Sydney Biennale Arts Management Analysis - Case Study Example

SYDNEY BIENNALE ARTS MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS Name: Institution affiliated: Date of submission: Tutor: Introduction The Sydney Biennale is a biannual festival that is usually organized by the Biennale of Sydney (BoS). Biennale of Sydney is a non-profit making organization in Australia. Sydney Biennale is the largest visual arts festival and it is considered by many to be the most interesting and exciting festival in Australia. Along with the festival of Venice, Sao Paulo Biennales and Documenta, the Sydney Biennale is the longest running arts exhibition as it runs for about three months. The 19th Sydney Biennale was held in March 2014 run for a total of 84 days. The first ever Biennale of Sydney to be held was in 1973 and it features the exhibition of 37 artists and was held in the Sydney Opera House. To enhance the success of the events, Biennale of Sydney has continuously paid attention to the management and the roles and behaviour of the board of Biennale of Sydney. Transfield Holdings has been funding Sydney Biennale and all its activities. Luca is both the director of Transfield Holdings and the chairman of Sydney Biennale. Transfield Holdings has been the biggest sponsor of the organization and the events that they undertake. Recently, Sydney Biennale has been facing a number of challenges among them being the resignation of the chairman of the organization who has served them for 14 years and the dropping of the sponsorship that Sydney Biennale receives from Transfield Holdings. The actions by the board have attracted mixed reactions from the different stakeholders. Theories of Board roles and behaviour The board is a legal entity in the organization that is tasked with the duties of overseeing the operations of the organization. Theories about the board have been developed to explain their behaviour and the role that they play for within the organization [Ber09]. Among the theories developed to explain the board and their roles and behaviour include the agency theory, the stewardship theory, democratic perspective, resource dependency theory, managerial hegemony theory, stakeholder theory, feminist theory and the social network theory among others. The agency theory identifies that for a number of reasons, the managers are in most cases not the owners of the business entity. The theory thus provides that the interest of the owners may not be achieved without proper management in the organization [Tho141]. In most cases, the owners are usually many to run a single business premises, they may also lack the necessary capacity and knowledge to run the business and that they may also be busy with other duties therefore making it hard to achieve the objectives of the business. The agency theory thus provides that agents should be chosen to act on behalf of the owner and help them achieve the objectives of the business [Wal04]. The stewardship theory is a complement of the agency theory and provides that the owners of the business should also help in the decision making process of the organization. According to the theory the managers and owners share different interests within the organization which allows them to focus and work together towards improving the performance of the organization [Wal041]. The democratic perspective provides that there should be a member representation in the organization for every set of stakeholders. The theory provides that representation allows for the reconciliation of conflicts and the control of the decisions that are made by the executive board of directors. The resource dependency theory focuses on the management and acquisition of resources. The board members are people of influence and they can easily influence others into investing resources into the organization. Or this case, the board members are either elected or nominated into position of power within the organization to influence and obtain resources for the organization. The managerial hegemony theory identifies that the management is in control and thus they make decisions on important issues within the organization. The board is thus a symbol of the management and control within the organization [Bes09]. The feminist theory is a theory that was advanced to identify the reasons as to why there are little or no women representation in the in the board. Going down the history line for Biennale of Sydney since it was established there have been few women in the top position in the board. It was not until 2012 when the women were allowed to be part of the organizing directors for the Biennale of Sydney events. The theory of leadership is another of the theories that have been advanced to explain the behaviour and roles of the board. The theory identifies that there is a positive relationship that exists between leadership and performance for the organization [McE00]. To understand the roles of the board, it is important to understand the type of work that need to be done and the levels that have been set for the management of the board. Every type of work requires that the players understand their duties make it easy for the organization for perform and meet its objectives [Cha12]. The roles of the management are usually divided into three levels where each level has its well defined duties to help meet the objectives of the organization. The upper management level includes the board chairman, the artistic director, managing director, communications directors and the finance director. The middles level consists of the junior managers among them being production manager, marketing manager, education manager and the ticketing manager. The lower level of the management is the operations level that consists of head of lighting, front of house supervisor, box office supervisor and the head of costumes[Eli04] . The functions of the management include planning, organizing, directing and control [Des05]. Planning is a gradual process for the board. The board works to ensure that the organization meets its goals and objectives both in the short run and in the long run. Planning means that the managers must think ahead to help set the future goals that the organization wishes to achieve. Planning allows the organization to analyse the different environmental factors in the organization and make courses of action for the short term issues and design future means to tackle the organizational issues. Organizing is another important function of the organization as it helps the organization in two major ways [Haf08]. Firstly, organization as a function of the board allows the organization to organize their work. Organization also helps to develop a structure for the organization through identification of the work that needs to be done, dividing it into smaller units for the different departments of the organization and ensuring that they coordinate the work towards achieving the goals of the organization [Jam12]. Directing also needs to be done by the board to help the organization focus its time, energy and skill towards achieving the desired goals of the organization. The process of directing requires the organization to recruit, train, motivate, coordinate, communicate and provide and appraisal of the human resources to achieve maximum performance [Son01]. Finally, the management needs to have control of the activities that are undertaken within the organization. The managements need to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the different departments of the organization for the organization to objectively achieve their goals. For the organization to achieve efficiency, the management should ensure that there is optimal utilization of the available human and natural resources. Furthermore, the management should exercise leadership skills within the organization to help them play the different roles that are necessary in any given organization. Among the roles identified include; informational roles, decisional roles and interpersonal roles [Lai99]. The missions and visions of most organization depend on the leadership of the organization in order to be achieved. Leadership is thus a crucial part of the organization. Apart from meeting the organization’s mission, vision and objectives, leadership also plays an integral part in inventions, innovations, and implementation for change in the organization. With a leader expected to observe such disciplines, it would thus be necessary for them to be qualified and posses some characteristics [Jos081]. The roles of non profit leaders are very important to consider especially in organizations such as the Biennale of Sydney. The roles should focus on the present and future operations of the organization for both the internal and external activities of the organization. For the present operations within the organization, the leader is expected to be a coach to the internal stakeholders [Pam06]. The leader is expected to exercise and have a number of traits among them being honesty, ability to delegate, good communication skills and confidence among other. Honesty is an important trait as it encourages truthfulness in the organization for both the leaders and the employees in the organization. Ability to delegate ensures that the work in progress in the organization is properly distributed among the employees to ensure efficiency and full exploitation of their skills to achieve the organization’s optimal performance [Fio10]. Communication should be encouraged in the organization. Communications ensures that there is proper flow of information in the organization so as to identify the gaps that may exist in the organization. A good leader should be able to communicate to all the members and should also encourage communication among all members of the organization. Confidence is another important trait in the organization. In order for a leader to set direction in the organization should be confident both as a person and in their leadership roles. A leader who conveys confidence towards the team members inspires them to easily achieve the proposed objectives of the organization [Rud02]. The non profit leaders are expected to be however, unique than other and are expected to portray more traits. Non-profit making organizations get their finances from investors and through fundraising activities from the public. It is therefore, important for the leaders to posses the fundraising skills and be a good marketer for the development of audience into the organizations. Since the funds expected from the investors may be limited, the leader should also have the skills to strategically manage the organization as well as managing the finances [Joh09]. To enhance the future objectives and operations within the organization, the non profit leaders should exercise characteristics of change agents. The notion of leadership is, usually, characterised by character and credibility. Leadership should not only be seen as good by the other people, but also possess the knowledge to express their ideas and intentions. Knowledge by the change agents is vital as it helps them to tackle the challenges that they may face as they manage the change [Joh14]. The change agents should also take the lead to effect a change. They should set an example for the other to follow to ensure that the change is managed effectively. To achieve quality and a good following of the people with whom the change agent works with, the change agents should build a strong and solid relationship with the people that they intend to serve [Jos04]. Theory of stakeholders’ The stakeholder theory is a theory that has been developed to address the business practices, business management and business ethics. It describes the means through which the organization can regard to the interest groups of the organization commonly known as the stakeholders [Fre04]. Traditionally, the businesses only considered that the shareholders or the stockholders are the most important part of the organization and the organization should only consider the welfares of the shareholders which are the maximization of profits [Jef03]. The stakeholder theory provides that the organization premises in divided into two types of stakeholders namely; the internal and external stakeholders. The internal business stakeholders are the employees, managers and the shareholders [Jen01]. On the other hand, the external stakeholders consist of the suppliers, society, government, customers and the creditors. In the arts industry, there are more stakeholders than in other forms of organizations. The extra external stakeholders include competitors, interest groups, collaborators, politicians and the political environment, political parties, associations, lobbyists and the community as a whole [Wil12]. The external stakeholders for an arts based organization may be hard to get and the organization may need to device means through which they can acquire more external stakeholders into the organization. The two ways that the organization can get new stakeholders include the financial and non financial means. The stakeholder theory identifies that all the stakeholders are equal and that their priority in the organization is dependent on a number of factors. According to Boerner & Jobst, (2011) the priority and sensibility of the stakeholders is reliant on a number of factors among them being the urgency of the claim, the power to influence and the legitimacy of the relationship [Boe11]. However, Boerner & Jobst, (2011, p. 70) argue that the stakeholder usually have conflicting interests and it is up to the organization to determine which of the stakeholders objectives should be achieve and in what order with regards to the organizational culture. In the arts organizations like the Sydney Biennale, the different forms of conflicting goals for the stakeholders include the artistic excellence, education functions, entertainment, reputation, economic concerns, employability and other social concerns. The board should therefore set priorities while also finding ways through which they can combine together the different interests of the stakeholders as they work towards pursuing the long term objectives of the organization which is pursing artistic excellence for the arts organization [Des051] Views of all the Sydney Biennale stakeholders The Sydney Biennale has been faced by a number of controversies that even led the chairman to step down from the board. Luca Belgiorno-Nettis was the chairman of Sydney Biennale as well as a CEO of Transfield Holdings. Luca has served as the chairman of the Sydney Biennale for fourteen years and has been funding the organization with funds from Transfield Holdings. Transfield Holdings has over the years been a close associate of the Sydney Biennale since Franco Belgiorno-Nettis, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis’ father helped to found and establish the event. The action by the chair to resign and to withdraw funding for the organization from Transfield Holdings brought in mixed reactions from the different stakeholders of the organization. The move brought a division in thought and feelings from the stakeholders. Whereas the artists protested and withdrew from the activities of the event, the other stakeholders like the managers and customers were more worried of the future of the event. To them, if the event was to be undertaken again in future, it would mean that they would require finding new sponsors who would replace Transfield Holdings. Transfield services limited, is an Australian company that is listed in the Australian stock exchange. The organization operates in distinct services the first being Transfield foundations and the other being Transfield Holdings. They are distinct entities only that they usually profit and run by the offshore detention which is the Transfield services company. Transfield holdings at the moment own a controlling interest of 12% which brings benefits to the organization when the prices of shares rise in the organization. Controversies rose when the Transfield Holdings won a contract to run the offshore detention centres in Australia. The artists who are considered to be the heart of the organization made threats to the organization on the issues of the organization’s relationship with Transfield Holdings. For the Sydney Biennale events to be successful, the artists are considered to be the most important part of the activity. It is therefore important to have the management listening to their views, opinions and ideas and act on them to ensure that the event becomes successful. What the Board should have done Communication and information sharing was one of the major failures of the board. Cachon & Fisher, (2000) confirms that it is important for the organizations to share information as it helps to improve the management process. It is through communication and information sharing that the organization can achieve its set goals [Cac00]. When the artists threatened to quit from the festival, the board should have intervened and tried to create a dialog with them to identify their issues and try to solve them. The artists were against the contract that Transfield Holdings won from Transfield services to run the off shore detention centres in the country. The participating artists were torn between loyalty to the organization and the festival and the core spirit of the festival. The action by the organization left little room for dialog. The action by the board has left many organizations and international agencies with a question of the type of decisions that Sydney Biennale. When the 28 artists wrote the letter that threatened to boycott the events, it would have been important to consider the other side which is the chairman view of events. Given that Luca Belgiorno-Nettis was the chairman of Sydney Biennale while at the same time was the directors of Transfield Holdings he was tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that both organizations are able to achieve optimal performance. Since the father natured both organization to the point they are today, it would be possible that Luca was interested in improving the performance of both organizations. The artists vied the detention of asylum as a breach of human rights and thus were against the activities which Transfield Holdings would undertake to manage the contract that it had won. A typical decision that the organization needed to make was to communicate with Luca to ensure that the activities of Transfield Holdings are not directly associated with those of the Sydney Biennale. Alternative choices for the board and the reasons why they were rejected The actions by the artists created two alternative actions that could be undertaken. The first was to allow Luca to continue acting as the chairman of the board but withdraw the sponsorship that the organization receives from Transfield Holdings. Luca had been key in the success of the organization and the festival for fourteen years thus his actions and decisions made towards the organization was aimed at ensuring that that the organization achieves its intended performance. It would be hard for Luca to be associated with both the organizations yet not have Transfield Holdings providing support in terms of finances to Sydney Biennale. It would be therefore better for Sydney Biennale to allow Luca to resign from the position of chairmanship while also declining the sponsorship gained from Transfield Holdings. The other possible action was to request Luca as the director of Transfield Holdings to either step down from the position of directorship or to request the board to drop the contact that they had won. To convince Luca to resign as a director of Transfield Holdings would be hard for the organization to achieve. Sydney Biennale is an organization that highly depends on sponsorships from other organizations unlike Transfield Holdings that achieve its financials through their engagement in profitable activities. It would thus be easier for Luca to resign from Sydney Biennale than it was for him to resign from Transfield Holdings. 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