Luca Zan
Biographic Data
| ID | 199265 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luca Zan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luca |
| FAMILY NAME | Zan |
| SIGNATURE | ZAN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bologna |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6694-1984 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 85 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Organizing abundance and shuffling at festivals
Shipbuilding and early forms of modern management. Six months to rebuild the Ottoman fleet after the defeat at Lepanto
This paper focuses on the reconstruction of the Ottoman fleet following the naval defeat at Lepanto (1571). It examines the event from the perspective of management studies. Drawing on extensive archival research, we reconstruct the Ottoman Empire's decision-making processes, looking at the main organisational conditions that made this remarkable feat possible. This allows us to make a preliminary comparison with the management of the Venice Arse…
Managing Bologna university museums and collections (1970-2015)
The literature on university museums abounds with accounts of new initiatives to reposition these institutions by opening them up to the general public as they move away from core of university activities like teaching and research. However, what is seldom analyzed is the long-term impact of such initiatives, and whether they survive the initial phases and live up to expectations. The study reports on the administrative history of the museums and…
Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development
China
History of Management and Stratigraphy of Organizing. The Venice Arsenal between Tangible and Intangible Heritage
The purpose of this contribution is to analyze the role of the Arsenal in the history of management, still underrepresented in international historiography, and link it to the literature on industrial heritage. It is this central role in the history of management that endows the Venice Arsenal with particular significance as intangible heritage. Discussing specific problems related to the research and interpretation of this intangible significanc…
Missing HRM
The Italian Ministry of Culture has been undertaking substantial reforms in the last decades, aimed at reorganizing both the museum sector and the local branches of the Ministry, the Superintendence system. By reconstructing the genealogy of these reforms from a management study perspective, the paper points out the overall misunderstanding of human resource issues in their design and implementation. Starting from the Pompeii reform in 1997 up to…
When megaprojects meet archaeology
From 2004 to 2012, 37 well-preserved Byzantine shipwrecks were discovered during construction of two underground train stations at Yenikapı, Istanbul. Despite its complexity, archaeology is rarely studied through organisational and management lens. This paper investigates the Yenikapı rescue excavations using two innovative analytical frameworks for archaeology – the Heritage Chain and Structure Conduct Performance analysis – which highlight the …
Life and death in audience development. The exhibition on Pompeii at the British museum, 2013
Values and orientations of cultural professionals are important to understand the performance of the institutions they manage. While there are striking differences in orientation across countries, their impact has rarely been investigated systematically. This paper offers a case study of a blockbuster exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 2013 using objects loaned by the Superintendence of Napoli and Pompeii. Based on interviews and documen…
Complexity, anachronism and time-parochialism
The focus of the article is the relationship between history and strategy. Although little interest can be found in mainstream management journals, the hidden relationship between history and strategy is looked for here in a double sense. On the one hand, the article will try to historicise strategy, questioning the alleged discontinuity that is normally used to explain the emergence of the notion itself. More than changes at the ontological leve…
Cultural Heritage in China
China is one of the richest countries in terms of cultural heritage. However, the unprecedented economic development of the last three decades has posed serious challenges to its survival. The growing importance of salvage excavation raises serious tensions between the textual-historical tradition and archaeological finds, with controversial impacts in terms of conservation and research, due to administrative mechanisms. To understand these pheno…
Byzantine Planning
A new site management plan for Istanbul’s Historic Peninsula was approved in late 2011. In this paper, we examine its institutional setting, preparation process, and contents from organizational and administrative perspectives. The result of a participatory process, the plan is professional, logically consistent, and effectively identifies challenges facing cultural heritage. The heart of the plan is a complex architecture of Objectives, Strategi…
Planning and heritage
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers selected for the present special issue on planning and heritage. This paper aims at advancing knowledge about the variety of uses and meanings of planning tools and practices in the cultural heritage field, by bridging disciplines and by building on evidence from the studies composing the special issue. Design/methodology/approach – After a review of the debate on planning in manageme…
Understanding cultural heritage in Turkey
This paper explores Turkey’s cultural heritage system from the perspective of the ‘Heritage Chain’, which sees the heritage sector as an interconnected series of relationships and activities including protection and conservation, archaeological activity, research and museum presentation. By reviewing quantitative data along each step of the chain, we construct a holistic perspective that shows interrelationships between activities and illustrates…
The heritage chain management. General issues and a case study, China
Economic Discourse and Heritage Conservation
The paper aims at bridging economic and management discourse on Heritage Conservation, calling for a kind of ethnographic approach to administrative aspects. Drawing attention to practices more than policies, the paper takes a distance from mainstream cultural economics. More than cultural capital, the emphasis is on running operations, current costs and revenues, once the investment (in conservation and opening of the site) is done. At first, an…
A centralized decentralization
Recently Turkey has experimented with reforming its highly centralized cultural heritage sector by outsourcing commercial activities at museums and archeological sites. We examine three outsourcing contracts executed in 2009–2010 and their implications for understanding New Public Management in Turkey’s cultural sector. The initial project at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum was soon superseded by a ‘monopoly’ model that outsourced gift shop an…
The rhetoric of cultural policies and the issue of ‘getting things done’
Managing Machu Picchu
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze elements of continuity and change in the administrative history of the Historical Sanctuary of Machu Picchu (HSM) over the last decade. Design/methodology/approach Based on a field study and of both qualitative and quantitative data, the paper reconstructs changes in accounting and planning processes and discourses. Findings At the macro level, in the recent past Peru has gone through a process of m…
Change and continuity in managerialism
This paper offers a long-term perspective on the debate on managerial transformations in the public sector: how public sector organisations actually arrived at such changes, what processes, discourses and practices are transformed and how. This is investigated through archival research and a longitudinal analysis of 100 years of the administrative history of an Italian museum. Taking a historical perspective allows us to account for organisationa…
Managing Change and Master Plans
Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy
This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors imp…
Institutional transformation and managerialism in cultural heritage
This paper builds on the literature on managerial reforms in the public and cultural heritage sectors with the aim of exploring, understanding, and reconstructing managerial change at the organizational level. It investigates the reform of the cultural sector in Malta – driven by a call for managerial innovation. The main changes in discourse and practices are analyzed; transformation processes are reconstructed on the basis of reported narrative…
Cultural Heritage Between Centralisation and Decentralisation
Management of Italy's heritage has been in increasing turmoil since 1993. This paper identifies and reviews significant reform attempts, including outsourcing, devolution, managerialism and privatisation. The authors propose a framework for improved understanding of the various solutions examined – distinguishing between professional and organisational centralisation. It is argued that while decentralised organisational management can have positi…
Controlling Expenditure, or the Slow Emergence of Costing at the Venice Arsenal, 1586–1633
This paper aims to aid our understanding of the emergence of accounting as a control instrument in complex proto-industrial settings, through its perceived capacity of mirroring the production process. The paper starts off from an archival document, the 1586 deliberation by the Venetian Senate, which imposed on the Arsenal a stocktaking to be conducted every three years, and ad hoc galley production accounts to be kept in double entry format, whe…
Cultural Heritage Between Centralisation and Decentralisation
Management of Italy's heritage has been in increasing turmoil since 1993. This paper identifies and reviews significant reform attempts, including outsourcing, devolution, managerialism and privatisation. The authors propose a framework for improved understanding of the various solutions examined – distinguishing between professional and organisational centralisation. It is argued that while decentralised organisational management can have positi…
Controlling Expenditure, or the Slow Emergence of Costing at the Venice Arsenal, 1586–1633
This paper aims to aid our understanding of the emergence of accounting as a control instrument in complex proto-industrial settings, through its perceived capacity of mirroring the production process. The paper starts off from an archival document, the 1586 deliberation by the Venetian Senate, which imposed on the Arsenal a stocktaking to be conducted every three years, and ad hoc galley production accounts to be kept in double entry format, whe…
Management and the British Museum
Understanding cultural heritage in Turkey
This paper explores Turkey’s cultural heritage system from the perspective of the ‘Heritage Chain’, which sees the heritage sector as an interconnected series of relationships and activities including protection and conservation, archaeological activity, research and museum presentation. By reviewing quantitative data along each step of the chain, we construct a holistic perspective that shows interrelationships between activities and illustrates…
A centralized decentralization
Recently Turkey has experimented with reforming its highly centralized cultural heritage sector by outsourcing commercial activities at museums and archeological sites. We examine three outsourcing contracts executed in 2009–2010 and their implications for understanding New Public Management in Turkey’s cultural sector. The initial project at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum was soon superseded by a ‘monopoly’ model that outsourced gift shop an…
Change and continuity in managerialism
This paper offers a long-term perspective on the debate on managerial transformations in the public sector: how public sector organisations actually arrived at such changes, what processes, discourses and practices are transformed and how. This is investigated through archival research and a longitudinal analysis of 100 years of the administrative history of an Italian museum. Taking a historical perspective allows us to account for organisationa…
Complexity, anachronism and time-parochialism
The focus of the article is the relationship between history and strategy. Although little interest can be found in mainstream management journals, the hidden relationship between history and strategy is looked for here in a double sense. On the one hand, the article will try to historicise strategy, questioning the alleged discontinuity that is normally used to explain the emergence of the notion itself. More than changes at the ontological leve…
Cultural Heritage in China
China is one of the richest countries in terms of cultural heritage. However, the unprecedented economic development of the last three decades has posed serious challenges to its survival. The growing importance of salvage excavation raises serious tensions between the textual-historical tradition and archaeological finds, with controversial impacts in terms of conservation and research, due to administrative mechanisms. To understand these pheno…
Managing Change and Master Plans
Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy
This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors imp…
Missing HRM
The Italian Ministry of Culture has been undertaking substantial reforms in the last decades, aimed at reorganizing both the museum sector and the local branches of the Ministry, the Superintendence system. By reconstructing the genealogy of these reforms from a management study perspective, the paper points out the overall misunderstanding of human resource issues in their design and implementation. Starting from the Pompeii reform in 1997 up to…
When megaprojects meet archaeology
From 2004 to 2012, 37 well-preserved Byzantine shipwrecks were discovered during construction of two underground train stations at Yenikapı, Istanbul. Despite its complexity, archaeology is rarely studied through organisational and management lens. This paper investigates the Yenikapı rescue excavations using two innovative analytical frameworks for archaeology – the Heritage Chain and Structure Conduct Performance analysis – which highlight the …
Life and death in audience development. The exhibition on Pompeii at the British museum, 2013
Values and orientations of cultural professionals are important to understand the performance of the institutions they manage. While there are striking differences in orientation across countries, their impact has rarely been investigated systematically. This paper offers a case study of a blockbuster exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 2013 using objects loaned by the Superintendence of Napoli and Pompeii. Based on interviews and documen…
Economic Discourse and Heritage Conservation
The paper aims at bridging economic and management discourse on Heritage Conservation, calling for a kind of ethnographic approach to administrative aspects. Drawing attention to practices more than policies, the paper takes a distance from mainstream cultural economics. More than cultural capital, the emphasis is on running operations, current costs and revenues, once the investment (in conservation and opening of the site) is done. At first, an…
Institutional transformation and managerialism in cultural heritage
This paper builds on the literature on managerial reforms in the public and cultural heritage sectors with the aim of exploring, understanding, and reconstructing managerial change at the organizational level. It investigates the reform of the cultural sector in Malta – driven by a call for managerial innovation. The main changes in discourse and practices are analyzed; transformation processes are reconstructed on the basis of reported narrative…
Managerial Transformation in Chinese Museums
This article focuses on change processes taking place in one important Chinese museum, the Shaanxi History Museum in Xi'an. It is based on field research from 2002, conducted within the ‘Strengthening the Shaanxi History Museum’ project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Cooperation and Development. Important change processes emerge from the analysis, such as sustained economic development; new trends of tourism (an…
Shipbuilding and early forms of modern management. Six months to rebuild the Ottoman fleet after the defeat at Lepanto
This paper focuses on the reconstruction of the Ottoman fleet following the naval defeat at Lepanto (1571). It examines the event from the perspective of management studies. Drawing on extensive archival research, we reconstruct the Ottoman Empire's decision-making processes, looking at the main organisational conditions that made this remarkable feat possible. This allows us to make a preliminary comparison with the management of the Venice Arse…
Managing Bologna university museums and collections (1970-2015)
The literature on university museums abounds with accounts of new initiatives to reposition these institutions by opening them up to the general public as they move away from core of university activities like teaching and research. However, what is seldom analyzed is the long-term impact of such initiatives, and whether they survive the initial phases and live up to expectations. The study reports on the administrative history of the museums and…
History of Management and Stratigraphy of Organizing. The Venice Arsenal between Tangible and Intangible Heritage
The purpose of this contribution is to analyze the role of the Arsenal in the history of management, still underrepresented in international historiography, and link it to the literature on industrial heritage. It is this central role in the history of management that endows the Venice Arsenal with particular significance as intangible heritage. Discussing specific problems related to the research and interpretation of this intangible significanc…
The heritage chain management. General issues and a case study, China
Toward a history of accounting histories
In recent years there has been increasing recognition of the marked national differences in approaches to accounting. What is less clearly appreciated is how accounting historiography is also fragmented into different national traditions,with diverse patterns and frameworks for reconstructing and interpreting accounting's evolution. The prominence given to accounting theory and practice may vary in different historical periods, not least in terms…
Eiasm workshop on 'Managing Cultural Organizations', London, 5-6 January 2001
Management and the British Museum
Renewing pompeii, year zero. Promises and expectations from new approaches to museum management and accountability
Special Section
Research in accounting history is overwhelmingly dominated by studies addressing Anglo-Saxon settings of the period 1850-1940. In spite of the many perceptive insights arising from those investigations, such a tiny time-space intersection overlooks other historiographies that are equally important to advance understanding in accounting history. This article calls for mapping variety in the history of accounting and management practices by expandi…
Managerial Rhetoric and Arts Organizations
The arts have faced big changes in recent years. This book explores the changes driven by the crisis of the welfare state and the privatization of public entities. It considers the tensions between ma
Cultural Heritage Between Centralisation and Decentralisation
Management of Italy's heritage has been in increasing turmoil since 1993. This paper identifies and reviews significant reform attempts, including outsourcing, devolution, managerialism and privatisation. The authors propose a framework for improved understanding of the various solutions examined – distinguishing between professional and organisational centralisation. It is argued that while decentralised organisational management can have positi…
Controlling Expenditure, or the Slow Emergence of Costing at the Venice Arsenal, 1586–1633
This paper aims to aid our understanding of the emergence of accounting as a control instrument in complex proto-industrial settings, through its perceived capacity of mirroring the production process. The paper starts off from an archival document, the 1586 deliberation by the Venetian Senate, which imposed on the Arsenal a stocktaking to be conducted every three years, and ad hoc galley production accounts to be kept in double entry format, whe…
Managerial Transformation in Chinese Museums
This article focuses on change processes taking place in one important Chinese museum, the Shaanxi History Museum in Xi'an. It is based on field research from 2002, conducted within the ‘Strengthening the Shaanxi History Museum’ project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Cooperation and Development. Important change processes emerge from the analysis, such as sustained economic development; new trends of tourism (an…
Institutional transformation and managerialism in cultural heritage
This paper builds on the literature on managerial reforms in the public and cultural heritage sectors with the aim of exploring, understanding, and reconstructing managerial change at the organizational level. It investigates the reform of the cultural sector in Malta – driven by a call for managerial innovation. The main changes in discourse and practices are analyzed; transformation processes are reconstructed on the basis of reported narrative…
The rhetoric of cultural policies and the issue of ‘getting things done’
Managing Machu Picchu
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze elements of continuity and change in the administrative history of the Historical Sanctuary of Machu Picchu (HSM) over the last decade. Design/methodology/approach Based on a field study and of both qualitative and quantitative data, the paper reconstructs changes in accounting and planning processes and discourses. Findings At the macro level, in the recent past Peru has gone through a process of m…
Change and continuity in managerialism
This paper offers a long-term perspective on the debate on managerial transformations in the public sector: how public sector organisations actually arrived at such changes, what processes, discourses and practices are transformed and how. This is investigated through archival research and a longitudinal analysis of 100 years of the administrative history of an Italian museum. Taking a historical perspective allows us to account for organisationa…
Managing Change and Master Plans
Behind the scenes of public funding for performing arts in Italy
This paper focuses on how Italian performing arts organizations were funded between 2003 and 2005. How does policy regulate the financing system for performing arts? What are the underlying logics that govern financing choices? In this paper the authors move beyond the simple examination of formal policies by analysing the funding data and organizational routines of the ministerial offices responsible for the allocation of grants. The authors imp…
A centralized decentralization
Recently Turkey has experimented with reforming its highly centralized cultural heritage sector by outsourcing commercial activities at museums and archeological sites. We examine three outsourcing contracts executed in 2009–2010 and their implications for understanding New Public Management in Turkey’s cultural sector. The initial project at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum was soon superseded by a ‘monopoly’ model that outsourced gift shop an…
Byzantine Planning
A new site management plan for Istanbul’s Historic Peninsula was approved in late 2011. In this paper, we examine its institutional setting, preparation process, and contents from organizational and administrative perspectives. The result of a participatory process, the plan is professional, logically consistent, and effectively identifies challenges facing cultural heritage. The heart of the plan is a complex architecture of Objectives, Strategi…
Planning and heritage
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the papers selected for the present special issue on planning and heritage. This paper aims at advancing knowledge about the variety of uses and meanings of planning tools and practices in the cultural heritage field, by bridging disciplines and by building on evidence from the studies composing the special issue. Design/methodology/approach – After a review of the debate on planning in manageme…
Understanding cultural heritage in Turkey
This paper explores Turkey’s cultural heritage system from the perspective of the ‘Heritage Chain’, which sees the heritage sector as an interconnected series of relationships and activities including protection and conservation, archaeological activity, research and museum presentation. By reviewing quantitative data along each step of the chain, we construct a holistic perspective that shows interrelationships between activities and illustrates…
The heritage chain management. General issues and a case study, China
Economic Discourse and Heritage Conservation
The paper aims at bridging economic and management discourse on Heritage Conservation, calling for a kind of ethnographic approach to administrative aspects. Drawing attention to practices more than policies, the paper takes a distance from mainstream cultural economics. More than cultural capital, the emphasis is on running operations, current costs and revenues, once the investment (in conservation and opening of the site) is done. At first, an…
Cultural Heritage in China
China is one of the richest countries in terms of cultural heritage. However, the unprecedented economic development of the last three decades has posed serious challenges to its survival. The growing importance of salvage excavation raises serious tensions between the textual-historical tradition and archaeological finds, with controversial impacts in terms of conservation and research, due to administrative mechanisms. To understand these pheno…
Complexity, anachronism and time-parochialism
The focus of the article is the relationship between history and strategy. Although little interest can be found in mainstream management journals, the hidden relationship between history and strategy is looked for here in a double sense. On the one hand, the article will try to historicise strategy, questioning the alleged discontinuity that is normally used to explain the emergence of the notion itself. More than changes at the ontological leve…
When megaprojects meet archaeology
From 2004 to 2012, 37 well-preserved Byzantine shipwrecks were discovered during construction of two underground train stations at Yenikapı, Istanbul. Despite its complexity, archaeology is rarely studied through organisational and management lens. This paper investigates the Yenikapı rescue excavations using two innovative analytical frameworks for archaeology – the Heritage Chain and Structure Conduct Performance analysis – which highlight the …
Life and death in audience development. The exhibition on Pompeii at the British museum, 2013
Values and orientations of cultural professionals are important to understand the performance of the institutions they manage. While there are striking differences in orientation across countries, their impact has rarely been investigated systematically. This paper offers a case study of a blockbuster exhibition mounted by the British Museum in 2013 using objects loaned by the Superintendence of Napoli and Pompeii. Based on interviews and documen…
Political science (26 works) · Law (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · History (13 works) · Archaeology (12 works) · Cultural heritage (12 works) · Cultural Industries and Urban Development (12 works) · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation (11 works) · Public Administration (11 works) · Business (10 works)