No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Planning ahead
Strategic management is a familiar concept in for-profit organisations but is relatively new to museums. This paper presents and discusses a model of strategic management for visitor-oriented museums that aims to be more comprehensive than current approaches. It shows how museums can overcome the tension between the strategic demand to develop visitor-oriented museum services and the duties and social mandate of museums as public institutions that are defined by cultural policy—enabling access to cultural heritage, promoting broad cultural participation and providing informal education. Visitor-oriented strategic museum management is concerned with attracting a variety of visitors as well as the development of museum services that are appropriate to diverse museum audiences. The model presented here emphasises the comprehensive strategic management concept. Audience research and evaluation are shown to be valuable analytic and revision tools for strategic management in visitor-oriented museums.
Partnerships have become more prevalent in the delivery of public services, particularly in relation to non-traditional sectors such as culture, arts and leisure. This paper presents a synthesis of research on partnerships and their relevance to local museums in the light of recent government policy. The relevance of partnerships to this sector is explored through a case study of four local authorities in Northern Ireland that partnered to form a regional museum service. Qualitative interviews revealed that despite the small scale of the partnership, a number of benefits have been delivered and that the partnership mechanism can work for organisations with little in the way of resources. Much of the success of the case study partnership can be attributed to the skills and leadership of the appointed member of staff. Further research is recommended to map the type, scope and purpose of museum partnerships in order to develop a typology for this sector and to evaluate current government policy.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.