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Lithuanian Museum Governance: A Pathway towards the Reinvented Museum There is a broad consensus that public authorities must constantly change in order to provide high quality services and meet the needs of the public. However, population surveys reveal that Lithuanian museums governance practices do not change at all or, at least, not for the better. Moreover, researchers of this field claim that Lithuanian museum governance is exclusive, with traditional forms of management still dominant. Modern museum management theory emerged as a contrast for this kind of management. The main aspects of it are closely related to New Public Governance (further – NPG) ideas and can be explained while using four main ideas: the refusal of hierarchical model of management, an orientation towards visitors, cross-sectoral cooperation, transparency and accountability. This work provides an overview of NPG tools linkage with modern museums governance as well as their application and related issues in Lithuanian museums. In order to find out how far NPG tools are spread in Lithuanian museums and which main causes affect their usage, three research methods (documents and theory analysis, quantitative and qualitative research) were used. This choice resulted in a strong information triangulation, result supplementation and research reliability. The research consists of three main parts. In the first one the Lithuanian judicial system and policies, related with museums sector were analyzed. Research revealed a lack of solid Lithuanian museum policy. The main Lithuanian Republic Museums Law is compulsory for all institutions, but it is old fashioned and represents traditional forms of governance. On the other hand, the newest sector documents reflects main NPG ideas, but their role is only consultative. With no strong judicial basis for their actions, the governance of museums mostly depends on the vision and interpretation of their heads. The second part – quantitative research, was carried out according to previously mentioned four ideas of reinvented museum governance. It revealed that museums try to apply horizontal management inside the institutions, but still exclude external actors. Even if this cooperation exists, it takes place in a formal exchange of information rather than the common creation of the content. While most of the museum’s activity data is open to the public, the quantitative indicators does not reveal the quality of performance, and most museums do not tend to evaluate their results critically. Overall, the results of research stated that Lithuanian museum governance practices are still in the middle of their pathway towards the reinvented museum. In the third part, the main reasons that affect the usage of NPG tools in Lithuanian museums were analyzed by using the qualitative research method. It revealed both internal and external problems cause difficulties for implementation of reinvented museum governance tools. The most important of them are non-functional incentives mechanisms (the funding does not correlate with the performance of a museum), a lack of a solid museum policy and museum heads that favor traditional management. To conclude, the research revealed that the theoretical model of reinvented museum governance is still not fully implemented in Lithuanian museums. It also clarified the main problems related with museum governance reform, which allowed offering practical recommendations. Regarding internal museum governance, institutions should become more inclusive – heads of museums should take constructive opinions of museum personnel as well as open possibilities for co-operation with external actors into account. The most important issues for the museum sector would be the creation of a unanimous museum policy, inclusion of museum heads into the process of policy creation and, finally, establishment of a new museums financing mechanism. |
