An Empirical Analysis of Governance Dynamics in the Italian State Museums

In Italy, the governance of the museum organizations is a widely debated topic. Through different paths of analysis Scholars have detected several critical factors that could adversely affect the capacity to express the real potential of a territory with a natural touristic vocation. This work analyses the governance dynamics of Italian museum organizations adopting a situationist perspective in order to detect: the role played by the actors (e.g. directors/managers) involved in the governance of the National artistic-cultural heritage; the influence of the political system on the conducts of the directors of the museums; the power relations among these actors and the National Institutions. The work is divided into two parts. The first one aims at identifying the elements characterizing the governance of Italian museum organizations, using the Delphi Analysis with in-depth interviews to three key players in the museum sector. The second phase seeks to verify three main statements through an online survey involving the population of Directors responsible for the Italian State Museum: 1) there is a gap between the contents of Code of the cultural heritage and landscape and the organizational structure, internal processes and activities of the museum organizations; 2) the key actors in the governance processes adopt a strategic approach mainly directed to the protection of artistic-cultural heritage; 3) the initiatives aimed at enhancing the artistic-cultural heritage are limited. The work seeks to show the way forward for further studies on the role of directors, enabling a greater comprehension of the topic. The situationist perspective, while enabling a more realistic representation of the phenomenon, it does not provide the scholar with a set of prescriptive ready to use governance practices.