Standards, guidelines and scheduling for local museum accreditation. The case study of the Marche Region.

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 analysing the Marche Region’s local museum conditions, this paper presents a sustainable framework for museum accreditation at regional level (macro- and mesoperspectives), providing guidelines and scheduling to lead the application of museum standards. According to 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.