Arts & Cultural Management Masters: Workshop

The 10th Workshop on Managing Art and Cultural Organizations follows a long-lasting tradition started in London in 2000, as one of the EIASM workshops' series. Sadly, after decades of playing an active role in networking European scholars in management studies, the institute wound up in 2026. While keeping in mind the role it has played, and the always active support we got from people working there, we decided to go on with our workshop, continuing the series.

As usual, there will be elements of continuity and change. The most important continuity is the 45-minute session allocated to each paper: this is the distinctive element, allowing you/us to have a deep discussion, getting feedback, comments, and suggestions. And we will continue using the same approach (call for papers on extended abstracts, selection, and their dates).

What changes are the practical arrangements, which we have deliberately kept simple, with a lighter footprint in both cost and resources. There is therefore no registration fee. The programme includes time for coffee breaks and lunch, which participants can take at their own expense at the university cafeteria. On the first evening, we will meet for a joint dinner in town, with everyone covering their own costs.

Arts organizations, heritage sites, exhibition centres, galleries, museums, archaeological sites and performing arts institutions, both public and private, are increasingly being pressured to improve operational efficiency, to take a more commercial view of their purpose and activities, but also to demonstrate a positive impact on society and their communities. Recent social and political pressures (e.g. migration, populism, repatriation of artworks, sustainability, digitalization incl. AI, COVID 19...) have further contributed to transform arts organizations. In this complex context that increases organizational tensions and paradoxes, the very nature of these organizations is called into question: their core activities (such as collecting, curating, exhibiting, performing, researching, teaching, creating and interacting with the public) depend enormously on the management of increasingly constrained resources and responses to institutional pressures. Processes of privatisation and 'managerialisation', as well as increased entrepre-neurial activity, are often suggested as the solution for the survival of such entities – and, equally often, are challenged.

In this context, the aim of this 2027 workshop in Lüneburg is to provide a forum for ongoing dialogue between diverse and in some cases conflicting views on the management of arts organizations and cultural institutions. Following the first nine workshops (London, January 2001; Bologna, December 2004, September 2008, September 2012, December 2015; Oxford, November 2018; Paris, December 2020; Innsbruck 2023; Bologna 2025), we aim to attract a variety of practice-related and/or research-oriented contributions on the current dynamics of arts organizations.

Our goal is to bring together scholars from various disciplines and build on multiple empirical contexts (e.g. museums, theaters, festivals, European Capitals of Culture, etc.) to debate on the current trends of arts organizations. We encourage co-authoring by professionals and academics, as well as creative manners for presenting field research (such as photos, videos, posters, exhibitions, or poems, ...). We especially encourage PhD students to submit proposals and contribute to the discourse.

The Workshop is based on a call for papers that encompasses a variety of empirical trends and theoretical perspectives on arts organizations. The following are some suggestions for possible topics to be addressed, without setting any limitation as to other potential themes and perspectives:

• Management & managerialism in the arts: threats, fears and opportunities
• Critical management studies in the arts and heritage
• Professions, professionalization and creative occupations: emerging trends
• Power and politics influence on cultural organizations
• Organizational creativity in cultural organizations: organizational design and processes
• Identity, sense, meanings and symbols in creative products
• The "matter" of arts: materiality, corporeality, tools, devices and artefacts
• Arts entrepreneurship: entrepreneurs, organizations and business models
• Evaluating culture and the arts: Traditional and aesthetic approaches
• Conflicting discourses? Articulating cultural policies, managerial processes and artistic practice
• New trends in the sociology of cultural consumption: unpacking the "Experience Turn"
• Digital transformation and artificial intelligence in the arts- experience, impact, examples, outlook
• Privatization, outsourcing, PPPs...: re-organization beyond ideologies
• Managing the heritage chain from archaeological discovery to museum access
• Audience development, engagement and participation
• The social and societal role of cultural institutions: striving for relevance, community outreach and urban development
• Western-centrism and "the rest of the world": open perspectives
• The role of international agencies and their impact in the preservation/disappearance of local speci-ficities
• Industrial Heritage: problems and opportunities
• Teaching and researching in the arts: the specificities of the arts management scholar?

• Paolo Ferri, Maria Lusiani, Luca Zan – Università di Bologna
• Sigrid Bekmeier-Feuerhahn, Christian Holst, Lea Jakob – Leuphana University of Lüneburg

The workshop will take place on December 2-3, 2027 at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, 21335 Lüneburg, Germany.

• Submission: full paper or extended abstracts in PDF (1.000 - 2.000 words): June 30, 2027
• Paper acceptance will be communicated before July 31, 2027
• Full papers are due by November 4, 2027

Please submit your extended abstract to wmaco2027@leuphana.de. Details on registration will follow with the acceptance mail. (Personal data will be processed in accordance with the privacy policy of Leuphana University).

The workshop is free of charge. Accordingly, participants are asked to cover their own meals. Coffee breaks and lunch can be taken at the university cafeteria or canteen (Mensa). On the evening of December 2, a joint dinner will take place in the city centre of Lüneburg (at participants' own expense).

• Campus Map and important locations of the University
• How to get to the university