A completely new kind of MBA programme for leaders in arts management starts in the coming autumn. The course programme devised by the SMBS (University of Salzburg Business School) and the ICCM (International Centre for Culture and Management) incorporates two regions of inter-cultural significance, the USA and the Asia-Pacific area, so that participants can experience two important cultural hot spots of globalisation, a phenomenon which is in itself also the object of critical analysis. The Columbia College Chicago and Fudan University in Shanghai as well as the cultural city of Salzburg are the main venues of this MBA programme, the first for arts management in Austria.
Prof. Herwig Pöschl, director of the ICCM and course director of this MBA programme, emphatically states its aims, "We specifically intend to appeal to personalities in leading functions who already have several years of experience in the sphere of arts management"
The course is designed to appeal to managers and business directors of orchestras, theatres, festivals, administrators of galleries and museums, and also leaders with responsibility for organising special arts projects. "Potential participants can also come from the sphere of sponsorship and fund-raising activities as well as from creative industries and the new media", according to Pöschl. On this MBA course corporate communications managers acquire branch-specific expertise as well as social skills in order to successfully operate tailor-made public relations and marketing strategies for the arts.
The high-class and internationally organised MBA programme is concentrated on the understanding of a holistic approach to management based on Peter F. Drucker and Prof. Fredmund Malik, specifically applied to the arts but also and in particular to the field of creative industries and new media.
Discussion focuses on the question "What has to be done in the cultural, social, socio-economic context?" As Prof. Haslinger, one of the course directors, explains, "Leadership is here not understood as personnel management but instead refers to the persons who will in future carry substantial responsibility for successfully perpetuating arts and cultural institutions in the 21st century".
Graduates of the course have to be able to elaborate visionary programmes and values for cultural development, and realise them so that cultural organisations and initiatives can successfully position themselves.
The training is structured according to this understanding and thereby differs from so many courses which apply purely management-oriented methods and funding ideas to arts institutions, thereby compressing them into inappropriate models. It is more a question of the arts developing their own solutions, standards and their own system of quality management.
As regards subjects, participants and tutors, the course is international and the only one in continental Europe that clearly distinguishes itself from the Commonwealth imperialism of the British and the American world model by adopting a differentiated inter-cultural understanding and by taking a new approach to cultural diversity as outlined by UNESCO.
The curriculum is project orientated and adopts didactic methods intended for adult professionals. It concentrates on core practical concerns in institutions and organisations in the international arts business and supports new standards in this area.
An entrepreneurial approach is taken, thus differing from the majority of courses which emphasise arts administration. The International Executive MBA in Arts Management has an obligation towards an understanding of success and is committed to promoting the arts as well as encouraging creative implementation and financial policies.
It is still possible to enrol for the course which begins in October 2005.
For further information please contact the
University of Salzburg Business School (SMBS)
Project Director: Adelheid Schaffer (SMBS)
adelheid.schaffer@smbs.at
International Centre of Culture and Management (ICCM)
Course Director: Bernhard Georg Foerg, MAS (ICCM)
foerg@iccm.at
Related Links:
Quick Arts
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