3-I Cultural Values for ABC-P
Excerpt from IFACCA 10th World Summit
Excerpt from the presentation at the 10th World Summit on Arts and Culture (Co-hosted by IFACCA & Arts Council Korea, Seoul, May 27–30, 2025)
Written by Hae-Bo KIM
The full text can be downloaded from the link below.
.......In 2008, I proposed an alternative framework to better support values-centered innovation in public cultural services. My model emphasized the need to first understand the components of cultural value and their mechanisms of exchange. In this paper, I adapted John Holden’s(2006) “3-I Values for 3-P Model” to categorize the value of arts and culture into three dimensions: Intrinsic Value, Industrial Value, and Instrumental Value. Here, Industrial Value refers to the value that generates direct economic profit. When combined with Instrumental Value, which is realized indirectly and over the long term, it is understood more broadly as Economic Value.
I later developed this framework further into what I call the <3-I Values of Culture for ABC model>. In this version: Artists & Academia represent those primarily engaged with Intrinsic Value (the inherent and aesthetic worth of culture), Business actors are aligned with Industrial Value (market-based, monetizable aspects), and Civic actors (government and public institutions, and citizens) are concerned with Instrumental Value (social impact, indirect benefits). In this framework, Social Value is understood as the most comprehensive form of value, integrating both Intrinsic and Economic value (which itself includes Industrial and Instrumental value). As previously discussed in relation to the concept of Gyeong-Se-Je-Min(經世濟民), we can move beyond a narrow, price-based notion of economy. Instead of focusing solely on how much profit culture can generate(Industrial Value), we must include the Instrumental Value of culture: long-term, indirect, and social effects that shape people’s lives and communities. In this view, the social is economic, and the economic must also be social.
To capture the dynamics that influence both the volume and nature of cultural value exchange, I proposed an upgraded version: the <3-I Cultural Values for ABC-P> model. This extended framework introduces three P-factors—Platform, Policy, and Philosophy—that significantly shape how the A-B-C stakeholders perceive and transact cultural value. This is because the value of culture is not fixed; it is easily influenced by the values of actors and changes in external conditions such as technological developments. Platform refers to the venues and infrastructures (both online and offline, public and private) where cultural value is exchanged. Policy encompasses the regulatory and institutional systems that influence or govern actors’ behavior on those platforms. Philosophy reflects the worldviews, value systems, and ethical orientations that shape how each actor defines and evaluates cultural worth. Although all three P-factors affect each ABC stakeholder group, they have particularly strong pairings as below. Moreover, the 3-I ABC-P model, through its visual representation, helps us intuitively understand how the cultural ecosystem tilts toward one side depending on the relative strength of key control factors in cultural value transactions.
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In his 2008 work, I (Hae-Bo KIM) proposed a simplified interpretation of the detailed components of the 3-I Cultural Values framework. Each value was paired with dual aspects: Intrinsic Value: Image – Story, Industrial Value: Cash – Credit, Instrumental Value: Development – Sustainability. At the time, the dominant tendency in cultural policy was to prioritize tangible elements—things that were visible, measurable, and rational. However, with rapid technological advancement and shifting societal paradigms, attention has increasingly turned toward intangible components—those that are ambiguous or non-material, yet undeniably present and powerful. If we apply the Eastern concept of Gi-Jeong (奇正) to this evolution, we might interpret what is already institutionalized and widely accepted as Jeong (正, tangible), while what remains uncertain or emergent as Gi (奇, intangible).
