. (2007). Audience development in the arts: A case study of chamber music. Managing Leisure, 12, 102–119.
Bollo, A. (2012). Il marketing della cultura. Roma: Carocci.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. London: Routledge.
Bourdieu, P. (1991a). Le champ littéraire. actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 89(1), 3–46.
Bourdieu, P. (1991b). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1993). Sociology in question. London: Sage.
Bourdieu, P. (2005). The political field, the social science field and the journalistic field. In R. Benson & E. Neeveu (Eds.), Bourdieu and the journalistic field (pp. 29–47). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2009). Ragioni Pratiche. Bologna: Il Mulino.
Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative industries: Contracts between art and commerce. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Chang, Y.-C. (2020). Creating value through the performing arts festival: The multi-stakeholder approach. Journal of Macromarketing, 40(2), 185–200.
DCMS. (2001). Creative industries mapping document 2001. UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Desai, P., & Thomas, A. (1998). Cultural diversity: Attitudes of ethnic minority populations towards museums and galleries. BMRB/Museums and Galleries Commission.
DiMaggio, P. J. (1988). Interest and agency in institutional theory. In L. G. Zucker (Ed.), Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment (pp. 3–22). Cambridge: Ballinger.
Du Gay, P., & Pryke, M. (2002). Cultural economy: Cultural analysis and commercial life. London: Sage.
Eikhof, D. R., & Haunschild, A. (2006). Lifestyle meets market: Bohemian entrepreneurs in creative industries. Creativity and Innovation Management, 15, 234–241.
Eikhof, D. R., & Haunschild, A. (2007). For art’s sake! Artistic and economic logics in creative production. Journal of Organisational Behavior, 28, 523–538.
European Commission. (2015). Glossary to Study on Audience Development—How to place audiences at the centre of cultural organizations. Directorate-General for Education and Culture Creative Europe programme. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/sites/creative-europe/files/documents/news/audience-development-study-glossary_en.pdf
Fligstein, N. (2001). Social skill and the theory of fields. Sociological Theory, 19, 105–125.
Franssen, T., & Kuipers, G. (2013). Coping with uncertainty, abundance and strife: Decision-making processes of Dutch acquisition editors in the global market for translations. Poetics, 41(1), 48–74.
Friedland, R., & Alford, R. R. (1991). Bringing society back in: Symbols, practices, and institutional contradictions. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 232–266). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of a theory of structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Guerzoni, G. (2012). Effettofestival 2012. Firenze: Fondazione Florens.
Hadley, S. (2017). European Commission final report: Study on audience development—How to place audiences at the Centre of cultural organisations. Cultural Trends, 26(3), 275–278.
Hardy, C., & Maguire, S. (2008). Institutional entrepreneurship. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, K. Sahlin, & R. Suddaby (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 198–217). London: Sage.
Harlow, B. (2014). The road to results. Effective practices for building arts audiences. New York: Wallace Foundation.
Hayes, D., & Slater, A. (2002). Rethinking the ‘missionary position’—The quest for sustainable audience development strategies. Managing Leisure, 7(1), 1–17.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2002). The cultural industries. London: Sage.
Hesmondhalgh, D., & Pratt, A. C. (2005). Cultural industries and cultural policy. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 11, 1–13.
Hutton, L., Bridgwood, A., & Dust, K. (2004). Research at Arts Council England. Cultural Trends, 13(4), 41–64.
Istat. (2016). Italia in cifre. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/194899
Istat. (2017). La produzione e la lettura di libri in Italia. Retrieved October 31, 2018, from https://www4.istat.it/it/archivio/207939
Jones, C., & Townley, B. (2016). Misfits, mavericks and mainstreams: Drivers of innovation in the creative industries. Organisation Studies, 37(6), 751–768.
Kawashima, N. (2006). Audience development and social inclusion in Britain. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 12(1), 55–72.
Knowles, R. (2020). Canada comes to CARIFESTA: The Caribbean International Festival of the Arts, Trinidad and Tobago, 2019 August.
Lampel, J., Lant, T., & Shamsie, J. (2000). Balancing act: Learning from organizing practices in cultural industries. Organisation Science, 11, 263–269.
Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24, 691–710.
Lawrence, T., & Suddaby, R. (2006). Institutions and institutional work. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Lawrence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organization studies (pp. 215–254). London: Sage.
Maguire, S., Hardy, C., & Lawrence, T. B. (2004). Institutional entrepreneurship in emerging fields: HIV/AIDS treatment advocacy in Canada. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 657–679.
Maitland, H. (1997). A guide to audience development. London: Arts Council of England.
Maitland, H. (2005). Researching audience development: Literature review. Arts Research Digest, 31.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Drawing valid meaning from qualitative data: Towards a shared craft. Educational Researcher, 13, 20–30.
Montanari, F., Scapolan, A., & Codeluppi, E. (2013). Identity and social media in an art festival. In Tourism social media: Transformations in identity, community and culture (Tourism social science series) (Vol. 18, pp. 207–225). Bingley: Emerald Group.
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Oliver, C. (1991). Strategic responses to institutional processes. Academy of Management Review, 16, 145–179.
Oliver, C. (1992). The antecedents of deinstitutionalization. Organization Studies, 13, 563–588.
Palmi, P. (2010). L’identificazione del prodotto culturale con il territorio: il festival. In P. Palmi (Ed.), La Governance dello spettacolo dal vivo. Evoluzione manageriale e competitività: tre sfide organizzative (pp. 161–201). Bari: Cacucci.
Parente, R., & El Tarabishy, A. (2020). Giffoni film festival: How to morph a rural area in an innovation cluster in the digital arts production. In SAGE business cases. London: Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529722567.
Pareschi, L., & Lusiani, M. (2020). What editors talk about when they talk about editors? A public discourse analysis of market and aesthetic logics. Poetics, 81, 101444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2020.101444.
Pegoraro, M., & Zan, L. (2017). Life and death in audience development. The exhibition on Pompeii at the British museum 2013. Museum Management and Curatorship, 32(3), 210–231.
Peltoniemi, M. (2014). Cultural industries: Product-market characteristics, management challenges and industry dynamics. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17, 41–68.
Peterson, R., & Kern, R. (1996). Changing highbrow taste: From snob to omnivore. American Sociological Review, 61(5), 900–907.
Polettini, P. (2012). Il sistema cultura. In Storia di Mantova. Tra presente e futuro. Mantova: Tre Lune edizioni.
Power, D. (2002). Cultural industries in Sweden: An assessment of their place in the Swedish economy. Economic Geography, 78, 103–127.
Rindova, V., Dalpiaz, E., & Ravasi, D. (2011). A study of organizational use of new cultural resources in strategy formation. Organization Science, 22(2), 413–431.
Saldaña, J. (2016). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. London: Sage.
Santoro, M. (2009). Introduction. In P. Bourdieu (Ed.), Ragioni Pratiche (pp. 7–21). Bologna: Il Mulino.
Sassatelli, M. (2011). Urban festivals and the cultural public sphere. In G. Delanty, L. Giorgi, & M. Sassatelli (Eds.), Festivals and the cultural public sphere. London: Routledge.
Scollen, R. (2009). Talking theatre is more than a test drive: Two audience development methodologies under review. International Journal of Arts Management, 12(1), 4–13.
Sicca, L. M. (1998). Organizzare i processi nella produzione lirica. Il caso Rossini Opera Festival. AIDEA, La gestione e la valorizzazione dei beni artistici e culturali nella prospettiva aziendale, atti convegno di Siena, pp. 30–31.
Silverman, D. (1993). Interpreting qualitative data. London: Sage.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. London: Sage.
Thompson, J. B. (2010). Merchants of culture: The publishing business in the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Thompson, P., Jones, M., & Warhurst, C. (2007). From conception to consumption: Creativity and the missing managerial link. Journal of Organizational Behaviour, 28, 625–640.
Thornton, P. H., & Ocasio, W. (1999). Institutional logics and the historical contingency of power in organizations: Executive succession in the higher education publishing industry 1958–1990. American Journal of Sociology, 105(3), 801–843.
Toraldo, M.-L., & Islam, G. (2019). Festival and organization studies. Organization Studies, 40(3), 309–322.
Townley, B., Beech, N., & McKinlay, A. (2009). Managing in the creative industries: Managing the motley crew. Human Relations, 62, 939–962.
Wiggins, J. (2004). Opportunity to participate: Model of audience development. International Journal of Arts Management, 7(1), 22–33.
Yin, R. K. (2014). Case study research: Design and methods. London: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pareschi, L., Ponzoni, N. (2021). A Struggle of Capitals Over the Identity and the Cultural Offering of Festivaletteratura: The Organizational Impact of Audience Development. In: Demartini, P., Marchegiani, L., Marchiori, M., Schiuma, G. (eds) Cultural Initiatives for Sustainable Development. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65687-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65687-4_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-65686-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-65687-4
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)