Turbulence within and beyond resilience in public organizations: a study of Italian opera theatres

This chapter analyses change in the opera sector in Italy over the last 100 years and shows how opera theatres (OTs) addressed turbulence challenging their relevance, public support, and future. Public policies and organizational transformations are mapped over time as well as the professional transformations of artistic work. Such change is presented within a framework of resilience. Methodologically, the chapter resorts to a multiple case-study approach to explore the widest variety of cases according to theoretical hypotheses. Theoretical sampling guided a selection of cases that address the critical variables of our study: existence, continuity of essence, change, and resilience. The chapter investigates three questions, the first of which is whether public organizations are resilient. The second question explores what distinguishes organizations that are resilient from those that are not. The third question addresses the different kinds of change occurring within and outside of resilience. The findings suggest organizations that survive and display resilience earn symbolic significance that draws political consent. They obtain good reputations in their fields, which enhances survival and resilience. In contrast, non-resilient organizations were found to lack critical attributes, such as a good reputation and political appeal.