Maria Lusiani

Managing Machu Picchu: institutional settings, business model and master plans.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze elements of continuity and change in the administrative history of the Historical Sanctuary of Machu Picchu (HSM) over the last decade.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a field study and of both qualitative and quantitative data, the paper reconstructs changes in accounting and planning processes and discourses.Findings – At the macro level, in the recent past Peru has gone through a process of modernization of the State, moving to more transparent and accountable forms of public management that deeply restructured the public sector. In parallel, the international community (particularly, UNESCO) has urged the adoption of a comprehensive strategic management plan for the HSM. Common to these pressures for change is a logic of efficiency, of rationalization and control of public expenditures and of more effective public services. At the micro level, these two pressures for change are shaping both the transformation of the accounting representation syst...

Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy: hidden phenomena beyond the rhetoric of legislation

This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors implemented a multi‐method research methodology consisting of document analysis, in‐depth interviews, and quantitative analysis of funding data. The main findings can be summarized as follows. First, funds are continuously allocated to the same group of organizations. Second, although rigid, the system is imbued by a ‘rhetoric of the project’. Third, the system does not reward innovation. In conclusion, only by studying how the law is actually implemented can one capture the choices that underlie financing actions, and thus unravel unanticipated outcomes and inconsistencies between rhetoric and conduct.

Institutional transformation and managerialism in cultural heritage: Heritage Malta

Building on the literature on managerial reforms in public sector and cultural heritage, this paper aims at exploring, understanding, and reconstructing managerial change at the organizational level. The institutional transformation of the cultural sector in Malta - driven by a call for managerial innovation - is investigated here. The main changes in discourse and practices are analysed; transformation processes are reconstructed on the basis of self-reported narratives by participants, and critically revisited through a longitudinal analysis of documents. Finally, the Maltese experience is then compared with two additional cases of institutional transformation in the cultural heritage field: the British Museum and the Autonomous Superintendence of Pompeii. Common patterns and distinctive features of the three public management reforms are discussed. The contribution of the paper focuses on a crucial phenomenon in public sector reforms: institutional transformation. From a methodological point of view the rhetorical nature of these debates is addressed, while providing a more detailed reading of individual components of change processes. The need/benefit of comparison - particularly international comparison - is underlined.

Change and continuity in managerialism: 100 years of administrative history at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza

Abstract This paper offers a long-term perspective on the debate on managerial transformations in the public sector: how public sector organisations actually arrived at such changes, what processes, discourses and practices are transformed and how. This is investigated through archival research and a longitudinal analysis of 100 years of the administrative history of an Italian museum. Taking a historical perspective allows us to account for organisational changes that occurred over time, including major reforms in the governance structure and the dynamics of some core managerial features. Such an approach enables a more in-depth, empirically grounded and historically aware discussion on the so-called rise of managerial issues in the public sector.

Making Sense of Site Management

This chapter investigates and critically reflects on highlights and blind spots in site management research. The analysis is based on a textual analysis of the case studies included in this book. Findings suggest the presence of three distinct, although overlapping, site management discourses: participation of local communities, development, and administrative complexity. Starting from this observation, the chapter tries to deepen each of these discourses, underlining the need to unpack the concept of participation, to improve existing discussions on heritage and development, and to reconsider the role of plans in dealing with administrative complexity. The chapter then moves to blind spots in site management, pinpointing human resources, financial resources, and management by numbers as areas that need further attention in the debate.

Accounting for Accounting History: A topic modeling approach (1996–2015)

This article analyses all articles published in Accounting History using a topic modeling technique. Previous studies focus on the content of accounting history, but not how the field has evolved. The article complements prior assessments of the research published in Accounting History by providing measures of the relative prevalence of research areas and their evolution over time. The analysis offers insights into accounting history by refining previous categorisations, uncovering overlooked topic areas and substantiating trends, such as the demise of interest in the technical core of accounting in favour of more variegated and fragmented approaches. The findings are discussed in light of the claimed pluralisation of methodological and theoretical approaches in this field.

Towards Design Thinking as a Management Practice: A Learning Experiment in Teaching Innovation

There is an increasing need to make management knowledge more consistent with the OmessinessO and complexity of actual organizational phenomena and contexts in todayOs world, calling for a refoundation of mainstream management theories. The paper focuses on the contribution of design thinking approaches in this sense, particularly addressing the question of how the predisposition for a design thinking approach can be shaped in management education. Following a qualitative inductive research design, it will report the experience of the introduction of new teaching practices inspired by design thinking in a class of students from a Master program on Innovation and Marketing in an Italian University. Based on the empirical findings, the challenges and opportunities of innovating business school teaching towards the construction of a design thinking mentality will be discussed.

Keeping Tensions Up: A Reflexive Analysis of the (Strategy)-Making-of Dolomiti Contemporanee

Adopting a process ontology and a strategy-as-practice lens, this paper explores the (often tacit) dimension of strategy work in cultural entrepreneurship. Drawing on a peculiar combination of auto-ethnography and more traditional observation and interview methods, the paper reconstructs the birth and becoming of Dolomiti Contemporanee, a major art curatorial project. From an analysis of the curator/entrepreneur actions, interactions and beliefs, two main elements emerge that explain the peculiarities of strategizing in this setting: the centrality of OtensionsO and Ocultural attitudeO. Tensions of several kinds are constitutive to the project, whose birth and becoming need the ability to create and keep tensions up continuously, not to solve or to manage them. However, these are sustained by an underlying, organic and passionate view of the whole project in its becoming, something that we call Ocultural attitudeO. These findings allow for a discussion of some features of cultural entrepreneurship and also of research-practice reflexivity and learning.

Professionals as Strategists

Many contemporary organizations claim to be moving towards forms of increased inclusion and transparency in the strategy formulation and communication processes. In particular, openness of strategy-making is a characteristic typically associated with pluralistic settings and public and non-profit organizations. This openness raises however the question of how organizations can enable wide participation while keeping a coherent strategic direction. This paper aims then to shed light on how strategizing takes place in professional, pluralistic contexts, supposedly characterized by open participation in strategy-making. Drawing on a case study of an Italian public hospital that introduced a new participatory planning system, it focuses in particular on how professionals participated in strategy work and the tools they drew on to do so. It explores how professionals strategizing was depicted by the organizational discourse, what professionals actually did, how the adoption of a participatory planning system w...

Formal Planning and the Reshaping of Public Sector Professional Work

This paper deals with the OmanagerializationO of public sector professional work. Specifically, it will focus on the role of formal planning practices (as expressed in strategic planning, project management and budgeting practices) in changing public sector professional work. Planning and accounting are at the heart of public sector reforms, responding to a logic of having public service professionals transparent on what they do, on how they pursue their goals, and accountable on the use of resources and on results. Thus planning and accounting practices have been transferred from private sector management models to public, professional organizations. Yet public sector professional organizations can be conceived as a pluralistic setting characterized by diffuse power, fragmented objectives and knowledgebased and are deeply embedded in public administration regulatory logics: how can management models deriving from private, hierarchical firms be applied to the specificities and complexities of public, pluralistic settings? What is the specific meaning of formal planning practices in such complex contexts? Based on a qualitative, single case study design, this paper will show how the planning system (in its manifestation of strategic planning, project management and budgeting) applied in a public hospital apparently OfailsO when its deliberate role of serving as a tool for decisions is considered. Yet it is widely in use and widely accepted by professionals as well. Conclusions on the value of formal planning when other emergent roles are taken into account will be discussed.