Scale,Scope, and Structure in the Community Chorus Industry

Choral music is the leading form of public participation in the arts in the United States. This article describes choral music from an organizational perspective, using a strategic management framework to examine total market scale, scope of activity, and internal structure. While many tens of thousands of choruses are embedded in educational and religious institutions, this article focuses on independent, community-based choruses. Data from public and private sources, including the leading national service organization for choruses, shows that an estimated 3,000 of these choruses operate in the U.S. They are typically organized along club models, with significant contributions to finances and governance made by chorus singers. Summary data in the article show variation in governance and program activity within budget ranges and among chorus types including professional, symphonic, volunteer, and children/youth.     

Strategic Decision Making in Arts Organizations

Despite the growing economic and cultural importance of artistic institutions, relatively little is known about how aesthetic concerns and the demands of artistic production influence administrative roles. In this article, we investigate the strategic decision-making process in a varied sample of Canadian arts organizations, concentrating on the issues that emerge as crucial for the organization and the individuals and groups that participate in the decision-making process.     

Using the Strategy Tripod to Understand Strategic Management in the “Evaluation-Friendly” Organizations of Cultural and Creative Industries

Abstract

This article provides a new conceptual framework based on the Strategy Tripod to understand challenges and orientation that affect performance evaluation in the organizations of cultural and creative industries (CCI). The analysis is built on a quantitative study carried out in Estonia. Multinomial logistic regression was performed to assess the ability of different variables to predict performance evaluation. The new conceptual framework provides a holistic understanding of the uncertain environment and its impact on strategic management in “evaluation-friendly” organizations in CCIs. It adds new insight into theoretical and managerial discussions on how and why strategic management in CCIs is practiced.     

Teaching Arts Management: Where Did We Lose the Core Ideas?

In light of the need to start clearing the methodological confusion in the field of arts management, this article provides a critical overview of the teaching curricula in the field. Distinction is made between programs that copy directly from business management; programs that focus on the technological process of producing an artwork (usually run by practitioners); those that interlink cultural management and cultural policy (highlighting the role of public governance as a higher principle); and programs that focus on an entrepreneurial approach to arts management, connecting it to issues of creativity and innovation. The author calls for clear goals to educate administrators and arts or cultural managers. The suggestion is made to follow what I call the Janus syndrome: looking toward managerial and economic realities but primarily focusing on the arts—the aesthetic and the social aspects of the field. A question is raised about the position of art in arts management curricula, as well as the organization of undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the field.     

Understanding Victim Support as Crime Prevention Work: The Construction of Young Victims and Villains in the Dominant Crime Victim Discourse in Sweden

Starting from the observation that a new victim category has emerged in the form of the ‘young crime victim’, this article explores the notion of support to young crime victims as crime prevention work, considering it as an important constituent of the dominant crime victim discourse among support professionals. In the context of the support work, the (young) ‘victim’ and the (young) ‘villain’ provide mutually necessary counterparts constructed in relation to each other. Corresponding to this division, two approaches in criminal and crime prevention policy and practice are then analysed using Garland's notions of ‘the criminology of the self’ and ‘the criminology of the other’. The first of these strategies is generally associated with rehabilitative measures (with the resulting normalization of the crime, its victims, and villains), while in the second punitive measures remain the norm (with the crime, its victims, and villains becoming ‘Otherized’). Yet, as shown within the context of rehabilitation organized as support to young crime victims, both of these (at first glance mutually contradictory) discourses are drawn upon and operationalized by the professional support staff constructing images of young victims and villains in their daily work. Help-seeking youths resistant to identifying as victims remain represented as (possible future) villains.     

论著作权集体管理中的私人自治——兼评我国集体管理制度立法的谬误

在著作权集体管理制度中,保证权利人、集体管理组织与使用者的私人自治,是集体管理得以发挥其制度优势,并在交易成本问题上优于其他类似制度的前提.私人自治的贯彻,既能实现市场供求信息在权利人与集体管理组织之间及时传递,也能保证定价机制随利用方式的变化灵活调整.由于我国集体管理组织由政府主导构建,因而缺乏私人自治存在和适用的土壤,使集体管理组织在运作中引发诸多社会矛盾.只有改变公权力的干预,并通过立法将私人自治体现在集体管理制度中,才能真正实现许可效率与传播效率的协调发展.     

司法鉴定机构等级管理基本问题论纲

虽然目前对司法鉴定机构采用司法行政部门的行政管理和司法鉴定行业协会的自律管理相结合的方式进行。但司法实践中,司法鉴定行业依然存在重复鉴定、缠鉴闹鉴、少数鉴定机构随意出具鉴定意见等乱象：另外,不少鉴定机构,尤其是技术水平较低的鉴定机构。不是从改善仪器设备、优化人员结构等方面提高自身素质,而是通过不正当竞争获取一定的检案量,对司法鉴定发展产生阻碍。对此,建立、完善司法鉴定等级管理制度能够在一定程度上有效缓解上述问题。在此之前,应当明晰司法鉴定机构等级管理的内涵、明确建立鉴定机构等级管理的必要性、确立鉴定机构等级管理的原则等有关基本问题;同时,对不同资质等级的鉴定机构出具的鉴定意见的证据效力以及受案范围应当予以特别重视．在防止不同资质等级鉴定机构之间产生“行政层级”上的服从与被服从关系的基础上．以确保鉴定的质量和效率。     

Comment on Anthony Downs's “Have Housing Prices Risen Faster in Portland Than Elsewhere?”

Abstract

Forms of urban containment are found in more than a hundred jurisdictions across the United States. The lightning rod for the debate over urban containment is metropolitan Portland, OR, which has had an urban growth boundary for a generation. In the early 1990s, housing prices there soared, providing fodder to interests opposed to public interference in the private development market. Downs contributes to the debate by finding that over the long term, metropolitan Portland's housing prices are more in line with its West Coast and national contemporaries than not.

This comment first reviews some of the literature associating growth controls and growth management with housing price changes. I then examine how Oregon's and metropolitan Portland's particular institutional measures ameliorate potential price effects, offering lessons for containment programs everywhere. I caution that urban containment is here to stay and that the best way for development interests to protect themselves from undesirable outcomes is to advocate Portland‐style urban containment.     

Comment on Carl Abbott's “The Portland region: Where city and suburbs talk to each other—and often agree”

Abstract

The Portland, OR, area's urban growth boundary is an idea whose benefits to the region may depend on a willingness to expand the boundary occasionally. The parable contained in this comment suggests that the declared unwillingness to expand the urban growth boundary could have contributed to Portland's recent sudden increase in housing prices. It further suggests that an inflexible attitude toward the boundary could cause long‐run losses in employment in the Portland region, with few if any offsetting environmental benefits. Other regions should be aware of the potential drawbacks of installing such a boundary.     

Why George W. Bush Is a Unilateralist and How It Will Affect the 2004 Presidential Election

ABSTRACT

U.S. President George W. Bush has had a stormy relationship with Europe. Bush campaigned on a theme of putting America's interests first and eschewing multilateralism when necessary. Since taking office, Bush has been true to his campaign pledges. Bush's style and substance have caused many in Europe to regard him as a “buffoon” at best and a dangerous cowboy at worst. What the Europeans do not seem to understand is that, for better or worse, George W. Bush's view of the world is held by a substantial portion of the American people, and even when the U.S. had a more Euro-friendly leader in President Bill Clinton, America's policies were often at odds with those preferred by its allies in Europe. This is due to a fundamental difference that has developed between Europe and the United States over the last century. Today, no matter who occupies the White House, American foreign policy is likely to be in conflict with Europe's. Far from being a liability, this difference is likely to be a political asset to George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election.