Assessing the business impact of Arts-Based Initiatives

This chapter provides indications on how to apply the analytic hierarchy process, as an expert method to support the practical implementation of the Arts Value Map as a framework to analyses and assess the impact of arts-based initiatives (ABIs). The evaluation of the business impacts of ABIs presents multiple challenges, like the variety of stakeholders&s; perspectives and interests involved in artistic initiatives. The Arts value Map is a narrative assessment approach that can be deployed as a complementary framework into other approaches and tools to understand the benefits of bringing the arts in companies as innovative managerial instruments to face business challenges. In order to measure the impact of the use of the arts in organizations the chapter proposes the use of causal maps. Causal maps can support the assessment process providing a visualization of how the different variables of the phenomenon under investigation are interrelated.