Mapping out the Roles of Top Management in Nonprofit Arts and Cultural Organizations

Abstract This study explores how top management (executive and artistic directors) in nonprofit arts and cultural organizations understand and perform their roles on a day-to-day basis. We draw on Henry Mintzberg’s seminal work on managerial behavior to map out the roles that today’s leaders of arts and cultural organizations assume. Our findings suggest that they are primarily involved in roles concerning interpersonal exchanges and decision-making. In addition to Mintzberg’s roles, our qualitative study also reveals the presence of self-management activities, in the sense of dealing with stress and critically reflecting on personal resources. We conceptualize these emerging roles in a new category of “intrapersonal roles,” which extends the range of Mintzberg’s managerial roles, and thematize the implications for the literature and arts management professional practice, such as how top managers can be positive role models for other employees.


Introduction
What do top managers in arts and cultural organizations actually do?How do they understand their roles?How do they address changing demands?Studying leadership in arts management is undoubtedly not new.The first articles appeared in the mid-1990s, and a publication peak was observed between 2000 and 2009 (Keeney and Jung 2023), looking at many topics such as leadership style and leadership structure.However, the issue has regained topicality in light of current disruptions in the sector and a new urgency for leaders of arts and cultural organizations to navigate crises, rethink structures, and address questions of sustainability, access, diversity, and inclusion (Byrnes 2022).
Leadership is a core construct in the study of organizational behavior, as leaders are considered a crucial factor in influencing organizational outcomes (Yukl and Gardner 2020).In recent years, a strong belief has emerged that leadership skills must complement management skills.Many organizations have stressed that successful managers should also have strong leadership skills (Asrar-Ul-Haq and Anwar 2018).What has been somewhat neglected-in general management as well as arts management literature-is the leaders' perspective as they address multiple demands and expectations placed on them within a formal (top) managerial position.
The importance of management behavior-"who they are" and "what they do" (Hambrick 1989)-has long been recognized in management research and practice.It is striking, then, that many studies addressing leadership behavior in connection with the exercise of the leadership role (e.g., Berraies 2019;Simsek, Heavey, and Fox 2018) still refer back to Henry Mintzberg's management roles (1973).Fifty years ago, Mintzberg proposed a model to address the question he regarded as essential to managerial work: What do managers do?The Mintzberg model (still) differs from other management and leadership theories in its focus on the specific activities and responsibilities that managers perform in their daily work.It emphasizes the actual behaviors of managers rather than their formal positions, job descriptions, or personal traits by identifying ten roles clustered into three categories-interpersonal, informational, and decisional (Mintzberg 1973(Mintzberg , 2007).Mintzberg's model is based on the notion that managers must assume different roles in different situations and that managerial behavior does not differ significantly across industries (ibid.).The concept of "one's role" is a central category in sociology and social psychology, encompassing the sum of expectations and demands on behavior that other people have of the holder of a position (Vallacher 2020)-in our case, a position in top management.Kurke and Aldrich's (1983) previous application of Mintzberg's model to knowledge-intensive organizations (hospitals) and those organizations that operate in a nonprofit and public context (schools) suggests that the framework is suitable for exploring management roles and leadership behavior in nonprofit arts and cultural organizations.Additionally, Mintzberg's (1990) definition of a manager as a person vested with formal authority and in charge of an organization (or unit) is not limited to the private sector but also includes bishops, hockey coaches, and prime ministers.Against this background, our study aims to understand better what top managers in nonprofit arts and cultural organizations do on a day-to-day basis.To this end, we draw on Mintzberg's work to map out the roles that top managers assume.
The remainder of the article is structured as follows.In the next section, we review the literature on arts and nonprofit management as well as general leadership.The methodology section describes the qualitative research design and study sample, following which we present our findings, elaborating particularly on the emergence of a new category of roles not foreseen by Mintzberg's model.In the last sections, we discuss our contributions to the literature and practice of arts management, general management, and leadership and conclude by reflecting on our study's limitations and avenues for further research.

Background literature
This section briefly outlines the leadership literature on arts and cultural organizations.It then discusses managerial roles and leadership behavior in the general management literature, particularly addressing Mintzberg's model (1973Mintzberg's model ( , 2007) ) as an underlying concept for exploring the multiple roles of top management in arts and cultural organizations.

Leadership in arts and cultural organizations
Managing arts and cultural organizations involves the often thematized challenge of balancing economic and esthetic considerations (Cray, Inglis, and Freeman 2007).It is the nature of the outcomes that sets the arts and cultural sector apart from other sectors (Lapierre 2001) because they often exhibit characteristics of merit or public goods and might involve intangible experiences not captured through private transactions (Hadida 2015).Because of the "real-life complexities of management practices that underlie artistic processes" (Labaronne and Tröndle 2020, 12), leadership in the arts and cultural sector is considered an extreme case (Abfalter 2013).While many scholars have argued that management practice and artistic practice follow different logics (Cray, Inglis, and Freeman 2007), a growing number of studies show that their relationship is not one of pure antagonism (Eikhof 2010;Labaronne and Tröndle 2020).Yet, the behavior of top managers of arts and cultural organizations needs to enable a creative and innovative environment while attending to financial concerns-a challenge that has become even more complex in post-pandemic times, thus calling for renewed leadership to respond to and navigate new realities (Keeney and Jung 2023).
Research in the leadership, nonprofit, and arts management literature has primarily focused on the characteristics, qualities, and styles of leaders, with little attention given to what they do on a daily basis.Several studies on leadership characteristics have shown that expertise (Krause 2015;Mumford, Connelly, and Gaddis 2003) as well as authenticity, authority, and charisma (Abfalter 2013;Boerner 2002;Boerner, Krause, and Gebert 2004;Boerner and Gebert 2012;Krause 2015) are critical traits for managers of nonprofit theaters and orchestras.Another thoroughly investigated aspect of the arts and cultural sector is leadership structure (namely, whether the director is responsible for artistic decisions, management decisions, or both).Several studies have indicated that shared leadership-a leadership duo of an artistic director and an administrator or managing director-is the most common structure for theaters and orchestras (Bhansing, Leenders, and Wijnberg 2012;de Voogt 2006;Järvinen, Ansio, and Houni 2012;Reid and Karambayya 2009).However, none has revealed the different managerial roles on a day-to-day basis.

Management roles and leadership behavior
Roles may be understood as generalized expectations of behavior and duties tied to positions in organizational settings.These facilitate social interaction and are vital for organizational members, helping them know how they are expected to behave and how well they are succeeding (Turner 2006).Leaders embrace these behavioral expectations, as it helps them maintain high-quality relationships with their organization's stakeholders, which is important for successful job performance (Tsui et al. 1995;Watson 2008).Therefore, the leadership role embraces behavioral expectations tied to a social, organizational structure.Mintzberg (1973) classifies the ten roles required for all managerial work into the following three categories: (1) interpersonal, including the figurehead, leader, and liaison roles; (2) informational, including the monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson roles; and (3) decisional, including the entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator roles.Interpersonal roles involve building and maintaining interpersonal relationships; the second group deals with gathering and providing information; and the third group with decision-making (see Appendix A for a more detailed description).Mintzberg (1973Mintzberg ( , 2013) ) considers the role of leader to be one of the most significant of the ten roles a manager must fulfill.He describes the leader's role as a set of activities and behaviors that serve a specific function in the organization, such as encouraging subordinates, defining the work atmosphere, and aligning subordinate and organizational needs.Here, a leader is conceptualized as embedded in a formal managerial position, different from newer leadership theories that do not necessarily ascribe leaders a formal role in an organization (Schoeller 2019).Since Mintzberg's original work, several studies have incorporated various of his contributions (see, for example, Arman et al. 2009;Dandalt 2021) and a few have validated and replicated his model.In 1980, Shapira and Dunbar's test of Mintzberg's roles involved 112 male managers in the manufacturing industry.They suggested integrating the "interpersonal" functions into the "informational" and "decisional" categories, because those groups covered the main daily tasks of the studied managers.Two years later, Kurke and Aldrich (1983) replicated Mintzberg's study by shadowing ten managers from different industries.Their results largely supported Mintzberg's findings, concluding that few differences existed between the industries regarding managerial behavior.More than two decades later, Tengblad (2006) addressed changes in leadership practice and tested whether Mintzberg's model was still valid by looking at the workplace behavior of eight CEOs across industries.Tengblad concluded that, after all these years, the roles described by Mintzberg were still visible but also identified changes in the leadership goals influencing managers' daily tasks, such as fostering corporate culture and reducing bureaucracy.
Over time, the leadership role itself has gained more attention and evolved into a particularly ambiguous and poorly specified role (DeRue, Ashford, and Cotton 2009).What is deemed appropriate leadership behavior is often unclear and varies between contexts.A long list of expectations, such as being authentic, charismatic, empathetic, strategic, transformational, and empowering (see also reviews by Avolio, Walumbwa, and Weber 2009;Nisbett and Walmsley 2016), influenced by a boom in leadership literature, makes overwhelming demands.Consequently, Mintzberg's approach-which has provided much of the basis for understanding the leadership role within a formal managerial function-is still relevant, as it gives a foundation for understanding managers' daily work.That being said, a half century later, the changed context of contemporary organizational practice and theory, might call for some adjustments; for instance, taking into account the proliferation of working from home.
The current literature suggests that the more aware managers are of the broad expectations placed on them, the better they can perform their roles and the more successful an organization will be (Petriglieri 2020).Self-reflection is nowadays considered a prerequisite for effective role improvement (Lippmann, Pfister, and Jürg 2019).Furthermore, the assumption nowadays is that successful managers must not only manage and lead others but also lead themselves effectively (Krampitz et al. 2021).While Mintzberg's model does not explicitly consider this perspective, it should be noted that, years after his seminal work, Mintzberg did briefly acknowledge issues of self-management and self-reflection.Writing for Harvard Business Review, he argues that one of the most the essential resources managers allocate is their own time (Mintzberg 1990).
In summary, in this section we have argued that while the literature on leadership has developed over the past several years, Mintzberg's framework is still relevant for understanding the roles a manager fulfills on a daily basis.Also, we consider Mintzberg's model suitable for exploring leadership behavior in the context of a formal (top) managerial position.This type of structure is the case in much of the arts and cultural sector.Arts and cultural organizations were institutionalized under traditional hierarchical systems; today, most remain hierarchical in their structure (Kenney and Jung 2023).Soliciting the current behavior of top managers through their perceived roles offers an excellent bridge in studying the differences between traditional and current leadership behavior.Most importantly, this line of inquiry gives attention to the overlooked question of what top managers do and what roles they perform as they balance market imperatives and artistic considerations.

Methodology
We draw on Mintzberg's model (1973Mintzberg's model ( , 2007) ) to map out and better understand the multiple roles that top managers in the arts and culture assume.We approached the study with a qualitative research design consistent with Mintzberg's original research, which is also considered the most commonly employed methodology for understanding arts leadership (Keeney and Jung 2023).Our explorative research design also has allowed us to investigate possible extensions of Mintzberg's model for greater relevance to today's organizational practices in the arts and cultural sector.

Data collection
A semistructured questionnaire consisting of mainly open questions was used for data collection.We formulated the questions in a straightforward way, avoiding business jargon, to create an atmosphere of trust and allow for open discussion and reflection on our questions (Creswell 2009).The questionnaire was structured as follows: (a) information about the interviewee's professional background and responsibilities; (b) questions about management and leadership undertakings and perceptions; (c) questions about future leadership challenges; and (d) questions about continuing education for top managers in the arts and cultural sector.The complete interview questionnaire consisted of 22 core questions with subquestions focusing on the daily work of the interviewee (e.g., their three most important tasks on any given day and how they spend their time).Depending on each interviewee, the questions were slightly adapted or omitted if the information was available online (e.g., details about the organization).

Data sample
A total of 15 interviews with top managers in nonprofit arts and cultural organizations, averaging 60 min in length, were conducted by two researchers in a face-to-face setting.
Concerning sampling considerations, we selected interviewees not on a randomized basis but instead followed an "information-oriented selection" strategy (Flyvbjerg 2011, 307).We focused on top managers as the bearers of responsibility for all the activities of an (arts and cultural) organization (Yukl and Mahsud 2010) and drew on Mintzberg's understanding of leadership behavior as one (probably the most significant) managerial role.We selected interviewees based on expectations of the richness of information they could provide as experienced professionals while aiming at a maximum sample variation within the scope of the study in terms of the organizations the interviewees are affiliated with.Drawing on the premise that the relationship between managerial and artistic practices is not dichotomized (Eikhof 2010;Labaronne and Tröndle 2020), the final sample included both artistic and managing directors, as well as those who held both roles, of organizations whose leadership structure is unitary or dual (see Appendix B for a list of the interviewees' characteristics and organizational affiliation).
The study scope was defined according to broad inclusion criteria, encompassing medium and large performing and visual arts organizations in German-speaking Switzerland, such as the Zurich Opera House, the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, the Textile Museum in St. Gallen, and the Theater Kaserne Basel.All these organizations have a regional or international reputation, their own producing or presenting venues (or both), and similar institutional settings in terms of governmental funding.In this respect, the organizations our interviewees represented can be considered "typical" of stable, partly subsidized arts and cultural organizations in continental Europe employing permanent administrative, technical, and artistic staff but collaborating with guest artists on a project basis for specific productions or exhibitions.This is unlike other regions (such as the United States and Canada) and sectors in the arts and culture characterized by temporary, freelance, and not necessarily full-time employment as well as little governmental funding (Eikhof 2014).In continental Europe, governments traditionally provide financial support through a fixed-sum subsidy as direct support (Frey and Pommerehne 1990).The latter is a central feature for understanding the institutional setting of arts and cultural organizations, given its intrinsic relation to their objectives and decisions about quantity and quality in terms of programming (Throsby and Withers 1993).

Data analysis
All interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed in two phases.Two coders conducted separate qualitative analyses using ATLAS.tisoftware, focusing mainly on questions about management and leadership undertakings and perceptions as well as future leadership challenges (sections (b) and (c) of the questionnaire).In line with our goals, the coding process drew on mixed methodology involving both deductive and inductive procedures.The first data analysis phase applied a deductive approach, using a coding schema based on Mintzberg's description of management roles (Appendix A), followed by a discussion among the researchers to ensure a shared understanding of the category system.The second phase of qualitative data analysis was exploratory and sought to understand the scope of Mintzberg's roles in light of current managerial and leadership practices.In this phase, we conducted an inductive analysis according to Schreier (2012) that involved identifying common and recurring patterns of behavior, tasks, and activities, from which emerged a new coding theme with three subcategories.Table 1 outlines both coding processes.
In total, 847 relevant interview quotations were coded and categorized following deductive and inductive procedures.A code was assigned repeatedly if the interviewee described the same role behavior in a different context.For further analysis, we opted for simple frequency counts of the codes to determine coding frequency (Bryman 2016).To facilitate comparability, frequencies per coded category were expressed as a percentage of all codes assigned.The coding frequency across all interviews provides relevant information about the importance and prevalence of certain codes in the data.By analyzing the coding frequency, we were able to identify key themes and central patterns in the interviews in relation to performing a managerial role in the arts and cultural sector.Themes frequently coded in many interviews can be considered particularly important and relevant to the research question.As all interviews were guided, had the same duration, and were coded according to the same rules, it was possible to balance the amount of information that an interviewee contributed to a category.Finally, inter-rater reliability of more than 75% (R = 0.75) demonstrated strong consistency among multiple coders in both phases of analysis.

Findings
The following section frames key findings applying Mintzberg's categorization of managerial tasks into "interpersonal," "informational," and "decisional" roles.Our findings suggest that the interviewed top managers of arts and cultural organizations performed all the traditional management roles.Further, we identified a new group of management roles, which we clustered under a new category of "intrapersonal" roles, not foreseen by Mintzberg's framework.

Interpersonal roles
From all quotations coded, tasks related to interpersonal roles were mentioned most often (37.4%).The managerial roles in this category include providing information and exchanging ideas.Interpersonal roles involve the roles of figurehead, leader, and liaison, and of these the leader was the role most frequently mentioned in this group (21.5%).Following Mintzberg's conceptualization, it is through this role that top managers of arts and cultural organizations provide leadership for the entire organization, managing the performance and responsibilities of all staff across the organization.As the executive director of a large museum put it: "My leadership goal is to motivate other people to achieve their own goals" and "to act as role model" in order to do so (Interview 1).Another director emphasized the task of organizing and motivating teams to innovate and in this context being a "promotor of good ideas" (Interview 2).Some interviewees seemed to mark a difference between artistic and administrative teams, pointing out to spending plenty of time in conversations with artists in order to "accompany and support them in their artistic development" (Interview 5).Interesting to note is how formal embedding of the leader role explicitly emerges around the notion of motivation: "balance between authority and friendly interaction with employees" (Interview 5) and "giving as much praise as necessary, but also by applying pressure and pointing out consequences if something doesn't work (Interview 1).
Closely related to the role of leader but more strongly vested in the formal hierarchical structure of arts and cultural organizations is the figurehead: a bearer of all social, ceremonial, and legal responsibilities.Our findings show this role to have a clear delineation between an internal perspective and owning all responsibility in the eyes of external stakeholders.The tasks revolve around finding a language to act as "interface" (Interview 8) between the organization and its external environment, as well as "keeping up the facade to the outside world," which, Interviewee 10 (figuratively) argued, managers in arts and cultural organizations are "trained to do".
The last interpersonal role, the liaison, revolves around communicating with internal and external contacts.Internal communications tasks take up plenty of resources in terms of formal meetings and bilateral discussions, but also in terms of informal communication-a task perceived to show "structural weaknesses" (Interview 10) and requiring "constant improvement and change" (Interview 9).In terms of external communication, for example with policymakers and the media, it is important to note that the liaison role implies networking effectively on behalf of your organization, which is slightly different to the figurehead, which involves assuming responsibility toward external stakeholders on behalf of the whole organization.

Decisional roles
After interpersonal roles, tasks related to decisional roles were mentioned most often (34.5%).They involve tasks that use information for decision-making and include the roles of entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator.The roles most frequently mentioned in this group were the resource allocator (12.1%) and entrepreneur (9.7%).
The entrepreneur role entails creating and controlling change within the organization.In arts and cultural organizations, this task seems to relate to (or is subject to) issues of funding.As the director of a medium-size organization argues: "We grab a lot out of the opportunities we have.With the resources we have, we do more than can be expected" (Interview 10).In larger organizations as well, however, top managers take up this role by creating a more entrepreneurial spirit, developing a "shared responsibility for earning money" (Interview 1) in otherwise highly subsidized organizations.The other frequently mentioned role within the decisional roles is the resource allocator, who determines where organizational resources are best applied, in which the issues of financial demands and resources were often thematized.

Informational roles
Overall, fewer mentions concerning informational roles appeared in the quotations (14.8%), which involve roles related to processing information: monitor, disseminator and spokesperson.The disseminator was found slightly more frequently that the other informational roles, involving passing relevant information to the most important recipients within the organization, as interviewee 6 described: "I pass on information from the city council to my team, as they would otherwise not be able to access it promptly."The second most frequent mentioned was the monitor role as "a radar screen" (Interview 4), who has the task of collecting, clustering and evaluating information to forward it as a sender within the organization.Surprisingly less mentioned was the spokesperson, a relevant role to ensure transparency between the organization and the public or other stakeholders.

Intrapersonal roles
We labeled the newly identified category "intrapersonal roles" (as opposed to interpersonal roles), because it deals with tasks and behaviors related to the manager's own mind or self.This group of roles, which emerged from the second, inductive phase of data analysis, includes tasks such as reflecting on work-life balance and coping with stress and pressure.This new, emergent category differs from the existing Mintzberg categories in that it clearly focuses on the expectations of a top manager's own resources.In total, 13.6% of the quotations were coded in this emergent category, nearly as many quotations as the informational roles, suggesting that today's leaders in the arts and cultural sector also assume roles related to self-leadership and self-management not explicitly considered in Mintzberg's original work.(However, as mentioned earlier, he did years later comment on the importance of resource allocation in terms of a manager's own time (Mintzberg 1990)).
Within the intrapersonal roles, we identified three roles: time manager, stress manager, and self-reflector.The time manager creates space for their personal work and manages their own time and resources to achieve presumably work-life balance and avoid "time conflicts."Work-life balance occurs also in relation to mixing the private and the professional spheres and realizing when "enough is enough."The stress manager's tasks relate to handling highly stressful situations and a demanding workload.Top managers deal with problems under time pressure that come with external and personal expectations that are "more than one can bear" (Interview 8), taking time to stay calm and build resilience.
The tasks of the self-reflector relate to being aware of one's own abilities, resources, and boundaries and taking responsibility for one's own development, particularly in matters related to one's professional role.Self-reflection is mentioned in relation to one's own personality and creative capacity within a top managerial role: "I have to manage myself so that I can have as much freedom as I need with my personality and the way I work" (Interview 12).However, the task of self-reflection can also relate to the organizational context.For example, one executive director explains how they need to bring a cultural understanding to carrying out their role.
Overall, the emergent category of intrapersonal roles was mentioned less frequently than the traditional management roles established by Mintzberg's original study, and, in particular, less frequently than the categories of interpersonal and decisional roles.However, intrapersonal roles were mentioned in all interviews.

Discussion
In our explorative study of nonprofit arts and cultural institutions in German-speaking Switzerland, we mapped the multiple roles of top managers of nonprofit arts and cultural institutions according to Mintzberg's model.We found that the interviewed top managers performed all the traditional management tasks identified by Mintzberg (including representing, informing, coordinating, controlling, negotiating, allocating resources, and managing crises), and particularly those related to interpersonal and decisional roles.Most importantly, our study shows that while managerial roles are not industry specific (as Mintzberg suggests), the enactment and performing of those roles within the context of the arts and cultural sector is.Our findings thus underscore the relevance of arts management knowledge as well as soft skills (as opposed to solely artistic-cultural expertise) for leaders of arts and cultural organizations.Nevertheless, our study reveals that the roles proposed by Mintzberg do not cover all the tasks and behaviors that today's managers engage with.Top managers in the arts and cultural sector also perform additional "intrapersonal" tasks in the sense of dealing with stress and critically reflecting on their own resources.About 14% of the tasks mentioned in the interviews were related to this new category of intrapersonal roles, which Mintzberg's model does not include.
Our findings concerning intrapersonal roles reflect the emerging literature on self-management, thus strengthening their external validity.While self-management is considered necessary in the creative industries (Eikhof and Haunschild 2006), only recently has it been increasingly pointed out in the leadership literature that one must lead oneself before leading others (Pearce 2007).Considering more recent research related to self-leadership conducted by, in particular, Manz (Manz et al. 2015) and Furtner (e.g., Furtner, Rauthmann, and Sachse 2015; but also Krampitz et al. 2021), we claim that the new proposed category of intrapersonal roles becomes very significant for top managers as managerial demands increase and evolve.The professional literature-for example, a "Managing Yourself " column in Harvard Business Review-also stresses the increasing need for leaders to invest in their own well-being and inspire those around them to do the same (Neale 2020).We believe that managers with pronounced "intrapersonal roles" who assume these roles on a regular basis-as time managers, stress managers, and self-reflectors-show relevant skills that can be recognized by those they lead, thus acting as positive role models for other employees.
Furthermore, the data gathered in section (c) of the questionnaire (future leadership challenges) suggest that intrapersonal roles will be increasingly prominent for new generations of leaders in the arts and cultural sector.In addition, our data was collected before the COVID-19 pandemic, and we would expect the roles described in the intrapersonal category to be more salient in post-pandemic times, as demands for leaders to learn, adapt, transform, and reflect have increased.Some studies have recently argued that arts and cultural organizations require new modes of operation and leaders who can respond to and navigate new (post-pandemic) realities (Keeney and Jung 2023).We therefore propose an extension of Mintzberg's framework (see Table 2) and recommend additional attention and research concerning the intrapersonal roles our exploratory study has identified.This study's findings can shed light on future investigations in the broad field of leadership research, particularly when leadership behavior is analyzed as part of a formal managerial position.Even though our sample is limited to top managers in medium and large performing and visual arts organizations in German-speaking Switzerland, our research can provide valuable insights into other type of organizations embedded in creative, dynamic, and innovative environments.Over the past decades, the arts and cultural sector has increasingly gained scholarly attention and has come to be seen as an avant-garde field of innovation and knowledge-intensive production (e.g., Lampel, Lant, and Shamsie 2000;Townley, Beech, and McKinlay 2009).Following the premise that the arts and culture is a fruitful field to uncover new insights into organizational dynamics (Dunham and Freeman 2000), we propose a conceptual extension of Mintzberg's framework that more holistically outlines contemporary leaders' roles and better reflects how they understand their managerial responsibilities.
Our study also raises research questions that call for future investigation, such as validating our conceptual extension of Mintzberg's framework among other types of knowledge-intensive nonprofit organizations, such as hospitals and universities, and among creative and innovative businesses in the commercial sector.In the field of arts management, another relevant line of inquiry might analyze the findings concerning their relevance to the variance between different types of arts and cultural organizations (e.g., performing arts and visual arts organizations) and leadership structures (e.g., unitary and shared leadership).Due to our study's small sample (N = 15), the results are limited and do not permit relevant statistical analysis across these characteristics.
Managerial and leadership implications can also be drawn from this study.For arts management practitioners, particularly those who come from an artistic rather than business background and who are new to top managerial positions, our insights can serve as guidance to reflect or plan their work.For trustees of arts and cultural organizations or cultural policymakers assessing or appointing directors, our findings can contribute to better informing assessment and search processes and articulating job expectations, even in simple matters such as job descriptions.Further, and just as importantly, we believe that our insights can inform the drafting of arts and cultural management curricula.We suggest that such programs-at undergraduate and executive levels-integrate into their courses the teaching of the soft skills (such as self-management competencies and self-reflection tools) necessary to master interpersonal and intrapersonal roles.

Conclusion
This study maps out the roles assumed by top managers in arts and cultural organizations.It identifies new patterns of behavior, signaling the emergence of new tasks to add to the traditional management roles as defined by Mintzberg (1973Mintzberg ( , 2007)).Our contribution to theory and practice is thus twofold: First, our insights advance the leadership literature in arts management, offering a deeper understanding of managerial roles and leadership behavior in today's arts and cultural sector.Second, and more generally, the proposed extension of Mintzberg's model offers contemporary validation for other sectors and advances the understanding of leadership from functional and behavioral perspectives.
In summary, our findings validate Mintzberg's model of managerial roles to describe and analyze today's managerial work, but they also add an emergent aspect to leadership behavior regarding self-management and self-leadership.We encourage further research in this direction to examine the aspects discovered in our study that can help to more comprehensively understand what top managers do and how they enact their roles in the face of increasing and changing demands in the arts and cultural sector, and-more generally-in other sectors characterized by creative, innovative, and knowledge-intensive environments.

Table 2 :
extension of Mintzberg's managerial roles for arts and cultural organizations.
* Proposed new category of managerial roles