Towards a smart systems view of museum networks

The domain of cultural heritage management includes the complex of activities planned and implemented with the aim to define more efficient, effective, and sustainable approaches in the management of products, services, and traditions that have a high-value for a specific culture (Stove 1998; Cameron & Kenderdine 2007; Montella 2010a, 2011; Cerquetti 2011). Along the time, different research streams have focused the attention on the opportunity to define new pathways and perspectives in the management of cultural heritage as way to increase its positive effects on the social and economic development of territories (Bessière 1998; Scott 2004; Hampton 2005; Cerquetti 2010). In such a line, many contributions have been offered with reference to the implementation of more efficient communication strategies (Kalay et al. 2007), to the development of more appealing experiences (Otnes & Maclaran 2007; Pietroni 2012), and to the adoption of technology based innovations to increase the attractiveness of cultural heritage (Meyer et al. 2007; Ott & Pozzi 2011). Despite the relevance of all these contributions, it is possible to underline the existence of a dominant object-based approach in which the cultural heritage is viewed as a sort of ‘good to sell’ by acting on the traditional marketing levers (Barile et al. 2012; Barile & Saviano 2014). Conversely, little attention is paid with reference to the opportunities related to a radical change in perspective in the way in which the cultural heritage is perceived (Inglehart 1990; Kreps 2003; Barile 2012). In order to bridge this gap, the paper builds upon the conceptual and interpretative framework offered by the Systems Thinking (Beer 1979; Espejo 1990, 1994; Espejo & Reyes 2011; Barile & Saviano 2010, 2011; Golinelli 2010; Barile et al. 2012, 2015, 2016; Basile & Caputo, 2017) and the Self-Organization Theory (Witt 1997; Foster & Metcalfe 2003; Ulrich & Probst 2012) in order to identify possible approaches that can support the widening of perspective in the management of cultural heritage. More specifically, by shifting the focus from the management of cultural heritage items to the management of cultural heritage systems, the paper focuses the attention on the topic of museum networks (Lorenzoni 1987; Crooke 2006; Pencarelli & Splendian 2011). In such a line, the work investigates the conditions required for the emergence and survival of museum networks in order to highlight the possible contribution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in defining more performant managerial models by acting on collaboration, information sharing, and communication (Ing 1999; Lemelin & Bencze 2004; Marty & Jones 2008; Caputo & Walletzký, 2017). To this aim, the work adopts the interpretative lens of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) (Barile 2009a; Golinelli 2010; Barile et al. 2014) in order to ‘observe’ museum networks as viable systems (Barile 2009b) in terms of systems able to survive in their contexts by establishing effective relationships with their relevant suprasystems