Nonprofit Lobbying: Museums and Collections Capitalization

This research examines the museum characteristics associated with lobbying on the 1990 FASB Exposure Draft (FASB, 1990) that would have required US museums to capitalize their collections. A sample of 103 museums that lobbied on the Exposure Draft is compared to a matched sample of museums that did not choose to lobby. The results reveal that museums which lobbied are larger, older, and members of or accredited by the American Association of Museums. Also, proportionately more private museums and art museums than exist in the overall US museum population chose to lobby on the proposed requirement.     

The Financial Value of Cultural, Heritage and Scientific Collections: A Public Management Necessity

The Australian community devotes substantial resources to building and maintaining public collections, such as its public museums and galleries. There has been comment in this journal and elsewhere on the case for placing a financial value on cultural, heritage and scientific collections. In this paper the framework proposed by Carnegie and Wolnizer (1995) is extended to show that the valuation of the service flows that come from public collections is not only feasible; it is also desirable from a public management perspective. The paper presents the case for valuing public collections and analyses alternative valuation procedures. It concludes that the valuation of public collections is an essential component of any sound system of management of the resources applied to the running of activities such as public museums and art galleries.     

Piano, with Harmony: Analysing the Imola Academy from a Management Study Perspective

The extension of an economic and managerial discourse to non-business organisations is becoming increasingly common in the modern-day world. This is also true of arts organisations (museums, opera houses, etc.) where considerable conflicts and misunderstandings can be found between the different cultural matrices of art professionals and management specialists. The Imola Piano Academy is a happy exception in this respect, and therefore warrants the analysis set out in this paper which is based on a strategic change perspective. The evolution of this 'excellent' organisation is reconstructed, its performance is analysed and, against the background of the modest level of resources that this growth has required, the reasons underpinning its success are investigated.     

The Museums' future

‘The Museums' Future’ argues that through the effects of the postmodernisation of museums, art has been ceded variously to culture, commerce, politics, values and to experience. In this scenario, political culture has surrendered to cultural politics.It asks whether a museum project of the future can be envisaged in which history and experience are not replaced entirely by spectacle, and memory is not banalized? Can the museum contribute to reconfigurations of the Subject and Other and to identity and difference without falling into the traps of a politics of identity? Can the museum find ways of reaffirming universal principles without running the risk of imposing a new order dominated by a single culture?     

The governmentality and accountability of UK national museums and art galleries

This study furthers our understanding of the role of governmentality mechanisms in relation to other-forming and self-forming accounts of art organisations, by using empirical data collected from interviews with senior managers of UK national museums and art galleries (MAGs) and from secondary published sources. The findings highlight how governmentality mechanisms had power-effects through the creation of knowledge about MAGs and the resistance strategies of MAGs. Whilst the governmentality mechanisms were expected to ensure the automatic functioning of disciplinary power, in some instances the government directly intervened to over-ride decisions taken by senior managers when these conflicted with political imperatives.     

Futures of art in retrospect

This article questions certain current assumptions taken as decisive for the future of art. One such notion is that the future of art can be predicated on media technologies. But art history is not a straightforward progression from one state of media practice to another. Art does not respond to the paradigm shifts which are normal to the advance of science. The impasse struck by early 20th century avantgarde modernist innovation would seem to underpin a necessary cultural transition to the time-based and networked collaborative practices of electronic technology in the aesthetic sector. This paper challenges that assumption and puts in question the very nature of art history itself. Artistic originality is not simply unpredictable but a conundrum of negative dormancy resistant to futurist study as explored in these pages. Art does not submit to forecasting, programming or normalization. In this sense, art has no future.     

Not‐for‐Profit Annual Reports: What do Museum Managers Communicate?

This study addresses: (1) What disclosures are provided in annual reports of not‐for‐profit entities?(2) What characteristics of the reporting entities explain variations in the quantity of financial disclosure?(3) How do not‐for‐profit disclosures compare with those in for‐profit corporate reports? The annual reports of 170 not‐for‐profit museums were examined. The reports were highly variable. Some contained no financial data and only 22 percent included complete financial statements with footnotes. Regression analysis indicated that the amount of museum financial data was positively associated with museum size, a larger number of pages of donor disclosures, and museum type (art and history, but not science, natural history, or general).     

A more complete conceptual framework for SME finance

We propose a more complete conceptual framework for analysis of SME credit availability issues. In this framework, lending technologies are the key conduit through which government policies and national financial structures affect credit availability. We emphasize a causal chain from policy to financial structures, which affect the feasibility and profitability of different lending technologies. These technologies, in turn, have important effects on SME credit availability. Financial structures include the presence of different financial institution types and the conditions under which they operate. Lending technologies include several transactions technologies plus relationship lending. We argue that the framework implicit in most of the literature is oversimplified, neglects key elements of the chain, and often yields misleading conclusions. A common oversimplification is the treatment of transactions technologies as a homogeneous group, unsuitable for serving informationally opaque SMEs, and a frequent misleading conclusion is that large institutions are disadvantaged in lending to opaque SMEs.     

Cyberculture, cyborg post-modernism and the sociology of virtual reality technologies : Surfing the soul in the information age

The relation between humans and machines has come to assume a central place within the social sciences, particularly in debates about the role of science and about information technologies. Cyberculture plays a key role in these debates, drawing its inspiration in large part from virtual reality systems. This article examines the affinities between two aspects of cyberculture: cyborg post-modernism, which revolves around the notion that the boundaries between humans and machines are becoming irretrievably blurred, and the cyberpunk movement within youth culture with its futuristic ideas about information and communication machines. While cyberculture may be far ahead of the current state of the technology, it is argued here that its new conception of the relation between politics, technology and art is an important reflection of changes within the cultural industries that surround information and communication technologies within advanced societies.     

Design museum futures: Catalysts for education

Taking the ambitious educational programmes and global collecting practices of 19th century industrial arts museums as case studies, this article analyses the role of design in shaping the future. The article examines the historical dynamics behind the construction of futures knowledge and futures expertise on the one hand, and current futures construction within design museum collections on the other. It tests strategic drivers and trends for the imagination and design of futures in the museum within the context of wider debates about the value of museums as sites of transdisciplinary practical learning. In this way the article also considers how cultural value is articulated through changing concepts of time and temporality embodied in material form. The final section examines the potential for social agency and activism within the design museum to foster critical reflection on the methods by which social institutions signal and shape directions of change. The article finds that in providing tools for the sharing as well as shaping of visions of the future, wider debates about the designed object in the museum have much to contribute to futures agency and literacy across disciplinary and professional boundaries.     

The Impact of New Zealand's Public Sector Accounting Reforms on Performance Control in Museums

Accounting by most New Zealand museums was subject to public sector reforms requiring private sector -style financial reporting, and service performance reporting. This study into the impact of the reforms on how museum managements pursue successful performance found museums adopting a more accounting-oriented approach to planning and evaluation. Service performance reporting has facilitated the periodic evaluation of non-financial targets by managements, but as currently constituted the reporting model is flawed, particularly in its implications for essential long-term resource capacity of museums. This threatens its effectiveness for promoting good performance. Non-accounting based professional practices also have a role in museum success.     

Cross-country technology adoption: making the theories face the facts

We examine the diffusion of more than 20 technologies across 23 of the world's leading industrial economies. Our evidence covers major technology classes such as textile production, steel manufacture, communications, information technology, transportation, and electricity for the period 1788-2001. We document the common patterns observed in the diffusion of this broad range of technologies. Our results suggest a pattern of trickle-down diffusion that is remarkably robust across technologies. Most of the technologies that we consider originate in advanced economies and are adopted there first. Subsequently, they trickle down to countries that lag economically. Our panel data analysis indicates that the most important determinants of the speed at which a country adopts technologies are the country's human capital endowment, type of government, degree of openness to trade, and adoption of predecessor technologies. We also find that the overall rate of diffusion has increased markedly since World War II because of the convergence in these variables across countries.     

Integrated Reporting in an Internet and Social Media Communication Environment: Conceptual Insights

This paper discusses the potential role of Internet communication technologies, including social media, in the integrated reporting process. A media richness framework provides a conceptual basis to examine the features of Internet technologies, which can facilitate the important external communication aspect of integrated reporting. We find that Internet technologies possess rich features and capabilities that have potentially significant application in enhancing external communications with integrated reporting stakeholders. We also identify risks and challenges associated with utilising Internet technologies to enable the external communication aspect of integrated reporting. Through its focus on the potential role of Internet communication technologies in integrated reporting, the paper extends the nascent integrated reporting literature and accounting communications research. The paper also offers practical guidance and insights for business and accounting's integrated reporting communication practices. To our knowledge, this is the first conceptual paper to comprehensively examine the role of Internet communication technologies in integrated reporting.     

A dynamic systems perspective on fine art and its market

This article focuses on dynamic systems theory applied to art systems, especially the social system of art. By this integrative approach, the field of art and culture can be linked to, as well as profit from, other fields where systems-theoretical approaches have been influential, such as sociology, psychology, communication theory and the natural sciences. We show that systems models help to describe and conceptualize essential phenomena characteristic of the fine arts, such as pattern formation, reduction of complexity, and self-reference. Pattern formation can be observed in emerging artistic styles, fashions and trends. The property of self-reference becomes tractable by using the concept of endosystems, i.e. systems that include participating observers and second circularity feedback. The consequences of such dynamics are uncertainty, destabilization, and diversification. Endosystemic modeling promises to capture core properties not only of contemporary art, laying an emphasis on novelty and self-reference. Endosystems are appropriate models of further social systems, especially markets systems, which pose problems for foresight. Within the horizon of foresight that is at all possible in endosystems, three futures scenarios are worked out for the art system.     

The validity of Islamic art as an investment

This paper investigates the validity of Islamic art as an investment product. We examine the current and future market potential, as well as, performing a hedonic regression analysis on London auction sales from 1998 to 2007. The main findings of the research are; Islamic art returns out performed both the equity and debt markets over the last 10 years; increases in oil prices have a positive effect on art prices, Islamic terrorist attacks on the Western World significantly reduce the value of Islamic art; and that the increase in future buyers means the Islamic art market has the potential to grow very strongly over the coming years. All these indicate the strong potential of this form of art as an investment.     

Random walk theory and the weak-form efficiency of the US art auction prices

We perform variance ratio tests based on non-parametric methods to detect the size of the random walk component of the US art auction prices. The past 134 years of the US art prices exhibit large transitory component (72%) and based on this, the random walk hypothesis does not hold. However, possibly due to sparse data before 1935 or due to institutional changes of the art market after World War II, we detect structural breakpoints and find that the random walk hypothesis and the weak-form efficiency of the US art market cannot be rejected at least for the past 64 years.     

审计艺术研究

审计艺术是指审计机关和审计人员为达到审计目的和效果,在审计工作中采用的富有创造性的方式方法,是审计机关和审计人员在长期的审计实践中摸索出来的,建立在一定的素养、才能、知识、经验基础上的审计技巧。审计艺术与审计科学、审计文化之间存在着不可分割的关系。审计科学是审计艺术的前提和基础,审计艺术是审计科学的补充与完善,审计科学与审计艺术是相互融合的;审计艺术反映审计文化,审计文化影响和制约着审计艺术的发展和运用,审计艺术的发展推动审计文化的变迁。本文对审计工作中审计人员说话、访谈、询问、审计交换意见、审计机关与其他职能部门沟通这六个关键艺术做了简要介绍。运用审计艺术要遵循审计规范和审计原则、符合审计文化的基本要求、审计人员具有符合要求的能力和素质这三个基本要求,并把加强审计艺术的理论研究、提高审计人员运用审计艺术的能力和素质以及总结提炼和宣传审计艺术经典案例三个方面作为提高审计艺术运用能力和水平的主要途径。     

Ordering,revenue and anchoring in art auctions

We estimate the effect of ordering by value on revenues in sequential art auctions held by Sotheby's and Christie's. We exploit a pre determined rotation of which of these two houses holds their auction first during auction week in New York City. When the house that goes first has relatively expensive paintings compared to the other house, we find that the sale premium for the week is around 21% higher relative to the mean sale premium, and the fraction of paintings sold during the week is around 11% higher. We provide evidence that this is due to an anchoring effect.     

中国艺术品投资收益:离岸与在岸市场的特征和互动

文物艺术品既是一个国家的历史印记和文化瑰宝,也是情感资产和动产。本文基于2000-2017年全球艺术品核心市场——北京、香港、纽约和伦敦核心拍卖行中国书画的微观数据,使用特征价格法构建全球中国艺术品市场价格指数,展示全球中国艺术品拍卖市场发展的全貌,同时创新性地使用重复交易数据探讨离岸和在岸中国艺术品市场投资特征和互动关系。研究表明:北京和香港市场作为中国艺术品最大的在岸和离岸拍卖市场价格相互联动,走势基本一致;艺术品财务收益和精神回报是艺术品投资收藏和消费的主要原因,不同市场间财务收益和风险分散的差异是艺术品市场资产配置和资金流动的动力;纽约和伦敦市场中国艺术品投资收益率低于北京和香港,香港是全球中国艺术品投资收益率最高的地区,重复交易中的北京-香港交易策略占优,离岸香港市场得天独厚的环境优势使香港中国艺术品市场未来发展前景可期。     

Bank size, lending technologies, and small business finance

Under the current paradigm in small business lending research, large banks tend to specialize in lending to relatively large, informationally transparent firms using “hard” information, while small banks have advantages in lending to smaller, less transparent firms using “soft” information. We go beyond this paradigm to analyze the comparative advantages of large and small banks in specific lending technologies. Our analysis begins with the identification of fixed-asset lending technologies used to make small business loans. Our results suggest that large banks do not have equal advantages in all of these hard lending technologies and these advantages are not all increasing monotonically in firm size, contrary to the predictions of the current paradigm. We also analyze lines of credit without fixed-asset collateral to focus on relationship lending. We confirm that small banks have a comparative advantage in relationship lending, but this appears to be strongest for lending to the largest firms.