The session will focus on three important issues that are rarely addressed, but are causing serious problems in the implementation of projects and activities. First, there are complex elements concerning the institutional design affecting organizations that are involved in the conservation/development process. Here one dangerous misunderstanding (sort of a misplaced hidden assumption) is that we are dealing with individual, autonomous entities. On the contrary, we are dealing with elaborate multilateral management systems in which accountability of many of the lead players could be quite alien to their administrative traditions.

Second, financial business models characterizing heritage organizations and projects tend to be blurred and opaque, partly because of ‘political’ solutions that are in place, partly because of lack of knowledge of involved actors. The relationship between financial business models and potential business plans is a critical element to improve the degree of organizational and financial sustainability of these organizations.

Finally, human resource management seems to be one of the less understood aspects in heritage policy-making, with serious implications, given the knowledge-intensive nature of heritage organizations. Paradoxically, while the need to move from object-oriented to people-oriented organizations has had some impact in recent years with reference to visitors and other interest groups, the focus on staffing and effective outsourcing is still marginal in many contexts.

MODERATOR: Luca Zan (Italy)

SPEAKERS

Daniel Shoup Principal, Archaeological/Historical Consultants (US)Topic: Byzantine planning: the danger of management in Istanbul

Jane Thompson, Founder and team leader of ‘Instead Heritage’ (UK)Topic: Institutional frameworks for cultural and natural heritage: Italy as a window on worldwide trends.

Maria Lusiani, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy)Topic: How does it work, really? Unearthing the underlying ‘business model’ of heritage sitesb

Luca Zan, Department of Management, University of Bologna (Italy)Topic: Heritage discourse in China and great archaeological site: from intention to realized policies, through unintended consequences