Exploring performance in cultural organizations: Handel & Hendrix in London

Abstract

Performance definition and measurement is a very discussed topic of research in creative industry. The controversies lie firstly in the peculiar characteristics of cultural organizations, which require specific attention in their management. Moreover, performance can be investigated through multi-dimensional variables, and can hardly be translated into synthetic indicators. This research is aimed at contributing to the existing literature on performance definition for cultural organizations, through the investigation of a specific case study: Handel & Hendrix in London. This historic house and museum is located at the 23-25 Brook Street, in central London, and hosted both the great musicians George Friedrich Handel and Jimi Hendrix. After a review of the previous literature on the topic, the analysis focuses on the work by Professor Allègre Hadida, who developed a multi-dimensional model which synthetize the previous studies on this topic. The model is then applied to the case study, taking into consideration a variety of indicators. Finally, this work tries to implement the model through the addition of another potential performance indicator: the use of social medias. Social networks are of growing importance in modern businesses since they represent strong communication channels. They are able to reach wide audiences with very low effort and bridges the gap between organizations and their customers, and nowadays cultural organizations need to create a presence online.