IJAM Volume 13 Number 3 (PRINT)

EDITOR’S NOTE

Dear readers, 

This 2011 Spring issue precedes the 11th International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management (AIMAC), to be held from 3 to 6 July 2011 in Anvers, Belgium. The AIMAC gathering is always a highly anticipated event for researchers and practitioners in the field, and the IJAM editorial team will be out in full force to gather your proposals and comments.

In anticipation of the conference, this issue of the Journal includes an article (Pérez-Cabañero and Cuadrado-García) that traces the evo¬lution of arts management research by analyzing research presented at the 10 AIMAC conferences that have been held since 1991. Among other things, we learn that marketing issues have dominated the research presented and that the arts sector has been a more frequent object of study than the cultural industries.

This issue of IJAM also demonstrates that arts funding through the acquisition of works or through donations is an increasing concern for art managers and arts management researchers. The article by Lindenberg and Oosterlinck undertakes to examine why leading Belgian banks decide to engage in the process of collecting works of art. This contribution offers researchers and managers useful insight into the factors that motivate large corporate collectors to invest in artworks.

Bertacchini, Santagata and Signorello are interested in the question of individual funding, and in their article they conduct an analysis of what motivates individuals to make donations to museums. This study, which is based on a survey of 1,000 respondents, reveals that intrinsic motivations (those that come from the individual) play a greater role in donation decisions than extrinsic motivations such as tax benefits.

Colleagues Roland J. Kushner and Randy Cohen take the reader into measurement territory with their contribution on the National Arts Index, which provides a systematic measure of the health and vitality of arts and culture in the United States. This instrument, com¬prising 76 indicators of artistic and cultural activity in the United States, was designed to track changes in the consumption of cultural products and to determine the causes of these trends. This article attests to a growing effort in the field of arts management to increase our understanding of the impact of cultural activity in specific environments.

Finally, in the company profile Yannik St-James and François Colbert offer readers a highly instructive analysis of product development within a giant puppet theatre company in Quebec, Théâtre Sans Fil.

To conclude, we are pleased to welcome Antonella Carù as our Asso¬ciate Editor for marketing issues. She takes over from Yannick St-James, whose valuable collaboration is very much appreciated.

Happy reading!

Johanne Turbide
Editor