Abstract
The article, based on data from 2023, measures the efficiency of 174 Polish, public museums in two selected and related areas of their statutory activities. The study used a two-stage analysis. In the first stage the non-radial slacks-based measure network model belonging to the Data Envelopment Analysis method, was used to estimate the efficiency of museums. In the second stage, a tobit regression was applied, to find the environmental factors that significantly affect this efficiency.
The results of the study indicate that museums are characterized by a low overall average efficiency (0.205). On the one hand, this is mainly due to the poor efficiency of museums‘ activities in increasing the number of visitors and participants in events (0.175). On the other hand, the efficiency of the implementation of these activities is on average satisfactory (0.458). Over 58% of the surveyed museums are characterized by lower-than-average efficiency in both analysed areas.
The overall efficiency of both areas is significantly positively influenced by the possibility of purchasing a ticket online. It has also been shown that ethnographic and anthropological museums are significantly less efficient compared to interdisciplinary museums. In addition, museums run by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage are significantly more efficient than museums run by various types of local governments.