To adopt or not to adopt? A co-evolutionary framework and paradox of technology adoption by small museums

ABSTRACT

Technology is changing the traditional approach to museums, i.e. ‘looking and no touching’, encouraging visitors to adopt the new ‘playing and interacting’ notion. However, previous qualitative literature has focused attention on this phenomenon for large museums, without: providing insights on small museums (SMs), which form the majority worldwide; identifying whether technology adoption differences exist according to SM ownership; and, identifying enablers and inhibitors of technology adoption. To fill these gaps, directors/curators of 194 Italian SMs took part in a survey that was analysed through a mixed quantitative (Chi-squared tests and t-test) and qualitative (mixed thematic analysis) approach. Results show that: (i) the most used technologies by SMs are the website, online presence on non-proprietary channels, and social media; and (ii) public and private SMs have an equal level of technology adoption. Moreover, the co-evolutionary interpretation of enablers and inhibitors provides a framework for technology adoption in SMs, also substantiating the existence of a co-evolving technology paradox.

KEYWORDS:

• Small museums
• technology
• enablers
• inhibitors
• co-evolution
• Italy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Attribution of authorship

Concerning the single sections of the paper, sections 1, 5, 6 are attributable to both authors; sub-sections 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, and 4.4.2 are attributable to Luna Leoni; whilst, sub-section 3.3, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4.1 and 4.4.3 are attributable to Matteo Cristofaro.

Notes

1 Unless otherwise specified, all the information and data contained in this section are derived from the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT, 2019).

2 These criteria emerged from a survey conducted by the AASLH in 2007 on 455 U.S. small museums and were verified by the respondents. It has not been possible to verify this third criterion (i.e., having an annual budget of less than $250,000) because curators’ and directors’ answers to the related question did not reach 5% (maybe for privacy or regulatory reasons).

3 It is worth noticing that this research adopts the criteria established by AASLH because they are the only official available criteria. In fact, other museum associations at the Italian, European, and International level (i.e., “Italian Association of Small Museums”, “Network of European Museums” – NEMO and “International Council of Museums” – ICOM) do not provide specific criteria for the identification of SMs.

4 An independent sample t-test was conducted to compare the number of codes cited when answering questions 15 and 16 of the questionnaire (see Appendix Table A1) between directors/curators that decided to adopt new technologies and obtained the desired outcomes (N= 61) and directors/curators that decided to adopt new technologies but obtained contradictory outcomes (N= 50). The two groups were formed according to their answers to question 17. Results of this t-test show that there was a significant difference (t₉₉=2.957, p= 0.00) between the first (M= 3.88, SD= 0.55) and second (M= 2.02, SD= 0.29) group of directors/curators.