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The paradox of impact measurement in cultural contexts
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Anzel, Andrew, Beer, Haley and Currie, Graeme (2022) The paradox of impact measurement in cultural contexts. Cultural Trends . doi:10.1080/09548963.2022.2081487 ISSN 0954-8963. (In Press)
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WRAP-The-paradox-of-impact-measurement-in-cultural-contexts-Anzel-22.pdf - Accepted Version Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only until 4 December 2023. Contact author directly, specifying your specific needs. - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0. Download (455Kb) |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09548963.2022.2081487
Abstract
The cultural sector has increasingly adopted practices of impact measurement to justify public investment. While scholars have investigated the (de)merits of this cultural trend, literature on the rationale, development, and evolution of impact measurement within cultural contexts is limited. We address this oversight by uncovering the intellectual history of impact measurement in cultural contexts. We reveal how measurement justification and practice became misaligned over time, creating a latent paradox of impact measurement in cultural contexts. We argue that current practices of impact measurement both strengthen and weaken the justification for public cultural investment. In the short term, impact measurement strengthens investment justification by providing cursory evidence of produced outcomes. In the long term, current practices weaken this justification by failing to produce counterfactual accounts for how cultural spend achieves funding objectives. We problematize this paradox and outline future research to either confront, embrace, or cope with its existence.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CB History of civilization H Social Sciences > HM Sociology N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Operations Management Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Cultural policy -- Evaluation, Arts -- Economic aspects , Arts and society -- Economic aspects, Intellectual life-- Evaluation | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Cultural Trends | ||||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0954-8963 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 2022 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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DOI: | 10.1080/09548963.2022.2081487 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | In Press | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Cultural Trends. Andrew Anzel, Haley Beer & Graeme Currie (2022) The paradox of impact measurement in cultural contexts, Cultural Trends, DOI: 10.1080/09548963.2022.2081487. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.” | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 31 May 2022 | ||||||||
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