‘Cultural management’ between isomorphism and decoupling

Purpose – This work investigates the ‘managerialization’ process of the Italian cultural heritage. The work starts from the analysis of scientific and political debates of the governance’s dynamics of Italian state museums (in particular focusing on the recent reform of the Italian museums’ system - Franceschini’s Decree) from which emerges some recurring themes. In particular the research group focuses its attention on the necessity to ‘modernize’ the process of cultural heritage management, which means ‘managerialization’ and, so, ‘professionalization’ of specific roles in the strategic sectors of heritage’s protections, conservations, and valorization (‘cultural manager’ as directors/executives). Design/methodology/approach – The research group adopts the ‘situationist’ approach, focused on: the concrete context of human action and the role played by directors/executive; the institutional pressure able to orient the conducts of the latter; the activation of isomorphic processes by directors. In particular, this work investigates the presence of normative isomorphism, connected to the professionalization, and its role in the institutionalization of the rules. Based on the assumption that Universities have a crucial role in the development of new skills, we test our hypothesis on a sample of professionalizing master (first/second level) about the professionalization in the field of cultural heritage. Originality/value – The work links the governance of the artistic-cultural heritage with the 'training process' that universities make for professionalizing human resources. The current regulatory framework puts at the centre of every strategic board the need to start a training process in collaboration with specialized entities to this purpose: universities and training institutions are, in the opinion of the writes, appropriate as well as necessary. University nowadays are conducting projects training for 'cultural manager', sometimes anticipating the decision of Public Administration, trying to condition them (lobbying), sometimes following its strategic directions (conceding pressures). Practical implications – The adoption of this approach, trough the reconstruction of actions actually undertaken by experts for protection and valorization of artistic-cultural heritage (directors/executive), allow us to observe the following: the governance dynamics started by actors responsible for Italian cultural heritage seems, at best, informed at decoupling process, due to strong institutional pressures leading the organizations manager to ‘look like’. The latters, in fact, in an effort to gain social legitimation, decided to adopt strategic conducts of institutional isomorphism. The decoupling should create, for the benefits of those who adopt these conducts, a ‘legitimacy façade’, aimed at achieving results only apparently performing.