Competence management in museums

Museums face increasingly complex demands in terms of increasingly diverse audiences, the rapid digital development, and demands on increased collaboration in order to achieve their organisational goals, while resources remain limited. This means that competence management and strategic development of museum organisations and services is ever more important. Yet, there is hardly any empirical research on this topic, at least not in a European context, and this paper offers qualitative descriptions of contemporary competence management practices. As there is very little research in the museum sector to refer to, references to previous research is made mainly within the general area of management. Acknowledging the lack of research in this area in the Nordic countries in particular as compared to research in North America and the UK and Australia, the paper contributes to a European continental body of research on the challenges of museum management in a rapidly changing society and economic austerity. Through an exploratory study of practices of competence management, the paper contributes to this under-researched area, and indicates needs for further research in the field of organisational change and strategic management of museums and cultural organisations