An investigation into organisational leadership for the development of community arts centres

Abstract

Modern human resource management practices have the potential to ensure successful businesses and organisations. This is more so where the most significant resource in the organisation are people. This study seeks to examine the leadership and managerial style that ideally could be useful in promoting and developing sustainable businesses with the focus of the study being in community arts centres. This study may be able to contribute to identifying and/or developing future entrepreneurs who may have an interest in opening their own community arts centres and businesses. The results of successful art centres may result in a proliferation of such centres and ultimately offering alternative careers and the opportunities for growth and development for the young South African. This may result in the creation and development of a more robust creative art and drama industry. While it is acknowledged that various other resources are critical for a business to develop including finance, the focus on the management of people forms the basis of this research. The Department of Arts and Culture has identified cultural industries as one of the drivers of economic growth and job creation. Early indications are that the cultural industries are already making a significant contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The Department of Trade and Industry estimates that the craft sector alone contributes about R2-billion (about 200 million Euros) or 0.14% to South Africa’s GDP annually (Department of Arts and Culture 2013). Community art centres could be the seeds for the growth of the cultural industry.

The study included 101 participants, made up of eight (8) centre managers, 69 administrative staff members and 24 centre users. The key findings in this study covered the identification of the leadership, managerial qualities and attributes needed by owners and employees to successfully run/manage a business such as community art centre; to determine whether there is leadership development taking place as a strategic intent so that the next level of managers can head up these centres as well as encouraging some staff to pursue the entrepreneurial route and finally examining human resource principle, processes and practices that are useful when leading and managing a successful community arts centres.