This article originates from a review of the state of the art of cultural management training in Chile carried out by the author as part of his doctoral research. Its main objective is to analyze, understand and explain the factors that have influenced the evolution of a training and academic field dedicated to cultural management in Chile, recognizing that this process is still in development. To achieve this purpose, a bibliographic review has been carried out that addresses various aspects, such as the emergence of cultural management, the process of professionalization in this field, as well as the emergence of training programs in cultural management at the global level and, particularly, in the Chilean context, where the relevant cultural agents that allowed its emergence are analyzed. The results of this study provide an explanatory framework for the emergence of university education in cultural management in Chile, configured from the interaction of sociocultural, political, economic and cognitive factors that have taken place in the historical context characterized by the advance of capitalism worldwide and the globalization process, especially during the last decades of the twentieth century, and that continue to influence today.