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UK museums: Safe and sound?
Abstract
The new millennium finds UK museums confronting change in their markets and a new political environment.Recent research has shown that the museum market is static. Sustainability may be difficult for many, with only those that are small and run by volunteers escaping financial difficulties. Alongside these market factors, and following the election of the Labour government, museums are being expected to confront new challenges. While much government policy continues the thrust of the previous administration ‐ especially the focus on the national museums and galleries ‐ there have been some distinctive shifts, especially in respect of admission charges. Besides devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, an increasingly important English regional agenda has developed, in which museums are expected to play a significant role.Other influences have also had a considerable impact, such as the advent of Best Value, which requires museums funded by local councils to demonstrate their efficiency and effectiveness, and the National Lottery's significant investment in museum capital projects. While this has created some exciting new projects, it has also added to museums’ running costs at a time when market conditions are difficult. Additionally, limited opportunities for employees to progress and develop, and uncompetitive pay, make museums an unattractive career choice, thereby depriving them of the talent that will be needed to meet the public's changing needs.All these issues provide a reason for central government to understand better the issues faced by the museum sector as a whole, and regional museums and galleries in particular. Without such national guidance, and opportunities for strategic change and rationalisation, museums may close in a disordered way, and their collections lost. In this way, the legacy of this generation to the next may be in danger.
... More sources of income, projectification, and shorter term employment. A clear effect of reforms of the governance of the arts and cultural sector in European countries in recent decades is that the types and number of sources of funding have increased at the same time that a trend toward projectification is clearly recognizable (Babbidge 2000). Funds are increasingly granted on project basis, and this has led to restructuring the employment conditions in the field and in the fundraising work within organizations. ...
... Such evidence-based policies entail increasing levels of auditing and performance measurement as means of management control. In this way, cultural organizations have increasingly become a vehicle for government regeneration plans, entailing expected social, cultural, and economic benefits from investment in museum organizations, resulting in increasing demands on efficiency and effectiveness from government (Babbidge 2000(Babbidge , 2005Belfiore 2004;Gray 2008;Saumarez Smith 2001). In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, the relationships between funding parties and cultural organizations have become more formalized due to this change in governance, with an increasing element of documents and contracts stating demands and obligations (Belfiore 2004;Cairns et al. 2005). ...
... This probably has to do with the relatively easy access to economic data in comparison to less institutionalized parts of the cultural sector. Kawashima (1999), Babbidge (2000Babbidge ( , 2005, Saumarez Smith (2001), Thompson (2003), Fedeli and Santoni (2006), and Gray (2008) all analyzed this sector. ...
This article investigates the effects that public sector reforms had in the cultural field in European countries over the past two decades. The study highlights changing conditions for public/nonprofit management due to governance and public sector reforms. It does so by applying a multidisciplinary literature survey methodology, which is rare in management studies. The literature survey identifies macrolevel trends such as projectification and shorter term employment; new organizational forms, decentralization, and fragmentation of control; frequent external audits; cultural governance replacing state culture in east European countries and the fact that museums are studied more than other types of organizations; and organizational-level trends, such as strategies of managerialization, policy attachment, and instrumentalization, managing to audit and symbolic management, and tensions within professional roles. The study, furthermore, points to the difficulty of reaching a deep understanding of the management of arts and cultural organizations from a general management perspective.
... More sources of income, projectification, and shorter term employment. A clear effect of reforms of the governance of the arts and cultural sector in European countries in recent decades is that the types and number of sources of funding have increased at the same time that a trend toward projectification is clearly recognizable (Babbidge 2000). Funds are increasingly granted on project basis, and this has led to restructuring the employment conditions in the field and in the fundraising work within organizations. ...
... Stoker (2002) described this situation, characterized by low trust and unpredictable en-vironments, temporary alliances and networks, as governance by lottery, whereas Hood (2007) called it "contrived randomness" (cf. Babbidge 2005). ...
... Such evidence-based policies entail increasing levels of auditing and performance measurement as means of management control. In this way, cultural organizations have increasingly become a vehicle for government regeneration plans, entailing expected social, cultural, and economic benefits from investment in museum organizations, resulting in increasing demands on efficiency and effectiveness from government (Babbidge 2000(Babbidge , 2005Belfiore 2004;Gray 2008;Saumarez Smith 2001). In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, the relationships between funding parties and cultural organizations have become more formalized due to this change in governance, with an increasing element of documents and contracts stating demands and obligations (Belfiore 2004;Cairns et al. 2005). ...
This article investigates the effects that public sector reforms had in the cultural field in European countries over the past two decades. The study highlights changing conditions for public/nonprofit management due to governance and public sector reforms. It does so by applying a multidisciplinary literature survey methodology, which is rare in management studies. The literature survey identifies macrolevel trends such as projectification and shorter term employment; new organizational forms, decentralization, and fragmentation of control; frequent external audits; cultural governance replacing state culture in east European countries and the fact that museums are studied more than other types of organizations; and organizational-level trends, such as strategies of managerialization, policy attachment, and instrumentalization, managing to audit and symbolic management, and tensions within professional roles. The study, furthermore, points to the difficulty of reaching a deep understanding of the management of arts and cultural organizations from a general management perspective.
... expositions, educational activities, conferences, etc. that promote sustainability, such as the adoption of socially responsible behaviours towards new citizens and new generations (Janes and Conaty 2005). Less attention has been given to the economic dimension of sustainability (Babbidge 2000;Wild 2011;Lindqvist 2012;Woodward 2012 ...
... Considering its importance for museum survival, literature on museum management has dealt with economic sustainability independently of the crucial issue of sustainable development (Babbidge 2000;Wild 2011;Lindqvist 2012;Woodward 2012). A museum is economically sustainable if it improves its performances, not only securing additional funding but also using its scant resources better, according to the British model of "efficiency with a conscience" (National Trust, Strategic Plan 2004-2007. ...
Purpose – The theme of sustainability in museums has not been sufficiently explored in the international literature on cultural heritage management as well as few museums are already involved in programs to promote sustainable development. Considering this gap, the purpose of this study is twofold. Firstly, to provide a conceptual model applying the principles of sustainable development to the enhancement of cultural heritage and, secondly, to analyze the case of Marche Region.
Design – After analysing the three dimensions of sustainability – environmental, social and economic – and their possible application to museum management, the research tested the theoretical assumptions through an exploratory qualitative/ quantitative survey.
Methodology –The structured questionnaire was submitted to a sample of museums and consisted of a wide range of questions, primarily, although not exclusively, quantitative, which examined both museum management and sustainability orientation.
Approach – The analysis focused on two different dimensions: the first aimed at understanding the perception of sustainability and the value of its components, the second aimed at investigating museums’ willingness and reasons to engage in concrete sustainability-oriented actions.
Finding – The field research showed Marche Region’s museums have a full awareness of the benefits of sustainable management. However, the lack of a managerial approach to the museums’ development compromises their ability to transfer this orientation in operational policies.
Originality of research – The paper provides a multidimensional model for measuring the level of museum sustainability, able to analyze cultural and behavioral components. This analysis identifies possible areas of intervention for regional policies aimed at improving sustainability orientation of museums.
... Les travaux qui se sont penchés sur la question portent notamment sur la participation philanthropique au sein des grands projets culturels (Di Maggio et Powell, 1991), ou encore sur le leadership (Sandell et Janes, 2007) des administrateurs de musées, de théâtres ou d'opéras et sur leur capacité à recueillir des fonds auprès des donateurs privés et des fondations philanthropiques. D'autres se sont intéressés à l'inégalité de la redistribution des dons de charité dans le champ culturel, profilant ainsi une « philanthropie à deux vitesses », structurée sur des clivages disciplinaires, régionaux, voire sur des tensions entre classes sociales (Babbidge, 2000). Ce thème semblait bien maîtrisé par les chercheurs qui s'intéressent au champ culturel. ...
En Angleterre, depuis quelques annees, on constate d’importantes transformations dans les pratiques et les valeurs de la philanthropie culturelle. Des aspirations sociales de la bourgeoisie industrielle a l’emulation du leadership organisationnel, la philanthropie culturelle aurait entrepris un virage social. L’article documente l’evolution de l’identite de la philanthropie culturelle ainsi que ses liens avec les politiques et les organisations culturelles de l’Angleterre au cours des trente dernieres annees. Ce faisant, il prend en compte l’evolution des politiques culturelles conservatrices (1979-1997) et travaillistes (1997-2010). La reinvention « sociale » de la philanthropie culturelle represente un veritable defi pour les organisations culturelles, et notamment pour les musees nationaux, qui sont desormais moins les destinataires de l’aide que les instruments pour realiser les ambitions et les projets sociaux de leurs philanthropes.
... Over the last two decades, curators and other museum professionals have faced a number of challenges emerging from society, governmental powers, and the transformations that have been taking place in museums as they have become more permeable to market pressures and demands. Defined as either public or not-for-profit organizations (International Council of Museums 2007), museums have been under pressure, by either their governments (Babbidge 2000;Belfiore 2008) or trusted philanthropists (Hewison 2004(Hewison , 2006, to renew their organizations through entrepreneurial spirit and aim toward greater selfreliance. This research was interested in the effects of these transformations on the careers of museum professionals and focused on their normative conceptions of work and organization and how these profound changes might have influenced the ways in which they accounted for their identity and organizations. ...
Professional life histories and organizational stories rarely follow the model of beginnings, middles, and ends. Most interviews end up being subjected to what Boje (2008. Storytelling organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage) refers to as the spiral of story disorder. However, some storytelling strategies are often used by interviewees to produce a coherent projection of the self and convey a unified professional ethos. This is the role the time and space of childhood – the childhood chronotope – plays in professional life histories. Childhood is often used by storytellers to bring coherence to their organizational stories – and this is no truer than in the context of interviews. Based on interviews from museum directors, this article illustrates how the childhood chronotope might be a meaningful notion for narrative analysis in organizational studies: childhood is mobilized and reinvested by the individual's self-construction in order to produce a sense of coherence and control over his or her organizational experience and professional self.
... There has been a huge upswing in the establishment of new museums and galleries in last 40 years. As Babbidge (2005: 44) notes: "The threefold increase in the museums population that has taken place over [1960-2000, further fueled by a growth independent museums in the 1970/80s (Babbidge, 2000)] has mainly been adventitious, often enabled by employment and regeneration policies rather than purposeful interventions of cultural policy." ...
This paper questions the conventional limits of regeneration and highlights the limited range of approaches, especially in relation to cultural institutions and their multiplicity of audiences, and the fact that different policies evoke, or construct, various ‘publics’, ‘visitors’ and ‘audiences’. The question of who gains and looses is given an extra twist when the object or instrument of regeneration is a cultural institution: a gallery or museum. To this end we identify the manifest tensions between the instrumentalisation of museums and galleries, and the potential to undermine their core purpose. We draw upon a second literature of museology to provide contrasting notions of audience and inclusion since such analyses sensitize the debate regarding audience and regeneration and will illustrate these issues by reference to Tate Modern in London.
The aim of this paper has been to address the apparent paradox that culture has been the high-profile victim of funding cuts in the period of austerity; at the same time, culture has prospered. Is culture then the ‘poster child for resilience’? The paper seeks to de-couple the notion from neo-liberalism and austerity. It counters with an argument that resilience as a concept is relational, it does not have a unitary meaning and its forms will change depending on context (that is, the cultural field and the field of governance). Hence, the strange survival of culture is explained not by austerity, but by the dynamism of the cultural field. However, this disjunction between governance and culture also carried a number of risks and problems.
In management and arts management literature, mentoring is generally associated with social reproduction and emulation, and illustrates a phenomenon that is rather conservative in nature. Rarely is mentoring associated with change. In this article, we explore how mentoring has been a force of renewal for the institutional culture of British museums. This qualitative research brings attention to mentoring as a lever for cultural change through the experience of a new cohort of museum directors—one that has translated a new vision and approach to museums and the public into reality, and has brought forward the Labour government's cultural policy ideals.
Economic crises directly and indirectly affect the financial health of museums. Despite this reality, however, analysing the impact of the economic cycle on museums has not generated much interest among researchers; to date published studies on the recent financial crisis and its reverberations in the museum sector are rare. This article, after acknowledging this lack of research, discusses specific challenges facing the financial management of museums and identifies the need for additional empirical research on the problems facing these institutions. Based on the author's findings in published research and accumulated field experience, the article identifies income originating from various museum stakeholders and examines the vulnerability of these funds to fluctuations in the economy. While most museum income streams are not found to be particularly vulnerable to economic fluctuation, structural challenges for the financial management of museums do exist beyond economic crises. Therefore, the management of long-term, stakeholder relationships is a more reliable way of achieving financial stability than the implementation of short-term strategies to counter the effects of a recession and financial crises.
What influences the probability that a conference facility will refurbish? This is an important question as such information can inform conference organisers when selecting a venue. This paper presents an econometric analysis of the probability of conference venue refurbishment with a particular focus on the sector differences (purpose-built, educational establishments, visitor attractions and hotels) and time since previous refurbishment. We test the hypotheses that there are scale and growth effects and whether the presence of disabled facilities influences the probability that a conference venue will refurbish.
The starting point for this article is the author's 1994 study of the museums and galleries' market, By Popular Demand. The article sets out to look at some of the key findings and track any developments in the 10 years since its publication. The article examines both quantitative and qualitative evidence from national (rather than local or regional) data. The subject matter covered includes the old questions of how many visits are made to UK museums and galleries each year, who visits and why do they visit. This is a period only partly impacted upon by the policy initiatives of New Labour, notably free admission to the national museums and galleries and the Renaissance in the Regions programme. The author demonstrates that, at best, the total number of visits grew only a little and those who visit became more middle class and more middle aged rather more than the population did itself in these years. Museums and galleries might maintain their audiences but they were not expanding them or broadening their social appeal. This alone was sufficient justification for New Labour's policies, the early stages of which seem to have been successful.
This polemic addresses the political expectations of museums in England. Its starting point is the premise of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that museums make a significant contribution to regional economies, if not to the national economy. Political expediency requires museums to provide evidence for their economic worth. But it could be argued that estimates of museums' economic impact are devalued by being blatantly constructed for the purposes of advocacy. This paper explores various issues that inform the practice of associating museums with economic development. It considers whether the government's cultural policies and aspirations have served to misrepresent (if not exaggerate) the economic impact that museums currently exert, or are deemed capable of exerting. It closes by suggesting that there are some ambiguities in the commitment of the DCMS to the premise that museums are economically important, and by examining implications for the future.
Funding for London museums has increased enormously in recent years. The lottery has contributed hundreds of millions of pounds for capital developments; central government revenue in the tens of millions goes to funding free admission to the national museums and galleries. The research described in this paper focuses on museums that opened lottery-funded capital projects in 2000, and on the relationship between this additional funding and museum attendance. The authors found that the extra money led to extra visits—and for the first time attempted to calculate what those visits cost. This research also looks at whether people chose improved museums over other museums, and briefly investigates the impact on attendance of the outbreak of foot and mouth disease and the downturn in tourism following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
At the beginning of the 21st century museums are challenged on a number of fronts. The prioritisation of learning in museums in the context of demands for social justice and cultural democracy combined with cultural policy based on economic rationalism forces museums to review their educational purposes, redesign their pedagogies and account for their performance. The need to theorise learning and culture for a cultural theory of learning is very pressing. If culture acts as a process of signification, a means of producing meaning that shapes worldviews, learning in museums and other cultural organisations is potentially dynamic and profound, producing self-identities. How is this complexity to be 'measured'? What can this 'measurement' reveal about the character of museum-based learning? The calibration of culture is an international phenomenon, and the measurement of the outcomes and impact of learning in museums in England has provided a detailed case study. Three national evaluation studies were carried out between 2003 and 2006 based on the conceptual framework of Generic Learning Outcomes. Using this revealing data Museums and Education reveals the power of museum pedagogy and as it does, questions are raised about traditional museum culture and the potential and challenge for museum futures is suggested.
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