Institutional transformation and managerialism in cultural heritage: Heritage Malta

Abstract

This paper builds on the literature on managerial reforms in the public and cultural heritage sectors with the aim of exploring, understanding, and reconstructing managerial change at the organizational level. It investigates the reform of the cultural sector in Malta – driven by a call for managerial innovation. The main changes in discourse and practices are analyzed; transformation processes are reconstructed on the basis of reported narratives by participants, and critically revisited through a longitudinal analysis of documents. Finally, the Maltese experience is then compared with two other cases of institutional transformation in the cultural heritage field: the British Museum and the Autonomous Superintendence of Pompeii. Common patterns and distinctive features of the three cases are discussed. The paper focuses on a crucial phenomenon in public sector reforms – institutional transformation. From a methodological point of view, the rhetorical nature of these debates is addressed, while providing a more detailed reading of individual components of change processes. The need/benefit of comparison – particularly international comparison – is underlined.

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