Barriers to organisational changes in Poland's public museums

Abstract

Since the political and economic transformation of 1989, public museums in Poland have undergone change, which is particularly evidenced by high numbers of visitors, new premises, and award-winning exhibitions. Those developments, however, are not systemic, and furthermore, the introduction of change is far from consistent and encounters stern resistance. There is, moreover, a marked lack of knowledge concerning the reasons for this status quo. Therefore, to address this cognitive gap, the following research question was posed: what are the key barriers to organisational change in Poland's public museums? In order to answer it, the authors conducted a qualitative empirical study involving 27 interviews with top-level directors of Polish public museums. The results suggest that the main barriers to organisational change are internal, including low organisational culture and the absence of a clearly defined attitude to the visitor, as well as external barriers, particularly the lack of respect of the governing body for museum autonomy and lack of financial stability in the institutions governing them.

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