MA Arts Management, Policy and Practice / Course details

This unit introduces students to arts management as a set of contemporary practices and an interdisciplinary field of study. Students explore how arts managers work within a range of case study organisations to shape programmes, develop audiences and build infrastructure. The unit equips students to examine arts organisations critically and to understand how they interact with their social, cultural and economic contexts. This unit underpins the development of the students’ own professional practice as arts managers.

(Any fieldwork is subject to government guidelines)

- To develop knowledge, critical understanding and appraisal of relevant management models and approaches to strategic development, programming, planning and delivery of arts and culture
- To provide overview and insight into the various types of and settings for arts management functions and acquaint students with the range of professional opportunities in the creative and cultural sector
- To identify the skills and practices required for careers in arts management, cultural policy and professional practice, and to provide opportunities to learn and develop these skills
- To stimulate critical debate, innovation and entrepreneurialism in relation to management principles and practices for the arts, and to consider how these might inform broader management practice

Themes and content will include: - 

• What do we mean by arts management? Introduction to the language and information resources for arts management 
• Approaches to studying arts management: environments, reception, production 
• Arts organisations: structures and spaces 
• Locating the arts: arts and places 
• Arts audiences: from spectators to participants 
• Marketing the arts: critical engagements 
• Managing people: equality, diversity and difference in the arts
• Creative producing
• Managing risk and uncertainty

Each week there will be a short lecture introducing the main themes of the week and seminar discussion activities exploring the set reading and individual preparation. Alongside seminar activities there will also be fieldwork tasks, field-trips, workshops and talks by guest speakers. A key element of the module is group-work on a case study analysis of an arts organisation within the region.

• Use and develop critical approaches to the study of arts management in order to interrogate and explicate professional practice
• Analyse the development of 'arts management' as a set of cultural practices
• Demonstrate direct experience of practices, procedures and policies in arts management
• Show awareness of current issues in the field

• Undertake self-directed learning in the theory and practice of arts management
• Conduct independent, critical fieldwork in arts management and cultural industries
• Analyse and evaluate complex data and statistics relevant to arts management practice

(All fieldwork is subject to government guidelines)

• Draw on appropriate tools in the analysis of arts management practice
• Communicate complex research findings into arts management through clear written and verbal articulation, supported by appropriate technological tools
• Achieve an advanced and critically informed level of group work

• Plan and deliver effective presentations to specialist and non-specialist audiences
• Retrieve, select and critically evaluate information from a variety of sources, including libraries, archives and the internet
• Orchestrate group work in disciplinary and multi-disciplinary contexts
• Develop and use effective time management strategies to balance individual assessment and group work.

Bjorkegren, D. The Culture Business: Management Strategies for the Arts-Related Business. London: Routledge, 1996.

Bowdin, G.A.J., McDonnell, I., Allen, J. and O'Toole, W. Events Management (Second Edition). Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006.

Byrnes, W. Management and the Arts (Fourth Edition). Oxford: Focal Press, 2009.

Chong, D. Arts Management. London: Routledge, 2002.

Hagoort, G. Art Management: Entrepreneurial Style. Utrecht : Eburon, 2005.

Hesmondhalgh, D. The Cultural Industries (Second Edition). London, Los Angeles and New Delhi: Sage, 2007.

Pick, J. and M. Anderton. Arts Administration (Second Edition). London: Spon, 1999.

Radbourne, J. and M. Fraser. Arts Management: A Practical Guide. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 1996.