Understanding and harnessing the potential of front-line employees’ self-governance in technologised museums and theme parks: insights from a qualitative study

ABSTRACT

Focusing on highly technologised museums and theme parks as major actors of the cultural and creative industry (CCI), this study investigates and critically discusses how front-line employees’ self-governance dynamics unfold. It underlines the crucial role of employees’ relationship to technology in establishing how, beyond institutional requirements, employees act proactively to foster good governance. Our analysis of museums and theme parks front-line employee narratives (n = 25), across eight organisations in Singapore, reveals that employees engage in self-governance dynamics by articulating three main technological frames, namely acting, internalisation, and reinvention. Self-governance dynamics are found to nurture adaptive behaviours that reduce the disruptive impacts of technologisation at the workplace while favouring a constructive alignment of interests between employees, visitors, and CCI organisations’ goals. The findings reveal how, when being engaged in self-governance, employees act upon technological presence to enhance visitors’ interactive experiences, thus allowing museums and theme parks to remain socially and societally relevant.

KEYWORDS:

• Museums
• theme parks
• self-governance
• good governance
• employees
• technologisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 While definitions of cultural and creative sectors vary across countries and continents, they typically include all sectors whose activities are based on cultural values and/or artistic and other creative expressions. Those activities include the development, the creation, the production, the dissemination and the preservation of goods and services which embody cultural, artistic, or other creative expressions, as well as related functions such as education or management (see for example, the definition in the EC Creative Europe Programme). The cultural and creative sectors include inter alia architecture, archives, libraries and museums, artistic crafts, audio-visual (including film, television, video games and multimedia), tangible and intangible cultural heritage, design, festivals, music, literature, performing arts, publishing, radio and visual arts, and fashion. (OECD 2020, 2).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexandre Schwob

Alexandre Schwob is an Associate Professor of Marketing in Excelia Business School, France. His main research interests are digital transformation and Consumer Culture Theory (CCT). His research addresses these topics in various kinds of environments both from consumer and companies' perspectives. In his publications, whether in Tourism Management, Information Technology and People, Consumption Markets & Culture, or in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Alexandre has aimed to understand the stakes of digital consumption. He is particularly interested by the way market-actors make sense and shape digital technologies and marketing strategy.

Ronan de Kervenoael

Ronan de Kervenoael is a Professor of Marketing at Rennes School of Business in France. His wider research interests lie under the umbrella of retail, technology and consumer behavior, including the study of social, cultural, and techno- logical transformations in how consumers and firms (re)organize their lives or strategies. His work has been published in Environment & Planning A, World Development, Tourism Management, European Journal of Operational Research, Information Technology and People, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Service Industries Journal, Telecommunication Policy, International Journal of Retail Distribution Management and Consumption Markets & Culture.

Valentina Kirova

Valentina Kirova is an Associate Professor of Marketing in Excelia Business School, France. Her current research broadly focuses on strategic marketing, innovation and digitalization issues. She investigates the way digital technologies are shaping consumers’ experience, organizations’ strategies and actors’ interactions, particularly in the tourism and services sectors. Her recent research has been published in Journal of Business Research, Information & Management, Current Issues in Tourism and Information Technology and People.

Yan San Sim

Yan San Sim has a Master in Management from Birmingham University, Singapore Institute of Management (SIM). She has a particular interest in digital marketing and innovation management within the tourism industry.