The quality of annual reporting by Italian museums: an international comparison

This study examines Italian museums in order to assess the quality of annual reporting and compare the results with those of the United States, the United Kingdom, and European. The sample of analysis has included 13 annual reports which, given the legal status of some museums, encompasses the activities of a total of 93 Italian public and private museums, historic residences, palaces, manors, churches, cloisters, and tabernacles. Among the 93 museums taken into consideration, 25 are included within the list of the 80 most visited museums in Italy while three out of these 25 are listed also within the list of the 85 most visited museums worldwide. The quality of disclosure and the level of accountability has been measured through the MPADI2 index (Wei et al. 2008; Botes et al. 2013), which takes into consideration 22 disclosure items relating to the four perspectives of the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton 1996) framework. The results of the analysis show that Italian museums mean score is lower than other European and UK museums, but similar to American entities. Italian institutions score higher than American institutions in terms of mission and learning and growth perspectives, but score lower in the remaining items, especially financial and stakeholder perspectives. Furthermore, Italian museums obtain the best aggregate means in the internal process perspective, with great emphasis given to disclosure relating to exhibition and events, collections management, and educational activities for the community. In the conclusions, we outline the main limitations of this study and its possible developments.