Research on cultural intermediaries has frequently highlighted their roles that shape, regulate, organize, and govern processes of value formation and legitimization in creative economies. Here we move beyond a focus on individual brokers in cultural intermediary occupations to examine cultural intermediary work performed by organizations, focusing on strategies of organizational intermediary work which aim to foster social engagement. Our research study examines the arts-service organization (ASO) sector—member-directed representative professional bodies that serve the interests of their members as well as their artistic discipline and the public—through a quantitative survey mapping the sector in Canada and through semi-structured interviews. In this article, we highlight organizational intermediation strategies in the ASO sector, including fostering diverse representation; reflexivity and learning; and collaboration, discussing challenges and opportunities in these areas. We position the varied strategies of organizational intermediation as one way to communicate the work and worth of developing social engagement, which is often otherwise intangible and challenging to communicate and highlight.

对文化中介的研究经常强调它们在创意经济中塑造、规范、组织和管理价值形成和合法化过程的作用。在这里，我们不再关注文化中介职业中的个人经纪人，而是检查组织执行的文化中介工作，重点关注旨在促进社会参与的组织中介工作策略。我们的研究通过对加拿大行业的定量调查和半结构化面试。在本文中，我们重点介绍了 ASO 领域的组织中介策略，包括促进多样化的代表性；反思和学习；和合作，讨论这些领域的挑战和机遇。我们将组织中介的各种策略定位为一种沟通工作和发展社会参与价值的方式，这通常是无形的，难以沟通和强调。