Managing human capital in cultural organizations: the case of two Italian museums

Quality management is well established in the industrial manufacturing sector. More recently, interest has started to grow in the service sector and notably in the area of cultural and artistic organisations, such as museums. Several public and private museums have started to use quality management in order to improve their performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the effects of training on the quality of human capital in Italian private and public museums and the general effects of quality management on the health of the museum staff. Bringing these aspects together could provide synergies and finding to manage and develop the human capital in the museum. Furthermore, the empirical basis of the paper consists of two successful case studies. In the first study, Fondazione Mazzotta, a private museum, the general effects of quality management on human capital is studied. In the second study, GAMEC (Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea), a public museum, the effects of quality management on the human capital were investigated.