Accountability In The Stakeholder-AgencyTheory: Evidences From Museum Sector

Stakeholder theory posits that accountability systems depend on the strength and the number of their stakeholders. This assumption is more verifiable in non-profit organisations in the absence of dominant shareholders. This paper aims to analyse the functioning and the empirical validity of stakeholder theory, focusing on accountability systems in the museum sector. As organisations that the public entrusts with the responsibility to care for our shared artistic heritage, museums must continually re-assess and re-affirm their commitment through accountability. Based on Wikipedia resources, we have selected all of the “National Museums” (134 units) in the main developed countries: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the USA. After we control for kind of activity (art or other), cost per visitor, and country, the results of an OLS multivariate model show that size, which is assumed to represent the strength and number of stakeholders, and the amount of funds received, which represents the substantial power of donors, are two determinants of the accountability level. We can thus conclude that accountability, in the absence of shareholders, is driven by the number and the power of different stakeholders, validating the stakeholder-agency theory.