New research alert: Diversity in cultural leadership

Aligning with INVENT’s interests in globalization, unequal cultural opportunities, and a bottom-up approach to cultural policy, Yeala Hazut Yanuka, from the UK team, is finalizing her research on diversity in cultural leadership in Arts Council England (ACE) and how it is perceived in the media. Her research explores ACE’s view and the media’s view of the leadership component in ACE’s diversity strategy in the framework of organizational legitimacy theory (Suchman 1995). The study also explores how legitimacy processes may have affected ACE’s formation of the strategy in two timeframes, which reflect political and social instability, and ideological fractures during the referendum and Brexit. Her research findings point to changes in ACE’s legitimacy, from gaining pragmatic and moral legitimacy for its new strategic action to promote diversity in cultural leadership to proactive efforts to repair legitimacy a few years later, after announcing it has not reached its goals.  Another interesting finding indicates that in parallel, the decline in cognitive legitimacy of ACE in public opinion — as seen in media coverage — appeared even earlier.