Corporate cultural responsibility and shared value in the banking sector. A multi-case study in Italy Valentina Martino Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) valentina.martino@uniroma1.it Stefano Scarcella Prandstraller Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) s.scarcella.prandstraller@gmail.com
The context Evolution of corporate responsibility towards a more advanced paradigm, addressed to generate a shared value between companies and the community they belong to. Deep-rooted philanthropic tradition in the artistic-cultural field by Italian banks, as an inheritance of Renaissance s patronage tradition Banks searching for new marketing and PR strategies in time of acute crisis and change.
Objective of the study The study aims to: - investigate the evolution of Italian banks approach to arts and culture RQs - focus the emerging trends in the field of corporate cultural responsibility and communication
Research questions RQ1 What specificities distinguish the Italian banks approach to arts and culture, and in which ways is it evolving respect to the past? RQ2 What are today the emerging contexts and communicative channels which support Italian bank s cultural strategies?
Methods multi-method multi-case study International literature review In-depth case studies and best practices direct observations and analysis of corporate documents, publishing, and communication materials in-depth interviews from banks and major Italian sector association
Case history 1: Italian Banking Association (ABI) Banks for Culture (action plan)
A national action plan for banks and culture The Italian Banking Association (ABI), founded in 1919, is the major no profit organization representing banking sector in Italy. ABI established a dedicated Cultural Relations office within its Corporate and Media Relations Department, promoting since 2013 a specific action plan, entitled Banks for Culture, whose aim it to value banks heritage and cultural offering to reinforce relationships with stakeholders (institutions, media system, politics, family, schools, and universities). Several cultural platforms have been launched by ABI in order to coordinate banks efforts and reduce fragmentation and individualism of the single local initiatives.
Case history 2: Intesa Sanpaolo Bank
Intesa San Paolo Bank It is the leading banking group in Italy and one of the largest in Europe. With legal seat in Turin and executive headquarters in Milan, it is the result of a merger between Intesa and the Sanpaolo IMI bank in 2007. Corporate commitment toward arts is rooted in the philanthropic tradition carried on by more than 250 pre-existing banks, among which the Bank of Naples, established in 1539. It established a dedicated Cultural Heritage Department and a national Culture Project, with a strong multidisciplinary and communication orientation. It supports the preservation of Italian cultural heritage by the promotion, since 1989, of a vast restoration program entitled Restitutions, involving more than one thousand artworks and monuments all around Italy. Promotes a publishing activity in the fields of art, music, history, economy, as well as strategic partnerships with many cultural institutions and events.
Galleries of Italy The Galleries of Italy project created a network among several corporate locations, transformed in expository centers and opened in Vicenza (1999), Naples (2007), and Milan (2011). It offers public access to a diffuse architectural heritage and corporate art collections, resulting from mergers and including 20,000 artworks stretching from archaeology to contemporary arts, with a precious collection of 19th century painters. The Gallery in Milan, located in the historical palace of Commercial Bank of Italy at piazza Scala, hosts two floors of expositive spaces with both the bank s permanent collection and temporary exhibitions: among them, those of Bellotto and Canaletto (2017) and of Francesco Hayez (2015-16), with a public of overall 80,000 visitors. It offers multimedia didactic and communication services and ample and decorated rooms dedicated to the annexed bookshop and coffee restaurant.
Galleries of Italy, Milan
Galleries of Italy, Milan
Galleries of Italy, Milan
Case history 3: Mediolanum Bank
Mediolanum Bank It origins from the Programma Italia S.p.A., the first national net offering global consultancy in the sector of savings and welfare, founded in 1982 by Ennio Doris in partnership with Fininvest Group and transformed in 1997 in Mediolanum Bank, providing mostly online services. The idea of Doris is a bank centered on the needs of the client: the bank built around you. Policies concerning arts and culture are part of the corporate strategy from the very beginning in 1998, intended as a distinctive human and ethical value for the company (Ennio Doris). Corporate approach to culture is not limited to buy and treasure artworks, but aims at valuing art and transforming it in a daily living experience for the bank s stakeholders by means of several activities. Established a Corporate University (MCU) in Basiglio (Milan). Centodieci is the project of MCU aimed to offer to stakeholders resources and tools to share values, experiences and knowledge. It organizes events in different subjects: Inspiration, Change, Progress, Sharing, Solidarity, Social Responsibility, and Art.
Centodieci è Arte The corporate program Centodieci è Arte includes a series of cultural events all around Italy and a digital magazine, hosting multidisciplinary contents and interventions. It is intended as a tool for values dissemination, proposing a whole vision, of exploration, of sustainability through arts, and of accurate search for the best of knowledge, histories and experiences which are capable to inspire. It participates in a network of corporate partnerships involving the Biennale Festival of Venice, Miart of Milan, Guggenheim Museum, to promote joint initiatives and the mobility of artists and exposes the works of famous artists and younger ones. It supports the career of about 2,000 young artists from different countries promoting dedicated presentations, awards, and contests.
The seat of Piazzetta Bussolin in Padua Has been projected by the artist Marco Nereo Rotelli and achieved by the architecture and design study Corà and Partners. Inaugurated on July 7th 2014, is a pilot experiment for transforming in artistic locations also other bank s sites. It is the seat of Casa Mediolanum, containing both financial offices and a gallery hosting the exposition of works of artists, organizing frequent exhibitions, presentations, and other cultural events. The frontispiece is decorated by mosaics and every corridor, staircase, and room contains some artworks: they characterize the frame of the company s workplace, aimed to organizational welfare, in the spirit of a real museum where art is lived daily as an emotional and inspiring experience both by employees and clients. Both collective and personal exhibitions are promoted periodically, involving critics and experts, and free guided visits are offered to external visitors.
The seat of Piazzetta Bussolin in Padua
The Padua urban requalification program The new seat of Padua has been promoted also as a social operation on a large scale, by a massive intervention supporting the urban requalification of the degraded surrounding area and its restitution to community s life. Such action implied the rebuilding of social-economic tissue (professional studies and offices attracted in the same area by the presence of the Bank), as well as the restructuration of infrastructures and furniture, and a massive insertion of artworks inside the urban landscape, in a way allowing their public fruition. A similar operation, in advanced state of implementation, is concerning the degraded zone of Padua s waterways around Piovego river, where a new Contemporary Art Museum, scattered among the city, the Mediolanum Urban Gallery, will be opened.
The Padua urban requalification program
Corporate arts against crisis Today more than ever, arts and culture represent a natural evolving of richness towards ethics (Pirrone, 2017). In a moment of crisis, social and cultural communication reveals itself particularly effective in order to dialogue with local communities and, in particular, with those country s sectors facing difficulties and for which a bank wants to do something. From this point of view, cultural communication becomes a lever which is today more important than ever (Meloni, 2017).
Corporate arts as a communication channel Today arts and culture are rediscovered by banks in Italy as alternative communication channels themselves, which however can be considered integral to national banking tradition from its origins about seven centuries ago. [ ] Thus, in the banking sector, acute market competition expresses itself into an intense «cultural competition», producing a great benefit for community (Porcari, 2017).
Sharing arts and corporate heritage «The point is not to treasurize arts, but to do culture. Mediolanum has chosen to live art, and not to close it in a vault (Recarti, 2017). We select valuable cultural projects offering also communication opportunities. The difference between Intesa Sanpaolo and other banks, in Italy and abroad, is the commitment and extent in communicating corporate heritage and events. Of course, in the artistic-cultural sector quality contents are due, but they must be also communicated and brought to the public. After all, in Italy there is a very intense competition for cultural proposals and events: thus communication makes the difference, since it values a bank s role by making arts and culture an integral part of its corporate identity, to reinforce public perception and reputation (Meloni, 2017).
Corporate arts for «Made in Italy» Made in Italy is, after all, a contemporary expression of the Italian artistic tradition, incorporated by the most successful Italian products conquering the world markets, such as design, fashion, handicraft, and also a certain kind of technology. Much more the Italians can image, Italy is considered abroad as a birthplace of arts and culture (Meloni, 2017).
Corporate cultural communication: three major platforms Corporate art collections are valued and opened to public within corporate workplaces, in specific corporate museums or galleries, and even external cultural centers. Their creation itself is becoming a communication event. Cultural events and exhibits animate and spectacularize corporate heritage. They offer an ideal context also to promote and reinforce strategic partnership. Digital communication promotes a logic of cultural sharing and the experimentation of innovative languages, communicating corporate heritage on both corporate site and social networks, even engaging new and younger segments of public.
Conclusions and open questions The study suggests a contemporary rediscovering of arts and culture as a strategic investment in both shared value and Made in Italy s reputation, which innovates in time of crisis a historical patronage tradition carried on by Italian banks More in general, in what measure crisis can reveal itself an opportunity for innovating bank s communication strategies? Can such cultural strategies be exportable in other business sectors and countries?
Grazie Valentina Martino Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) valentina.martino@uniroma1.it Stefano Scarcella Prandstraller Sapienza University of Rome (Italy) s.scarcella.prandstraller@gmail.com