The Spanish general elections in March resulted in an unexpected change of the party in government, switching from the Popular Party, in office for 8 years, to the former governing party for 14 years, the Spanish Workers Socialist Party. It is worth to observe that one of the priorities of the new Prime Minister, Rodriguez Zapatero, is precisely culture...

An article by Geri Thomas, Thomas & Associates, Inc., NY, © 2002

The Congress on Cultural Rights and Human Development, which Interarts organised for the Forum Barcelona 2004 on 23 to 27 August, has come to a successful end....

A new independent arts school, set up by Singapore's Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, is recruiting for these senior positions - Principal and Directors of Arts/Academic affairs.

What strategic aims do companies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland pursue through their cultural commitment? Does cultural commitment generate competitive advantage? What do companies commit themselves to, and who makes the decisions here? These are the questions that a survey by the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIAR) and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants considers.

H. Hughes, D. Allen, D. Wasik: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EUROPEAN "CAPITAL OF CULTURE" FOR TOURISM AND CULTURE: THE CASE OF KRAKOV 2000

The ambivalence concerning the tourism-culture relationship is especially pronounced in postcommunist European countries. Cultural tourism is regarded not only as a source of revenue but also as a means of projecting image. The European Capital of Culture (ECC) program has implications for tourism and image-generation. The Polish city of Krakow, designated an ECC for 2000, provides a case study for examining these issues. Managers in Krakow's tourism and culture sectors were interviewed to elicit their perceptions about the impact of the program. They expressed the opinion that much of the justification for ECC 2000 was image-enhancement and tourism promotion. They did not see the effects as cultural life as positive: creativity, innovation and longterm development were not encouraged. The paper examines the implications of cultural policies for other managers in the cultural sector.

A peculiar aspect of the fine arts as a profession is that it enjoys the participation and interest of a general public which is necessarily lacking in the knowledge and experience to make decisions for themselves.

Vyacheslav Glasychev: "I'M A PROVOKER AND INVESTIGATOR OF URBAN PROCESSES"

V.Glazychev, a Professor at the Moscow Institute of Architecture (MARCHI), a consultant for the Spatial Development Commission of the Volga Federal District, and the president of the interregional public foundation "Urban Institute", shares his experience in managing the development of city environment by means of innovative cultural projects. V.Glazychev accentuates the importance of combining efforts of different social communities (groups of intellectuals, artists and businessmen) for making a reality of the cultural projects, invented by art managers. The range of the professional activity of the latter ones, from Glazychev's point of view, includes: generating the ideas of changing the city environment (an art manager as an innovator and a script writer), organizing some concrete deeds for fulfilling these ideas (an art manager as a connecting link between city planning administration and autonomous executors), and examining the effects of these deeds (selfreflection).

V. Babkov: TOWN-CONSTITUTIVE CULTURAL PROJECT: CITY AS A STAGE FOR QUALITY OF LIFE

The article focuses on examining the possible contributions of socio-cultural projects to regeneration of cities in postindustrial society, as soon as the latter maintains the view of the culture as one of the main sources of social and economic development of cities and regions and of the qualified management as the only way to success.

The second objective of the article is to reveal some conceptual directions of development of various cultural organizations, promising for both cultural institutions themselves and society as a whole. Contemporary city needs not just theatre, museum, philarmony and the like, but it expects cultural institutions to provide creative initiatives for changing the whole quality of life of urban population.

The author of the article also cherishes the hope that the given information will contribute to the emerging of the new generation of art managers - those ambitious, charismatic leaders, capable to
become initiators, cultivators and realizators of new creative ideas.

Scholars and artists in any field of humanistic inquiry or artistic endeavor are invited to apply for the position of Distinguished Visiting Faculty in the Center for the Arts in Society. Applicants should hold senior rank and have interests corresponding to the Centers theme for the year 2005-2006, The Arts and Urban Revival, a theme broadly conceived to draw a range of applications from scholars and artists interested in ways that the arts--visual art, film, literature, dance, theater, etc.have contributed to the revival of urban centers and urbanized regions. We expect the applicant to have some special need for the resources here in Pittsburgh--the Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the University of Pittsburgh--or the resources at Carnegie Mellon University--for example, a particular colleague, or a specific department. In addition, we would like you to tell us how you can be of use to us.

We expect the Distinguished Faculty to contribute to the development and the creative life of the Center that links the humanities departments in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (English, History, Modern Languages, and Philosophy) with the College of Fine Arts (Architecture, Art, Design, Drama, Music). The Center for Arts in Society was created to bring these two colleges closer together. Finally, we would also like you to propose a course that will contribute to a new arts-histories program the Center is developing.

Museums shops all over the world contribute a substantial share to museums budgets, thus helping to defy financial misery of cultural institutions. But they could do even better by en-forcing the perspective of cultural consumers. Facing increasing competition with other cul-tural institutions and leisure facilities, museums will have no choice but to consider the wishes and needs of their visitors more extensively. Our empirical research on that topic started in 2001. On the basis of prior surveys an extensive questionnaire was developed and a series of 110 interviews were carried out.

Carnegie Mellon University announces the establishment of the Master of Entertainment Industry Management (MEIM) degree, a new graduate-level program focusing on management training for the for-profit entertainment sector, and the formation of the Institute for the Management of Creative Enterprises (IMCE) as the academic 'home' for the new MEIM degree and the existing Master of Arts Management (MAM) degree, the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT) and the Pittsburgh Arts and Culture Observatory (ACO).

"The Road from Education to Practice"

The 2004 Annual AAAE Conference was hosted by Southern Methodist University's Arts Administration program at the Westin City Center Hotel in Dallas from April 22-24. More than 50 program directors from North America, Australia, China and the Netherlands participated in this three day meeting...

October 28-31: The 12th General Assembly and Conference of EFAH - the European Forum for Arts and Heritage (Lille, France)

Increasing decentralisation and regionalisation in Europe prompts cultural operators and public authorities to consider policy ramifications of a more sophisticated interaction between culture and regions and the role of regions in initiating and supporting international cultural cooperation...

The conference theme is "The Road from Education to Practice and continues AAAEs work on content standards and program development for arts administration education, which comprise several approaches to teaching methodology and technology.

Just like everyone, governments and business circles are liable to make decisions by evaluating choices in terms of alternative loss and profit. The game theory is a mathematical approach. The aim is to obtain optimum results from economic activities by taking into account the prevalent competition in the light of the various outputs of contingent strategies that can be implemented. The games played and the number of players is characterized by the amount of total profit and contingent strategies. In two-player games, the success of one competing party implies loss for the other; this is very similar to the negotiations that take place between workers and trade unions. This implies that the game may result with a zero sum. Each move to be made during the game gives rise to a countermove from the competition. In other words, there is unification in the game field among the opponents who are keen on preserving their interests. Competitors who are bound to actualize some sort of competitive action in an era of free competition must be able to at least predict each others activities in terms of the earnings they pursue. This article examines, on the basis of game theory, the series of activities of two truly prominent establishments serving in the field of photography equipment aimed at increasing their market share.

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NONPROFIT AND VOLUNTARY SECTOR MARKETING:

CREATIVITY AND THE NONPROFIT MARKETING ORGANISATION

The purpose of the last Special Issue of Culturelink Review (November 2003) is to welcome dialogue and action-oriented ideas from all sectors of society in order to clarify current understanding of cultural diversity, explore the existing and countless other links between cultural diversity, dialogue and development, and deliver better policies targeted at the most appropriate level with creative partnerships.