From Cash to Accrual Accounting: A Model to Evaluate the Performance of Public Museums

According to New Public Management principles, all sectors of public administration must be able to measure their annual performance multi-dimensionally, in order to evaluate the socio-economic impact of their activities. Public museums - state, municipal, university, etc. - are frequently part of the administration. In particular, the accounting data and, consequently, the final accounts are mixed with those of the museum’s public owner and they refer mainly to cash accounting principles, so it is impossible to correctly measure the annual economic, financial and assets performance of the museum. The paper identifies a methodology for quantifying the profit or the loss of the museum. The research method is mainly deductive, with successive steps. The paper begins with an analysis of the mainstream theories and techniques for performance measurement and ends with a critical analysis of the theoretical model.