Two Narratives of Intergenerational Sustainability

Abstract

This article recognizes that institutional survival alone is an important, but ultimately insufficient, goal for public and non-profit organizations. Instead, the article approaches organizational sustainability as a two-level concept that includes both institutional survival, as a baseline for sustainability, and intergenerational or longer term sustainability, understood as the ability of public institutions to persist and fulfill their purpose in the long run. The article is based on the findings of research conducted on a variety of public and non-profit cultural organizations, including museums, music and performing arts, and literature. However, the case of museums is used to illustrate two narratives of intergenerational sustainability: institutional resilience and institutional distinctiveness. The article notes that these narratives co-exist, although at times they contradict each other. It is the task of museum managers to reconcile the tensions embedded in these narratives via sustainable management practices. The broader implication of the study is that truly long-term sustainability, which secures the rights of future generations, requires sustainable stewardship today, and organizational sustainability should be viewed not as an outcome but rather as a process and an ethic.

Fostering Cultures of Sustainability through Community-Engaged Museums: The History and Re-Emergence of Ecomuseums in Canada and the USA

“…This is in keeping with discussions that define culture as a pervasive and evolving suite of values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours [14,15,[24][25][26][27], as opposed to equating it with activities that generate economic activity through the cultural sector [28][29][30]. We also assume that, defined in broad terms, culture can provide an effective perspective for sustainability work, because it is rooted in the values that drive our individual and collective behaviours, and it responds and contributes to the complex systems that govern so much of our increasingly globalized world [24].…”

Why Do Nonprofit Performing Arts Organizations Offer Free Public Access?

“…Previous studies (Eikenberry and Kluver ; Frumkin ; Jäger and Beyes ; Sanders ) have raised concerns that the growing public service role detracts nonprofits from their civic functions. Moldavanova () argues that despite the tension, nonprofit managers must reconcile institutional resilience for immediate survival and institutional distinctiveness for long‐term sustainability. Our findings suggest that nonprofit managers can reconcile the tension between nonprofit marketization and remaining socially responsible by carefully designing an organization's revenue structure.…”

“…It contributes to cultivating new audiences: the free-trial opportunity helps bring potential audiences who are interested and can afford to pay but are not yet committed enough to paying for the experience (Bernstein 2011 ;Kotler and Scheff 1997 ;Parker 2012 ). Further, Moldavanova ( 2016 ) and Stazyk, Moldavanova, and Frederickson (2014) argue that such socially responsible initiatives help nonprofits keep institutional distinctiveness and long-term sustainability.…”

“…Also, the nonprofit arts sector has seen increasing interest in arts organizations being more inclusive, and calls stressing the “importance of equal access of all people to cultural opportunities” have been growing louder (Markusen and Gadwa , 380). This discussion goes beyond simply removing economic barriers to cultural programming; making a proactive effort to increase access for diverse groups is increasingly emphasized (Markusen ), in addition to ensuring intergenerational equity (Moldavanova ).…”

Political Parties' Rhetoric Signaling of Sustainable Development

“…Refining the concept further, an abundant strand of literature agrees that sustainable development comprises at the very least an economic, an environmental and a social dimension (see Dempsey et al, 2011;Giddings et al, 2002). Further definitional extensions refer to the spatial dimension (local versus global level; see Liu, 2009;Moran and Rau, 2016) or intertemporal aspects (current versus future generations; see Glotzbach and Baumgärtner, 2012;Moldavanova, 2016) of sustainability. Of the three key dimensions, the ideas underlying social sustainability appear to be even less clearly defined than those of environmental and economic sustainability (Zaidi et al, 2012).…”