The effects of autonomy on museums

This thesis will analyze the case of twenty Italian museums that became autonomous after the promulgation of a new law in 2014 to investigate the effects of autonomy on cultural institutions. The research was inspired by a series of interviews with the directors of these institutions published in an Italian magazine (Nastro, 2016a; 2016b) and is based on ten interviews made in the months of March, April and May, 2017. The work started with an analysis of the most relevant literature on the broad topic of cultural policies and management, followed by researches focused on museums and autonomy. Papers and publications about the Italian case were also studied, but it must be said that is a topic that needs further research, and this work hopes to be a small step forward in this direction. A format for semi-structured interviews was created, based on the most significant findings of the literature analysis, and all the autonomous museums (20) were invited to participate in the research, with the idea to create a sample of around 10, that was defined after the first positive responses using a number of criteria (number of visitors, location, background of director…). Most of the interviews have been with museums’ directors, when this was not the case or when the interview was considered too short or incomplete other sources, like press releases and material provided by the museum’s personnel, where used as an addition. The analysis compares the theory drawn from the literature with the findings of the interviews, and both the similarities and the differences are pointed out; the latter are particularly interesting, as they show the peculiarities of the Italian case and open up the discussion of what might be the causes of the discrepancies between theory and practice. The findings are in line with the expectations, and show a widespread growth in both visitor numbers and revenues, as well as a number of new initiatives and projects starting. The main issue remains the lack of control over the museum personnel, still managed by the Ministry, and the resistance to innovation that comes from some people that see the reform as a threat to conservation and that do not like the idea of a museum run by a manager - even though, as the research shows, most of the director do not have this kind of background.