Rethinking the Museum’s Social Role from Within: A Bibliometric Analysis of Employee Engagement, Leadership, and Organizational Performance

Museums have long been associated with the conservation, research, presentation, and display of cultural heritage. In recent years, however, they have been increasingly repositioned, in both theory and practice, as socially engaged, participatory, and reflexive institutions that need to better serve society and respond to their communities’ needs. This shift was reinforced by the 2022 definition adopted by the International Council of Museums, which places greater emphăsis on the museum’s sociăl responsibility. In this context, the museum’s sociăl role căn no longer be understood only through its public programs, exhibitions, or audience-oriented activities, but also through the internal organizational dynamics that make such transformations possible. The present paper examines how the academic literature addresses the relationship among employee engagement, leadership, and organizational performance in the museum sector, and how these concepts are linked to the broader debate on the evolving social role of museums. More specifically, the article questions how this field of research has developed over time, which thematic clusters and conceptual connections can be identified, and to what extent the literature connects museums’ external social mission with their internal organizational processes. Methodologically, the study employs a bibliometric analysis with Bibliometrix, an R package, to process data retrieved from the Web of Science database. The article maps publication trends, influential sources, authors, keywords, and thematic structures at the intersection of museum studies and organizational research. The findings indicate that although themes such as participation, inclusion, sustainability, and social impact have gained visibility in museum-related scholarship, the roles of employees, leadership, and organizational performance remain comparatively underexplored. By identifying these gaps, the paper contributes to a broader understanding of museum performance, arguing that the reflexive museum is not only defined by its public role but also by its capacity to change from within.