In 1999 the Department on Culture and Tourism of the Archangel Regional Administration spread questionnaires among 20 heads for the state and municipal museums of the Archangel Region which represented over 80% of all museum heads of the region (there are totally 23 state and municipal museums in the region).

Especially elaborated values scale (1 at the scale meant the lowest, 10 – the highest correspondence to a question offered) gave a chance to put a level of internal orientation of a respondent into figures according to values characteristic of the one; the higher points, the higher evaluation.

The value orientation hierarchy is represented in the table below.

Table 1. The Archangel Region Museum Directors Value Orientation Hierarchy

1 to have interesting job, new impressions points 8,15

2 to have ability to communicate with various people points 7,85

3 to see real and concrete results of my work points 7,35

4 to be creative, to achieve self-realization points 7,35

5 to get the art of survival under difficult circumstances
points 6,55

6 to have soul comfort and self-respect points 6,05

7 to obtain professional growth in the fields that are important to me points 5,65

8 to have self-respect in my own eyes points 5,10

9 to raise my prestige in the eyes of relatives and friends points 4,60

10 to provide financial security for myself and my family members points 2,95

According to the results obtained, the two leading values for the museum heads are: “to have interesting job, new impressions” (#1) and “to have ability to communicate with various people” (#2), which are supplemented with necessity “to see real and concrete results of my work” (#3).

Two of them (#1 and #3) repeat values peculiar to leaders in different spheres of activity, often not connected to culture, it's a scientific fact. But #2 value (“to communicate”) is apparently specific for cultural organisations leaders, especially in the North, where contacts and communication have a special value.

The “material values” are evaluated by the museum directors rather low, and it entirely corresponds to the other cultural managers of the Archangel Region value orientation, inspected during 1998-1999.

In our opinion, it is a confirmation of the fact that cultural sphere heads doesn't consider their work to be a material welfare for their families. It may be explained by means of several assumptions.

The first comes from wrong understanding of the test question. Abrupt reduction of a material factor is connected with incorrectly understood statement, not a low meaning of that value for respondents indeed, in other words, they expressed the material safety not as a value for themselves, but as a real situation, when a cultural organisation heads' salary was unable to protect their families from material troubles.

The second possible explanation is that the cultural managers, including museums' directors, consider unacceptable for themselves to express a material motive as basic, because in the cultural environment there has always been a kind of disapproval towards pecuniary-oriented persons and money-oriented conversation has always been considered indecent.

Working for art's sake has been normal standard, in spite of external circumstances pressure.

There were inertia of the value orientations and so called “effect of expectations” what could stipulate the results obtained. Apparently in the market conditions, when ignoring material factors is hardly efficient, the mentioned hierarchy of values has to be transformed. Museum directors' value orientation peculiarities in the general context of cultural heads' value orientations study allows to judge of how quickly museum heads have advanced towards market reforms relatively the other managers of culture.

As it follows from the table 2, in the museum directors' and cultural managers' value orientation hierarchy there are values practically coinciding, which hold the highest positions. Those, among the cultural organisations' and establishment heads as well as museums' directors, are values of “having an interesting job” (#1) and “ability to communicate with various people” (#2).

There are also coinciding the values at the bottom of the table: “to have a self-respect in my own eyes” (#8), “to raise my prestige” (#9), “financial security” (#10, the lowest).

Regretfully, the cultural manager's occupation prestige is not the news. As far as in 1996, during the managers of culture inquest, “the cultural worker's occupation prestige degradation” and “the skilled workers outdraft from the budget-financed sphere of culture” were noted as one of the most dangerous tendencies.

Table 2. The Museums' Heads Value Orientations Hierarchy Comparative Table

Museums’ Heads answers

1 to have interesting job, new impressions points 8,15

2 to have ability to communicate with various people points 7,85

3 to see real and concrete results of my work points 7,35

4 to be creative, to achieve self-realisation points 7,35

5 to get the art of survival under difficult circumstances points 6,55

6 to have soul comfort and self-respect points 6,05

7 to obtain professional growth in the fields that are important to me points 5,65

8 to have self-respect in my own eyes points 5,10

9 to raise my prestige in the eyes of relatives and friends points 4,60

10 to provide financial security for myself and my family members points 2,95

Cultural managers answers

1 to have interesting job, new impressions points 8,90

2 to have ability to communicate with various people points
8,70

3 to obtain professional growth in the fields that are important to me points 8,00

4 to see real and concrete results of my work points 7,50

5 to have soul comfort and self-respect points 7,10

6 to be creative, to achieve self-realisation points 6,80

7 to get the art of survival under difficult circumstances points 6,35

8 to have self-respect in my own eyes points 6,30

9 to raise my prestige in the eyes of relatives and friends points 6,20

10 to provide financial security for myself and my family members points 4,00


So, comparison of museums directors' value orientations with the ones of other groups of cultural managers witnesses to their significant coincidence.

The museum directors fail to coincide with the other cultural managers only in 3 positions: “to obtain a professional growth”, “to be creative, to achieve self-realisation”, “to get the art of survival under difficult circumstances”.

Museums directors higher than the other cultural managers evaluate such values as “creativity” and “survival under difficult circumstances” and on principle lower – “professional growth”.

Museums directors' value orientations hierarchy peculiarities allow to speak that their process of value transformation has a specific character. First of all, the museums' directors, as before, consider that there is a creativity to be expressed, although the other managers are ready to sacrifice the creativity at certain degree for the professional growth sake.

The museum directors, recognising the professional growth's importance, put it only on 7th position, leaving 4th for creativity. Along with this, aiming to “creativity at any cost” is being compensated by “getting the art of survival under difficult circumstances” which holds 5th position among the museums' directors and 7th – among the cultural managers.

How much the values system having been formed, can help museum directors to get adapted to the market conditions?
We may suppose that preponderance of the “creative component” over ambitious values and professional growth values at the values system can hinder reaching the tactical targets, but at the same time can be successful for the strategic ones.

However such “half-market” hierarchy of value orientations is able to bring to lowering an efficiency of a process of managers' tusks solving itself.

Prevalence of “internal” values over “external”, demonstrated by the museums’ directors contains a potential of both: future victories, as well as future failures. For cultural worker the creativity value is leading indeed, but for culture manager it can’t be sufficient. No mere chance, but Sh.Sewchey, a member for the International Museum Management Committee, explaining changes of demands for candidates on museum director position, expresses: “if in the end of the eighties a candidate for a museum director’s position was to combine qualities of art expert with educator and administrator, then in the nineties a complex of busyness qualities of manager was accentuated”.

Ambitions of prestige are anxiously low, what witnesses of a lowered dynamics of the museum directors career growth. However this is typical also for the other inspected cultural managers categories.

Heads for the organisations of culture traditionally combined qualities of leaders with personal peculiarities of creators, who firstly are oriented towards pure creativity and don’t want to take life’s realities into consideration. Transition to the market economics is rather like able to bring us to significant reconstruction of a system of value orientations, which has to get tuned up to the occurring changes.

Lev Vostriakov is the Director of the Department on Culture and Tourism of the Archangel Regional Administration.
Email: vostriakov@dvinaland.ru
www.mbseurope.org/lev/lev_vostriakov.htm