Access over 20 million homework & study documents

University art museum: Case study

Content type
User Generated
Type
Note
Rating
Showing Page:
1/1
University Art Museum:
Case study: The problem with this organization is quite simply that the campus does not know what
thegoals of the museum and its associated faculty are or should be. This is a fundamental flaw in
therunning of any organization, be it bureaucratic of collectivist. The museum s goals had rested with
thecurator, Miss Kirkhoff, who has been the most influential individual in the museum s history. Now
thatshe has retired, and her successor was found to have very different goals for the museum, the
universityitself needs to take responsibility for the museum.The governing body, the search committee,
may resemble a collectivist council, but they do notshare a similar set of goals and values. This is
evidenced by the presence of the economist within thecouncil. The Dean, while it wasn t mentioned
within the text, likely has final say over the results of anydecisions made by the committee. It is also
easy to conclude that the members of the committee do notget compensated equally. Based on title it
would be apparent that the dean presiding over the councilmakes more money than other members
who are just pulled from other departments within theuniversity. With this in mind, and basic
knowledge of how universities tend to work, this organization isa very weekly organized bureaucracy
which is missing some very fundamental characteristics which arekey to the structure.The most obvious
and glaring characteristic of bureaucracy missing from this equation is formalwritten rules. The mission
statement of the museum has not been written down, and has not even beenconceived of in the first
place. When the most recent director took over, he was not given anyguidelines to follow while he ran
the museum and simply set in motion his own personal goals. Theseguidelines and mission statement
need to be formulated and written down for the committee toconsider when choosing their next
candidate.Fixed jurisdictional areas are also missing from this structure. It is clear that the committee
iscomprised of members who do not all have an art background. When making decisions based on who
isqualified to run a museum, and in what direction the museum is to be taken, individuals with
anappropriate background should be involved.In order to make this a smoothly running bureaucratic
structure I would first implement thesteps that the presiding dean has already begun. A mission
statement needs to be formulated for themuseum first and foremost. These goals and
guidelines should perhaps be formulated by Miss Kirkhoff herself since the university seemed to be
pleased with the way she ran the museum and artdepartment. This accumulation of written goals and
guidelines would be submitted to the appropriateauthority for approval and then provided to the search
committee. Secondly, I would gather the currentfaculty associated with the museum as the search
committee rather than the appointed council of members from outside of the art department. This
committee would be run by the appropriate dean,and would check candidates against listed criteria
formulated to suit the mission statement. Once acandidate was hired, he would be made aware of his
restrictions and the guidelines that he was tofollow. This would keep him on the short leash that is
customary within bureaucracies. This committeewould only function as a committee when comparing
individuals who fit all of the guidelines against

Sign up to view the full document!

lock_open Sign Up
Unformatted Attachment Preview
 University Art Museum: Case study: The problem with this organization is quite simply that the campus does not know what thegoals of the museum and its associated faculty are or should be. This is a fundamental flaw in therunning of any organization, be it bureaucratic of collectivist. The museu ...
Purchase document to see full attachment
User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Anonymous
Really useful study material!

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4