Web 2.0 Model in Cultural Organization

The chapter proposes an organizational model that is based on web 2.0 and the role of new technologies. The author presents the organizational model of Peepul, whose mission is awareness of the “culture accessible to all.” It is necessary to consider models that address the choices of men and women in their various roles, ambitions and aspirations. The chapter focuses on the revolution of the concept of physical and virtual space and its role in the organizational model of reality that offer products, cultural goods and services and/or related to them. The simulated environment and the physical one can both be explored so they are on an equal balance; in particular, they can be parallel or complementary, i.e. a market (e-Bay), a square (Facebook). Therefore, if each subject attributes to a virtual market the same meaning than the physical, we can argue that it is necessary to define the characteristics of the organizational model web: network-2.0.

Open, User, and Smart Innovation in Cultural Firms

The cultural sector is made of a variety of firms (both public and private) whose primary economic value derives from their cultural value (Flin, Mearns, O'Connor, & Bryden, 2000). The focus in this chapter is on the organizations that manage cultural sites, with a specific attention to the interactions between cultural sector and tourism industry. Nowadays, the competitive environment is more and more complex, owing to the globalization as well as to the interactions of this sector with others, so the cultural actors have to enrich their cultural offer in order to meet customers' needs effectively and efficiently. For this reason, innovation is acquiring a crucial role in a marketing approach for cultural firms in order to promote and distribute value through their offers. Managers of cultural firms are generally oriented to the preservation rather then to the promotion and valorization of cultural resources. Innovation, in its different perspectives, can be the key component for the creation of a new approach in the offer of cultural products, aiming at catching external opportunities through a continuous, interactive and innovative relationship with all the actors of the destination in order to gain sustainable competitive advantage.

Digital Resources and Approaches Adopted by User-Centred Museums

Society is experiencing unprecedented changes, largely attributable to the evolution of communication technologies, which are steadily reframing our way of life, and the methods we use to establish and maintain social relations. Museums are therefore facing numerous challenges, in general as a result of these developments: apps, open content, and the Internet-of-things. A complex relationship can be created between visitors and the museum, and this also opens new unexplored opportunities for user involvement in the museum's activities, even during the course of the visit itself. It is worth taking care to identify all the variables involved in the museum-visitor-relationship, which also encompasses the social dimension. Both the museum and the individual are active participants in a gradually expanding relationship, namely the growth of the so-called Web 2.0 and social media. Therefore, we can assume the need for museums to develop a conscious strategy for their social media presence, a real social media strategy, which forms part of the museum's wider digital strategy. The increasingly pervasive spread of e-mobile technology is a foretaste of the moment when museumgoers will radically change both the way of establishing relations with these organisations and the actual ways of using museum services. This chapter focuses on digital resources and approaches adopted by user-centred museums, where there is an increasing impact from the internet and social media.

The Relationships between Cultural Institutions and Companies

This chapter investigates the possible relationships between cultural institutions (museums, theatres, libraries etc.) and companies, which have been increasingly occurring in the last years. While cultural institutions have been progressively needing to acquire financial resources and managerial skills to survive and valorise their activities, at the same time companies are trying new ways to differentiate their image, by means of associating it with the cultural sector. The adoption of a descriptive-normative approach enables the identification of many kinds of collaboration (patronage and corporate philanthropy, volunteer program and payroll giving, cause related marketing, cultural sponsorship, co-branding, licensing and merchandising, electronic relationships, and finally, partnership), distinguished according to the intensity and duration over time. For each relationship, mutual benefits and disadvantages are described in detail, even with the support of real case studies. This joint consideration of the various possible relationships aims to provide an overall view of the issue considered, which differentiates this contribution from the literature so far produced.

Cultural Sponsorship and Entrepreneurial Mistrust

Company sponsorships are a way to fund cultural management, allowing cultural organizers to be independent, especially in those countries where this sector is supported mainly by public funds. This chapter discusses the results of a survey the author conducted in Rome, Italy. Theoretically, in this city with a great cultural heritage, there are many opportunities of sponsorships both for companies looking for good tools of communication (i.e. for tourism targets) and for cultural managers asking for money to carry out better work and to make long term plans. Using a questionnaire of 20 closed questions, in a face-to-face way, the author asked 345 firms how, when and where they have been working with sponsorship tools. The main result of the survey indicates that there is often a problem of communication between these two different worlds: the cultural sector and commercial firms.

E-Relationship for Web-Based Tourism Promotion

Tourism has been featured as a rapidly growing industry with excellent opportunities for business development. There are several success factors which determine the growth of the tourism promotional endeavors of the hotels. This chapter evaluates four of the key success factors related to web based tourism promotion: trust, electronic service quality, usability and accessibility. The theoretical models available for measuring the aforementioned success factors are evaluated along with the survey on the development of research activities in these four fronts. The theoretical frameworks within each concept categories are compared and contrasted to infer the competitive advantage of each model in modeling web based tourism promotion activities. Finally, the conclusions are made on the basis of the analysis undertaken on the conceptual models in each of these categories.

The Disability Marketing and the Cultural “Product”

Differences among people have to be considered as an opportunity, even in the field of economy. This would contribute to socially and professionally enhance the condition of people with disabilities. Due to an increase in life expectancy and medical advances, there are currently many people with disabilities. Disability creates significant burdens for public expenditure and for private enterprises including people with disabilities in their staff. Disability management facilitates the inclusion of people with disabilities in the production system, by considering diversity as an opportunity. There have been significant initiatives from museums and other cultural institutions, as well as publishing houses. Studies on this subject should therefore multiply in order to encourage the development of specific opportunity/cost measurement standards regarding the inclusion of disabled people in working processes and investments on products that, planned for all, favor disabled and non-disabled. In this new context, the education and culture of people with disabilities play a crucial role. In this chapter, the author focuses on the Italian experience which is assumed to be useful in broader contexts.

From Accounting to Accountability at the Virtual Museums in Pompeii and Herculaneum

The enhancement of artistic and cultural heritage has been a recurring theme within the scientific and cultural debate by scholars from different disciplines and in the political agenda of most countries over the last decades (Senese, 2002; Meneguzzo & Grossi, 2002; Ferri & Zan, 2012). During the early 90s, researchers focused their attention on management practices, tools and models referring to arts and cultural organizations (Peacock, 1982; Frey, 1994; Towse, 1997; Christiansen & Skaerbaeck, 1997; Zan, 2002), as well as on the development of new and different organizational forms under pressure from the New Public Management (Pollitt, 2001; Lapsley, 2008; Ferri & Zan, 2012; Lindqvist, 2012). These studies aimed at analyzing, developing and proposing different conceptual and management frameworks within a context characterized by increasing scarcity of financial resources in addition to regulatory complexity. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an analysis of the growing phenomenon represented by the “Virtual Musealization” of archaeological sites in Italy, focusing on the case of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The Assessment of Cultural Experience through the Measurement of Cross-Cutting Skills

The g-local changing process requires new service-based business models which redesign a universe of value crucial to economic success. The chapter aims to verify how this process can be achieved through knowledge-based-cultural activities that enhance people and their capabilities, promoting participation together with knowledge. The Knowledge economy, S-D logic and Experiential Learning represent the theoretical framework for devising a model to assess the impact of cultural experience on learning through the measurement of cross-cutting skills. The model has been applied on a pilot study represented by the Giffoni Experience, a cultural and innovative experiential format known worldwide and tested in two editions (2011, 2012) to assess the impact of the cultural experience in terms of empowerment or self-enhancement through the performance levels achieved in the four cross-cutting skills.

Cultural Product Management from Environment to Territorial Context

This chapter aims to represent the evolution of the cultural vocation of the territory with relation to the cultural product. The authors achieve this by adopting a holistic, viable-systemic approach. This approach proves useful to draw a better representation of the relationships existing among members of the territory - which is a prerequisite for the creation of any cultural product - and among them and the stakeholders to whom the cultural product itself is targeted. The authors consider the notion of relationship as a form of interactive connection determining - in causal fashion - a series of input-output effects among system members.