Cultural Institutes – Enablers of Sustainable Development

Abstract The primary goal of this study is to examine the role of culture - as one of the most enduring, vital and long-lived components of sustainable development, with multifarious potential continuously explored and capitalized by individuals, communities or institutions. All definitions of the phrase sustainable development include culture as a sine-qua-non element that is also inextricably connected and interdependent with the other three pillars: economic, social and environmental. In this context of cultural centres worldwide, Confucius Institutes represent a successful and efficient managerial model by capitalizing on the most important resource of an organization: human capital.