quality improvment in museums using organizational diagnosis
DESCRIPTION
Financial problems of the public system indicate the necessity to reform it following the private organizations’ model. In the field of public institutions, museums have a special place for two reasons: the specific nature of the needs they address in the society, and the intense competition they face. Based on these aspects, the purpose of this paper is to show how museums can improve their quality in order to gain a competitive advantage. Unlike previous studies, which have been focused on measuring the quality of museums, this article proposes the use of organizational diagnosis as a tool to improve quality in museums. The case study summarizes the main quality problems and improvement measures proposed within the organizational diagnosis of «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art. This paper may be useful both as a model for other museums on how to improve quality by using organizational diagnosis, and as a benchmarking data source.TRANSCRIPT
Doctoral Workshop: Academic Writing Techniques Used in Economic ResearchCluj Napoca, Romania, 2014
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Content
Why it is necessary to improve the quality of museums?
What does “the quality of museums” mean?
How to improve the quality of museums?
Case study: improving the quality of products and services offered by «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art
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Intense competition Budget constrains Substitutes
The need for quality improvement in museums
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solution
Increasing the quality of products, services and experiences
Competitive advantages:
efects
Differentiation from competitors
Increasing customer loyalty
Frequent visits
Positive advertisement
Enhance the organizational performance
Public quality of museumsPublic quality of museums: a quality service is a service that meets the needs, desires and expectations of consumers, offering them an experience with which they are satisfied.
Professional quality of museumsProfessional quality of museums: the importance, value, state of preservation and research of the collections held by a museum.
The concept of museum quality
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Objective indicators:Objective indicators: the museum visitation rate, the ratio of subsidy to own revenues, and the existence or absence of accreditation.
Subjective indicatorsSubjective indicators: SERVQUAL, HISTOQUAL.
Measuring the quality of museums
Improving the quality of museums
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Organizational diagnosis Organizational diagnosis seeks primarily to measure the performance of the analyzed organization and to identify the causes of performance gaps, respectively the most effective solutions to increase performance.
Performing an organizational diagnosis will enable managers to improve the quality of products, services and experiences offered to visitors.
Organizational diagnosis
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Performing an organizational diagnosis – steps:
Organizational diagnosis
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Performing an organizational diagnosis – items:
Organizational diagnosis in museums
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The museum value chain
Source: Porter, 2006)
The functional areas considered in the diagnosis of a museum internal environment: management, marketing, human resources, financial and economic, heritage, technological and production.
Organizational diagnosis in museums
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Aggregating the information from internal and external environment diagnosis of an organization allows identifying the causes of quality problems and the measures required to eliminate them.
Lack of accreditation
The number of visitors
The ratio between own income and total revenue
The level of own revenues collected compared to the Mineralogy Museum from Baia Mare
Improving the quality of products and services offered by «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art
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Indicator2012
Baia Mare Mineralogy Museum
MJACABM
Total revenue -lei- 1=2+3 1,049,630 977,000
Subsidies -lei- 2 808,080 950,000Own income -lei- 3=4+5+6+7+8 241,550 27,000Tickets -lei- 4 55,085 18,714Museum products -lei- 5 115,119 8,286Museum services -lei- 6 3,618 0
Rents -lei- 7 9,346 0Grants -lei- 8 58,382 0
Source: Authors’ contribution
MJACABM and the leader revenue structure
The number of visitors
Improving the quality of products and services offered by «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art
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Source: Authors’ contribution
Visitor dynamics for the Mineralogy Museum and the Art MuseumYear The Mineralogy Museum The Art Museum
Visitors The annual growth rate
Visitors The annual growth rate
2009 31,813 - 3,093 -2010 31,973 0.5% 12,399 300.87%2011 39,757 24.35% 17,370 40.09%2012 49,981 25.72% 29,858 71.89%2013 - - 27,689 -7.26%
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Product nameSales 2013 (pc)
Year of production / purchase
Quantity produced
(pc)
Annual sales rate
Years of full stock
sale
1 2 3 4 5=2/4 6=1/5“The Artist and the power” album
36 2012 60 60,00% 1.67
Hungarian Museum DVD
67 2010 300 22,33% 4.48
Romanian Museum DVD 38 2010 300 12,67% 7.89Postcards - 115 different types
1984 2007-2011 258.000 0,77% 130.04
Art catalogue Alina Roşca
1 2008 500 0,20% 500.00
Sales extract 2013
Source: Authors’ contribution
Improving the quality of products and services offered by «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art
Low level of sales =
weak public quality of products
provide future publications for which there is market demand
wider range of products
products related to the city and countyartwork posterscustomized products with images of museum:
–mugs, key chains, magnets, T-shirts, caps, –umbrellas, pens, scarves, handbags, –bracelets, puzzles, notebooks, medallions, –wallets, vases, photo frames etc.
The Museum of Art has had 20.123 less visitors than the Mineralogy Museum, in 2012.
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Improving the quality of products and services offered by «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art
improvement efforts have to be continued
The services offered by the museum must undergo a process of diversification.
The visiting experience may be improved by: (1) posting precise orientation signs inside the exhibition rooms; (2) implementing complex virtual reality systems (eLearning, and edutainment).
Within educational programmes, special attention must be paid to the guiding activities and the educational programmes.
between 2007 and 2012 only 4 guiding tickets have been sold
solutions
(1) developing a standard guide by the specialists;
(2) endowment with audio guides that can be provided to the visitors, in exchange of a fee.
only 15.21% of the students in Maramureş visit annually the museum
the diversification of the educational programmes.
solution
The diagnosis of human resources has pointed out some issues regarding the lack of personnel, the staff’s motivation, team work, and an aging trend of the specialty staff.
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Improving the quality of products and services offered by «Baia Mare Artistic Centre» County Museum of Art
The employees’ dynamics between the years 2007-2012
Improving the museum’s performance can be achieved by: embracing the democratic leading style by all members of the Management Board, eliminating the hierarchical barriers, and implementing management through objectives.
The process of improving the quality of the products and services has to start with improving the quality of managing and organizing the human resources.
The high competition, the easy substitution of the museums’ services and products, and the financial limitations are threats that endanger the existence of the museums on the market.
The museums have to improve their performance, and hence the quality of the products/services, so as to be more competitive.
Organizational diagnosis is a tool that allows museums to improve the quality of their products/services.
The organizational diagnosis is a complex tool, which, besides benchmarking, embeds other instruments, such as: value chain analysis, PEST analysis, or Michael Porter’s five forces analysis.
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Conclusions
County Museum of Art «Baia Mare Artistic Centre»
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