Cultural Strategies and Public Value Creation: Empirical Evidence

Abstract

In recent years there has been a growing belief that cultural policies are very important drivers of the public value creation process. Many scholars show that cultural policies can generate social, economic, and political advantages. However, until now the importance of cultural policies in the social and economic growth of a country has been justified mainly by means of theoretical analysis or case studies. Little research supported by empirical evidence has been done on this subject. Moreover, analysis in international contexts is very rare.

This article aims to: 1) determine these factors with reference to a European context and, 2) investigate the relationship between the main elements of cultural policies and a set of social, economic, and political variables without disregarding the context of each country analyzed. The research was carried out in 39 European countries by means of statistical methods. Findings, implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords:

• cultural policies
• public value
• performance management
• European countries

Acknowledgments

Although this work is jointly authored, the sections called “methodology” and “results” are the work of Professor Nunzio Angiola, and the sections “literature review” and “conclusion” are the work of Dr. Piervito Bianchi. The “introduction” is the work of Dr. Roberto Marino.

Notes

³The highest shares were found in Iceland, Norway, and Sweden; the lowest in Portugal, Romania, and Turkey.

¹According to NACE classification, economic activities covered in the cultural sector are the following: “publishing activities”; “motion picture, video, and television program production, sound recording and music publishing activities”; “programming and broadcasting activities”; “creative arts and entertainment activities”; and “libraries, archives, museums and other cultural activities.”

²Data on cultural workers, referred to the EU-27 countries, are available from the recent Eurostat report Cultural Statistics (2011).

⁴We refer to the Communication COM (2007) 242.

⁵The European Commission recognized that defining the cultural sector was complex. However, the Commission noted that the term “culture” can refer to the fine arts, including a variety of works of art, and cultural goods and services. Culture also has an anthropological meaning. It is the basis for a symbolic world of meanings, beliefs, values, and traditions which are expressed in language, art, religion, and myths. As such, it plays a fundamental role in human development and in the complex fabric of the identities and habits of individuals and communities. Communication (COM) 242, p. 3.

⁶With reference to the urban areas, Griffiths (1995, p. 253) noted that the … “cultural realm” is destined to play an increasingly important part in the future evolution of cities.”

⁷Similar considerations can be found in: Del Vecchio & Heller (2003) and Russo & Van der Borg (2002).

⁸Over the last few decades cultural tourism has expanded greatly. For this, many authors focused their attention on the study of the “behavior” of the cultural tourists trying to provide useful information to policy makers to define their “cultural supplies.” Further sources are available, among others, in: Pearce (1982), Poria et al. (2001, 2006), Richards (2002, 2007), and Silverberg et al. (1996).

⁹According to the public administration and management literature (Mohr, 1999; Mussari, 1999; Poister, 2003; Borgonovi, 2004; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004; Valotti, 2005; Hatry, 2006; Hinna, 2006; Fouchet & Guenoun, 2007; Bouckaert & Halligan, 2008; Onesti, Angiola, 2009; Van Dooren, Bouckaert & Halligan, 2010) the effectiveness of public administrations refers to the attitude of public administrations to fulfill the needs of citizens. Its judgment must rely on the evaluation of the effects (outcomes) that public policies generate on social and economic conditions. In this perspective, the perceptions of citizens and of other relevant stakeholders could be useful indicators of citizens’ satisfaction with reference to public action. In the Italian context, the recent “Brunetta Reform” (Law No. 15/09 and Decree No. 150/09) introduced the concept of “organizational performance” into the national law order. This concept takes into consideration, among other elements, “… the implementation of policies on the final satisfaction of the needs of the society” (article 8, paragraph 1, letter a), Decree No. 150/09).

¹¹It has been considered only the consumption related to visits of at least a night.

¹⁰We also included Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Though Caucasian countries, they are generally considered European countries. These countries are described as “Other European countries” by the official European Union website (http://europa.eu).

¹²In the report, the level of tourism competitiveness of the investigated countries was between 1 and 7.

¹³The “Government Effectiveness” assigns to each of the countries and territories surveyed a value between −2,5 and +2,5. For additional information regarding the index construction, see Kaufman et al. (2009).

¹⁴Data on annual per capita public spending on culture are expressed at actual values.

¹⁵The cultural organizations considered for the definition of the variable are numerous. We referred, among others, to museums, archaeological sites, archives, art galleries, theatres, academies (art, music, and theatre), libraries, etc.

¹⁶The bivariate correlation analysis was realized using “nonparametric” techniques (we used the “Spearman's Rho” index ). This choice seems to be preferable when data samples are not so great.

¹⁷For simplicity, Table 2 shows only the correlation indices between dependent and independent variables. As regards to the correlations between the independent variables (useful for evaluating the “multicollinearity” problems), please refer to Appendix A. We expressed the variables Number_Tour, Tour_Exp and Cult_Gov_Exp in logarithmic terms.

¹⁸In this article, we considered “critical” the relationships between independent variables that had Spearman's Rho > |0.45|.

¹⁹With reference to the study of the relationships between independent variables, the bivariate correlation analysis is described in the Appendix A.

²⁰ Table 5 shows the values of the standardized parameters (Beta) of the regression.

²¹For a descriptive analysis of the variables used in the regression models, see Appendix B.

²²More exactly:

•	There were no particular problems of multicollinearity (the Variance Inflation Factors — VIF — never exceed the value of 2.5);
•	The scatter plot of standardized residuals respect to the dependent variables of each model does not show the presence of groups of observations with different variances. Therefore, it is possible to accept the assumption of “homoscedasticity” of the regression models.

²³We refer to the number of sites and monuments existing in the countries under investigation which UNESCO considers as “world heritage.”

²⁴Some experiences are very relevant. We refer, among the others, to the Greek Law n. 3525/2007, that provide tax exemptions for cultural sponsorships, and to the Italian Law n. 342/2000 that allow a deduction on donations and sponsorship. In Germany, instead, there are no laws to encourage private sponsorships of culture and the arts. However, we can find some previsions of tax breaks in a Directive of the Ministry of Finance of 1998.