Micro examination of museum workplace culture: how institutional changes influence the culture of a real-world art museum

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores how the art museum's leadership, management structure, and internal communications influence its workplace culture. Using ethnographic inquiry and grounded theory, the paper demonstrates how a specific museum's organizational culture is constructed and how it can be changed through various structural and value-driven changes based on an emerging theory of an organization as an open system. At the museum, an unstable organizational structure caused by frequent leadership turnover factored heavily in creating a non-collaborative workplace with ongoing personal conflicts. The institutional and internal changes called for a more flexible management system than the traditional hierarchical structure. However, by adopting qualities of a learning organization that constantly evolves and grows, this art museum can become a more effective and efficient organization with a stable management structure, sustainable and collective leadership, an effective communicational system, and therefore a positive, cohesive, and vision-driven workplace.