What is the value of arts in business? What is the role of the arts in management? How can the arts contribute to develop organisations and boost business performance? Why do organisations need to absorb the arts in their working mechanisms and business models? These are some of the crucial questions that occupy the debate about the strategic relevance of the arts in business. Giovanni Schiuma provides answers to these fundamental issues and shows how the arts can enhance organisational value. In The Value of Arts for Business the author argues that the arts represent a new ‘territory’ to innovate management systems. Through the implementation of Arts-based Initiatives (ABIs), managers can both manage the organisational aesthetic and develop their people and infrastructure.

Arts & Business works to bridge the worlds of arts and business and to create a platform to support the growth of the business capacity for the arts. Fostering the creation of partnerships between arts and business, we have addressed a twofold goal. On the one hand we have transferred the mindset of business to the arts, in order to sustain the development of arts organisations through the deployment of business principles. On the other hand we advocate and facilitate the adoption of the arts in business, as a tool to help organisations face management challenges. This book explains the strategic relevance and contribution that the arts can offer for the development of twenty-first century organisations.