Effects of Public Sector Reforms on the Management of Cultural Organizations in Europe

Abstract

This article investigates the effects that public sector reforms had in the cultural field in European countries over the past two decades. The study highlights changing conditions for public/nonprofit management due to governance and public sector reforms. It does so by applying a multidisciplinary literature survey methodology, which is rare in management studies. The literature survey identifies macrolevel trends such as projectification and shorter term employment; new organizational forms, decentralization, and fragmentation of control; frequent external audits; cultural governance replacing state culture in east European countries and the fact that museums are studied more than other types of organizations; and organizational-level trends, such as strategies of managerialization, policy attachment, and instrumentalization, managing to audit and symbolic management, and tensions within professional roles. The study, furthermore, points to the difficulty of reaching a deep understanding of the management of arts and cultural organizations from a general management perspective.