Tainted museums: ‘selling out’ cultural institutions

• This paper examines the role of museums as repositories of cultural meaning and symbolic capital. As educational and cultural institutions, museums serve to legitimise works of art within the frame of an art historical context. However, our comparative case study reveals how the taken‐for‐granted role of the museum as an allegedly unbiased platform for disseminating the arts can be usurped for economic or political ends. Using the cultural settings of the Hong Kong Museum of Art and the Venezuelan art museum circuit, we examine via our case studies how legitimation in the arts may be jeopardised or misused if and when cultural institutions succumb to commercial and political pressures. By adopting a qualitative research design, we observe the macro‐context in which institutional roles are defined and played out, and demonstrate the ideological discourses at play in the role of these cultural institutions as meaning‐makers. Although they may be presented as neutral spaces, museums inadvertently serve to circulate socio‐political views. How the institution manages these views and unavoidable macro‐level forces will in turn influence the cultural credibility of the museum framework as a legitimising force on the cultural horizon. Attention is devoted to how these pressures can affect the production and consumption of art, offering an alternative perspective on the development of museum policies.

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Retaining the visitor,enhancing the experience: identifying attributes of choice in repeat museum visitation

• How people make choices in relation to cultural and leisure consumption has been explored from the viewpoint of motivation, lifestyle segmentation, and lifecycle. Little is known about the specific characteristics associated with choices to visit, re‐visit, or not to visit a museum. Understanding characteristics of choice, developing incentives, bundled packages, and levels of pricing is an essential element in marketing strategies for museums operating in a competitive leisure marketplace. However, determining what really matters to cultural consumers is complex and methodologies to assist in unraveling such complexities are not easily identified. This study aimed to address ways in which people respond to specific incentives as influences in choosing museum visitation. The study was conducted in two major museums in Australia to determine how useful choice modeling is in identifying features that matter to cultural consumers. The results suggest that choice modeling has much to offer in relation to understanding the benefits people are seeking from a museum experience as well as offering strategic insight into potential collaborative ventures and re‐combinations of existing museum products and services.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Museum pricing: challenges to theory development and practice

• The museum sector has undergone considerable change in the last few decades, which has been a result of both internal and external forces. The topic of pricing in museums, however, has attracted little interest from researchers in the field despite the sector's need to understand it better. This study aimed to address this gap in knowledge. Results of a comprehensive literature review on pricing highlight that the topic of pricing in museums is problematic, as a range of issues, social, political and often value-laden, must be considered before pricing decisions can be made. The study highlights that there is diversity in the sector with regard to pricing, but that museums generally adopt a unilateral approach to pricing. Researchers in entrepreneurial marketing have noted that conventional pricing theory is being turned on its head and they argue that deciding what prices to charge represents one of the more entrepreneurial strategies for organisations. This study indicates that, within the context of museums, marketers are failing to recognise and capitalise on such pricing opportunities. Approaches to setting multiple museum pricing strategies, depending on the market context, are proposed in this paper. In this way, knowledge of museum pricing can optimise the organisational outcomes of museums while continuing to meet their social responsibilities.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An analysis of the managerial performance of Italian museums using a generalised conditional efficiency model

Museums are important cultural institutions having the mission of conserving, interpreting, researching and displaying heritage. The evaluation of their efficiency has been extensively investigated in the literature using different approaches and methods. In this paper, we employ a generalised conditional efficiency model to assess the true efficiency of Italian museums, i.e. the efficiency in the provision of museums' service potential, consistently dealing with the impact of the socio-demographic and institutional environment in which museums operate. Results show that the operational environment matters. In particular, conditional estimates suggest that higher income levels and larger hospitality sectors positively influence museums efficiency. Ownership matters: museums’ service potential is higher for private institutions while, among public institutions, efficiency is generally lower for state-owned museums.     

Ethnocentric tendencies amongst arts audiences

• According to empirical research, the most regular consumers of art are well-to-do, well-educated members of the social elite who, as a socio-demographic group, would not be expected to exhibit ethnocentric tendencies. Yet, curators of arts institutions and art critics have long been concerned that ethnocentrism does exist amongst visitors to museums and art galleries. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the ethnocentric tendencies of arts audiences in Hungary (where, allegedly, individuals are more inclined to exhibit ethnocentric bias) and England (where the opposite is said to be true). The research examined whether ethnocentrism significantly impacted upon perceptions of artworks from (i) a visitor's own country, (ii) a culturally similar and (iii) a culturally dissimilar country. Intentions to attend art exhibitions featuring artists from these countries were then explored. The empirical analysis confirmed that individuals who exhibited ethnocentric tendencies did in fact overvalue the quality of artworks from their home country. Moreover, ethnocentrism within the Hungarian (but not the English) sample had a significant impact on intentions to visit particular types of exhibition.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of the museum shop in extending the visitor experience

• The aim of the research is to assess the role of the museum shop in extending the learning experience in the museum. The research is situated in the theoretical framework of museum experiences and learning. It acknowledges environmental influences on learning, and of consumption sites that synthesise leisure and consumption and create memorable sensory experiences that engage customers.
• The exploratory approach uses mixed methods to examine visitors' knowledge and experience of museums and their shops. The first phase of the research was undertaken with in-depth interviews to scope the experience of museum shops and their contribution to learning. The second phase was undertaken with visitors to the Imperial War Museum (IMW) in London through a convenience sample which elicited 150 responses to a semi-structured questionnaire. The research demonstrates the significance of the museum shop as a destination for museum visitors, and its role in creating experiences that can supplement the museum's educational priorities and a return to the everyday world of familiar objects.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creative marketing strategies in small museums: up close and innovative

• Museums are seeing decreasing resources along with increasing competition (such as the entertainment industry's recent foray into the education arena) for their market share (TiLE, Oct 2002). The prevalent perception that nonprofit institutions as a sector are mismanaged also requires museums to become more businesslike in their management and their marketing (Kotler & Kotler, 1998 ; Andreasen & Kotler, 2002 ; Salamon, 2003 ). Although larger museums have more access to human and economic capital, this article demonstrates how the flexibility and agility of smaller institutions positions them well to leverage their resources with creativity and innovation. To give credibility to the museum examples, the discussion recounts how the American wine industry rose in prominence both at home and abroad by sidestepping traditional marketing research methods, using instead an approach that was more like art.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Visitor orientation and its impact on the financial situation of cultural institutions in Germany

• In Germany, the financing of cultural activities is heavily dependent on state funding. About 90% of cultural funding comes from the public sector. However, because of the precarious state of public finances, funding for cultural activities has been steadily reduced in the last years. Against this background, German cultural institutions are essentially compelled to develop appropriate measures in order to improve their competitive situation in the context of scarce public resources, and to seek additional sources of finance in order to stabilise their situation over the longer term. One of the more suitable means of increasing revenue on an ongoing basis, is to improve and extend the marketing and visitor-related activities themselves. But how should the marketing or visitor orientation be formulated so that it contributes towards the organisation's social mission as well as improves the financial position of the cultural institution? With respect to the particular financing situation of German cultural institutions, this paper will try to give an answer to this question.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fair-trade beliefs,attitudes and buying behaviour of Belgian consumers

• A survey of 858 Belgians (615 people drawn from the general public and 243 visitors to Oxfam World Shops), examined the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and behaviour of consumers with respect to fair-trade issues. The results showed that the respondents' knowledge and attitudes generally supported the fair-trade concept. However, many of the people questioned believed that fair-trade organizations should provide more and better information on fair-trade products, especially in shops and on the items themselves. In addition, fair-trade products should be more readily available in regular supermarkets, and their price should be lowered. The most interesting socio-demographic target group for non-profit fair-trade organizations appears to be older people with higher education and income. Consumers from the south (French-speaking) part of Belgium in general have a more positive attitude towards fair trade.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The behaviour of repeat visitors to museums: review and empirical findings

This study presents a theoretical and operational framework for analysing repeat visit to museums. Starting from the literature on repeat visit in tourism, the specificities of these cultural attractions are made explicit through a review of theoretical and applied works. Consistently with previous contributors, the paper suggests that the analysis of actual past behaviours has to be preferred to the one of attitudes. The application of proper econometric models is also remarked in order to put into account individual profiles. Information coming from three techniques is then used in an integrated way in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the phenomenon. Evidence from an ad hoc survey suggests the necessity to give a greater attention to perceived cultural value during the visit, promoting cultural events during the week and addressed to children, and taking care of those visitors that come from far places also through an integrated tourist supply.     

Learning and relationship orientation: an empirical examination in European museums

• The purpose of this paper is to assess the interrelations between learning orientation, innovation strategy, relationship orientation and economic and social performance in the management of cultural organizations such as museums. We first provide a review of the literature addressing the main constructs involved in the research: learning orientation, innovation, relationship orientation and performance, and we detail the model's hypotheses reflecting the interrelations amongst the proposed variables. Building on extensive literature, a model is developed and empirically tested using survey data collected from 491 European museums in Spain, France, Italy and the UK. Data are analysed through structural equation modelling. In the present study, evidence is found to support the positive and significant link between learning orientation and internal (organizational innovation) as well as external (relationship orientation) changes in museums. Further, we find that organizational innovation and relationship orientation aid the introduction of greater technological developments in these organizations. We also find evidence to support the idea that learning orientation, innovation strategy and relationship orientation impact the economic and social performance of museums. Findings clearly show that achieving organizational objectives through learning processes necessarily entails the introduction of internal changes—innovation—and external relationships—relationship orientation.

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Job security as a threatened resource: reactions to job insecurity in culturally distinct regions

As downsizing and restructuring have become global phenomena, the impact of job insecurity on employee attitudes has received significant attention. However, research examining the role of cultural dimensions has been largely unexplored. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we investigated whether the relationships between both quantitative job insecurity (i.e. the perceived threat of job loss) and qualitative job insecurity (i.e. the perceived threat of losing valued job features) and employee attitudes (job satisfaction and turnover intention) differ in culturally distinct regions. This was examined using representative employee samples from two regions of Switzerland which differ in societal practices uncertainty avoidance and performance orientation: the German-speaking (n = 966) and the French-speaking (n = 307) regions. Our research indicates that whereas the relationship between quantitative job insecurity and turnover intention is stronger in the French-speaking region where there is higher societal practice uncertainty avoidance, the relationship between qualitative job insecurity and job satisfaction is stronger in the German-speaking region where there is higher societal practice performance orientation.     

Creating customer,museum and social value through digital technologies: Evidence from the MANN Assiri project

The object of museums is to reflect and respond to the cultural capital inherent in people and achieve their full citizenship potential. New technologies are considered essential to attract new audiences and improve access to museums. There are no current studies linking the application of new technologies in museums to an increase in value creation for visitors and for society. The aim of this study is to address this gap in the research. To this end, a questionnaire was distributed among visitors to the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) who used augmented reality (AR) technology to experience an exhibition artifact.Data analysis was carried out via multiple correspondence analysis and hierarchical agglomerative clustering analysis. The results show that new technologies could play a significant part in creating value for visitors, for the museum and for society as a whole.     

THE SOCIAL ROLE OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE IN BRITAIN: AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE. PART II

In Part I of this paper,²it was suggested that a concern for the social responsibilities of large business enterprises had received far less explicit attention in Britain than it has in the United States. In the latter it has preoccupied corporate managers, business critics, scholars, trade unionists and the general public for more than a generation. My analysis of the reasons for the comparatively lower degree of British concern with the social role of business enterprise stressed the importance of the following seven factors:

• 1 There exists in Britain (relative to the United States) greater reliance on publicly owned enterprises about which the public policy debate concerning the social role of business institutions has been focused.
• 2 British acceptance of corporate size and market dominance is greater than in the United States.
• 3 A long-standing governmental involvement in economy and society has characterized Britain's political economy.
• 4 A pre-emption of societal leadership functions by non-business élites has occurred in Britain.
• 5 The impact of Britain's social structure has produced an informal Clite consensus regarding a limited social role for business.
• 6 There is a British tradition of according privacy to business and other social institutions.
• 7 There is a lesser degree of‘professionalism’ in management practice–both in terms of substance and style–in Britain when compared with the United States.

     

Free admission to museums and monuments: an exploration of some perceptions of the audiences

• This paper considers the theme of the audiences' perceptions of free admission in national French museums and monuments. The results show that, from an individual perspective, perceptions of free admission are linked to perceptions of price, money and payment, hence complementing perceptions expressed in a collective perspective (a symbolic, political measure causing either adhesion or rejection). These perspectives are generally put forward by both advocates and opponents of the measure in their discussions. These different visions of free admission have managerial implications for managers of museums and monuments.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the impact of organizational learning and innovation on performance in cultural organizations

• Product innovation, technological innovation and organizational innovations are the key to helping cultural organizations achieve their social mission and achieve efficiency. This innovation strategy and the outcomes depend on introducing learning orientation into the organization. The current work analyses the relationship between learning orientation, innovativeness and performance for the case of 386 British, French and Spanish museums. Findings indicate that learning orientation significantly influences both innovativeness and performance. Further, whereas technological and organizational innovations are related to economic performance, product innovations have a greater impact on social performance.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

In the frame: investigating the use of mobile phone photography in museums

• The ubiquitous use of mobile phone technology to capture photographic images has rapidly become an accepted feature of our social and cultural lifestyle. From the capture of photographic images in a social setting to the evening news reports of the 7/7 suicide bombings that led with phone video footage taken by a member of the public, mobile phone photography has rapidly become embedded in everyday life and presents a new set of challenges for marketers in all sectors. Within the heritage sector, mobile phone photography presents new methods for visitors to interact with and interpret historic sites, buildings and artefacts. This paper explores the use of mobile phone photography within the museum setting through an empirical study conducted at the National Football Museum in Preston, UK. It discusses the role of mobile phone photography in the visitor experience, in formal and informal learning provision, in stimulating the motivation to learn and in encouraging social interaction with visitor groups. The paper concludes with the identification of potential marketing opportunities for the museum and wider heritage sector.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

(Rethinking) the measurement of service quality in museums and galleries

Measurement of service quality has been instrumental in making service industries more competitive. The new era of accountability in the museum sector means that if museums and galleries are to be successful in growing visitor numbers and developing greater access, they must learn more about the factors that are important to visitors' evaluation of service quality. The aim of this study is to understand the concepts that are significant to visitors engaging in museum experiences. A repertory grid study was conducted among visitors to 11 prominent London museums; the results suggest that there is greater variety of factors influencing their decisions than is measured by traditional approaches to visitor satisfaction surveys. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications     

‘Escaping to the gallery’: understanding the motivations of visitors to galleries

• Whilst market research and academic studies by sociologists have identified the personal and socio-cultural factors that influence visits to galleries, there has been less attention to the area of motivational research. Understanding motivations is important as it reveals the underlying reasons why visitors choose to participate in specific leisure activities. This paper focuses on the motivations of two groups of visitors at events at an art gallery. A pre-tested motivational scale built around three factors, learning, social/family interaction and Escapism explained 71.5% of variance. Escapism explained 29.4% of that variance and was the core motivation. The findings of the research are important to both academics and practitioners as previously learning was thought to be the main motivation. This study should be replicated in other settings to evaluate whether gallery and museum managers need to re-consider the purpose, content and marketing of their programmes in a post-modern society.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Insights into Innovation in European Museums

Abstract

Innovation has become a key tool enabling museums to adapt to the major changes that have taken place in recent decades in the milieu in which such organizations operate. However, countries' differing cultural policies, coupled with the particular nature of museums themselves (size, type of collection, organizational structure, system of funding, etc.), have a practical impact on the ability of such organizations to innovate and adapt to the new situation. In this context, our study posits three aspects through which innovation may appear in museums: technological innovation in management, technological innovation in visitor experience and organizational innovation. We also explore the extent to which the nature of cultural policies in different countries, how museums are managed and their size and funding impact each type of innovation. The empirical analysis was conducted for art and history museums in four European countries: France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. We felt that exploring these relations in cultural organizations would be of interest and would make an important contribution to the field.