The Value-Focused Approach to Museum Management in Italy: State-of-the-Art and Further Development

During the last decades, research on cultural management has studied standards and indicators for museum accreditation (micro-perspective). However, these studies have not yet focused on processes and procedures to progressively accomplish the different steps for museum improvement and development. In addition, they have not concentrated on relationships between museums and other organizations, both private and public, which operate at different institutional levels and are involved in cultural heritage management. After tracing the different steps of public sector’s reforms in Italy involving museum management and governance, the article presents a sustainable multidimensional framework for museum accreditation at regional level (macro- and meso-perspectives), providing guidelines and scheduling to lead the application of museum standards. Sharing suggestions coming from new public management and public governance, standards are not only tools to measure, evaluate and improve museum performance, but are also useful to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of museum programmes and to assist in defining goals and planning strategies.