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The main aim of the study is to empirically investigate the relationship between strategic orientation and a dual conceptualization of performance (i.e. non-economic performance and economic performance) in the research context of corporate museums, which are owned and run by private companies. Furthermore, the study aims to explore the nature of the relationship between the dual performance, shedding light on the relevance of non-economic results for this peculiar category of museums.

The study is based on survey data from 105 Italian corporate museums, which represent almost the entire population in the country (91%). A structural model was estimated using SmartPLS software in order to examine the direct and indirect effects of strategic orientation on corporate museums' non-economic and economic performance.

The findings show that only if corporate museums are able to achieve non-economic performance, creating value for the owning company and the local community, they can also have good results in economic terms. Thus, the non-economic performance acts as a mediator into the relationship between strategic orientation and economic performance.

The current work is a pioneer study for the empirical investigation of performance within corporate museums. The empirical model of the study, based on a dual conceptualization of performance and a mediation analysis, is completely innovative in this research context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the specific characteristics of consumers’ lived experience in a brand museum within a luxury context. While previous research has investigated this experience through the lens of brand heritage, the unique attributes and prestigiousness of the luxury field have not yet been examined. The authors argue that these distinctive features may alter the brand heritage experience in significant ways.

To understand the dimensions of a brand heritage experience in a luxury context, the authors applied a qualitative method using reflexive introspection. Specifically, the authors used 89 reflective introspections of 29 visitors of nine different luxury brand museums.

The findings indicate that a brand heritage experience in luxury is based on four dimensions: aesthetic, authentic, scientific and mythic. The data also reveal the heterogeneous aspect of the experience, which varies according to the level of consumers’ brand familiarity as well as whether the museum visit is led by a guide or not.

The authors contribute to the literature by emphasizing a new dimension of a brand heritage experience in luxury: a mythic dimension. This study also unveils the impact of contextual factors on the brand heritage experience.

This paper develops a framework for understanding history as a source of competitive advantage. Prior research suggests that some firms enjoy preferential access to resources as a result of their past. Historians, by contrast, understand past events as more than an objective account of reality. History also has an interpretive function. History is a social and rhetorical construction that can be shaped and manipulated to motivate, persuade, and frame action, both within and outside an organization. Viewed as a malleable construct, the capacity to manage history can, itself, be a rare and inimitable resource.

The study builds on the multi-stakeholder perspective and applies the DART model to frame and explore barriers to value co-creation in the museum context.

The empirical research followed a multiple case study design, based on six cases selected in accordance with a maximum variation strategy. The analysis of the data gathered from multiple primary and secondary sources was guided by the qualitative content analysis approach and the pattern-matching technique for a multiple case study.

The findings reveal a largely convergent understanding of value co-creation that relates to the social integration of the intrinsic value of museums. The main barriers to value co-creation were identified at both organizational and personal levels, yet important context-bound differences were found regarding the scope and impact of those barriers across defined museum activity areas.

The study enriches literature and museum management by identifying and synthesizing barriers, offering insights for overcoming them through DART model modifications. These insights extend beyond museums, emphasizing stakeholder identification, recognizing activity-specific barriers, understanding interdependence and considering external factors like the pandemic. Managers can leverage this knowledge for informed decisions and interventions.

Managerialization – i.e. the institutional and organizational transformation of cultural institutions acknowledging the need for a managerial action to address their value propositions – is radically reshaping the way museums interact with relevant stakeholders and arrange their service offering. The paper aims at making sense out of the manifold implications of managerialization on museum activities.

Secondary data were collected from a sample of 4,073 Italian museums and art institutions. A logit regression model was designed to investigate the implications of museums’ managerialization on pricing strategies, service offering, organizational and marketing policies, inter-organizational relationships and digitalization.

Managerialization triggered an evolution in museums’ service offering and organizational practices. Institutions that underwent a managerial development were more likely to innovate their policies and strategies. However, managerialization may undermine the way museums focus on disadvantaged people, nurturing inequalities in the access to their service offering.

The managerialization of museums should be handled as a double-edged sword. Although it contributes in enriching the museums’ service offering and in differentiating their activities, it may generate drawbacks on the art institutions’ ability to address the demands of underprivileged groups. Tailored correctives are needed to avoid the side effects of managerialization.

This is one of the first attempts to investigate the implications of managerialization on museums’ practices and inter-organizational relationships. The research findings provide some insights into the challenges that are related to the managerialization of museums and art institutions.

This paper aims to identify the key quality attributes a museum or art gallery should possess and enhance to become an attractive business event venue.

The research adopted a two-stage case-study methodology. Firstly, three museums were selected in Manchester, UK, to explore the venues’ approaches to hosting business events. These were the Lowry Art Centre, Salford Museum and Manchester Art Gallery. Secondly, a business event at another museum in the city, Science and Industry Museum, was accessed to explore the audiences’ perceptions and industry requirements regarding the organisation of events in museums. In total, 21 qualitative semi-structured and structured interviews were conducted with the event delegates, event planners and museums’ management.

Thematic analysis was applied to identify three key attributes: venue character, memorability and functionality and feasibility. Venue character refers to the overall appeal of a venue, including its history, status and interior design. Memorability refers to the authenticity and uniqueness of the attendee experience at a corporate event organised in a museum. Finally, functionality and feasibility deals with the availability of functional facilities, space flexibility and diverse venue regulations.

The findings of the research provide valuable insights to both museums and event companies. The research reveals the main benefits and drawbacks of using a museum or an art gallery as a venue for business events and suggests key aspects to consider while staging a business event in a cultural institution. Museums could apply the findings in marketing to emphasise their uniqueness, authenticity and flexibility.

The purpose of this paper is to see whether companies that have set up company museums and archives realise the communication potential of this tool and in what terms such potential may have been actualised.

The paper opted for an in-depth study in order to get an insight into the perception of the communication potential of the museum and archives. All of the 52 companies associated with the association “Museimpresa” were contacted, the members of which are the main companies in Italy that have set up their own museum and archives. Each company has been interviewed through a detailed and structured questionnaire carried out involving either the business owner or the marketing, communication or external relations manager or the curator of the museum/archives.

A company museum-archives is used mainly to spread awareness of the heart, identity, values and history of the company. The investigation has moreover provided how its communication strengths impact on the image and the reputation of the company and on the sense of belonging between the enterprise and its community.

This study is a first step of a path aimed at measuring on a large scale the real communication potential of company museums and archives.

What would seem to be important for management with a real desire to make best use of the potential of a company museum-archives is to facilitate its interactivity, its ability to build and maintain relationships, its connection with the corporate culture and to convey a real enthusiasm for vision and future-oriented memory.

This paper provides a contribution to the awareness of communication potential of the company museum and archives, a recognition that remains largely still to be explored.

The purpose of this paper is to study how museums in a medium‐sized city (Tarragona, Spain) communicate with their local community, analysing how people evaluate and inform themselves about the museums in their city, and studying how museums identify their specific publics within the local community and communicate with them.

The author has designed a dual methodological approach, using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Qualitative research was conducted using in‐depth interviews with communication managers of the museums. Also, quantitative research was employed, designing a questionnaire directed at the local community in Tarragona (Spain).

The results show that museums have a narrow view of their publics, which is focused basically on their visitors, and that they are familiar with and use communication tools and techniques, although with a tactical perspective.

The paper was focused on all the museums in Tarragona, but it is a small number of organisations, and therefore, the results are not necessarily representative of all Catalan or Spanish museums.

The paper presents a specific methodology for analysing the communication of museums of any kind. From an academic perspective, this paper can improve our understanding of how museums communicate with their publics. It can be used by other researchers to analyse these types of organisations, and to promote the comparison of results. From a practitioner perspective, the results can contribute towards identifying some of the strengths and weaknesses of communication policies and activities of the museums and help to improve their communication management.

This paper aims to investigate the authenticity concept and its antecedents and consequences within the context of museums.

A higher-order scale of authenticity is developed and then tested for reliability and validity using a sample of museum visitors. To investigate authenticity in a model with two antecedents and two outcomes, an additional data set was collected. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling.

The results show that perceived authenticity of the museum, the visitor and the materials in the museum are dimensions of perceived authenticity, resonating with Bal’s (1996) research in this area. Findings also confirm that consumer scepticism and expectations are antecedents to perceived authenticity of the visitor experience in museums, and that perceived authenticity in turn affects visitor satisfaction and perceived corporate hypocrisy.

This research provides a framework for museums to manage visitors’ perceptions of authenticity, and to plan and design exhibits accordingly.

Our research, set in the museum context, articulates the basis of perceived authenticity, its antecedents and outcomes. This study sets the foundation for research to further explore how perceived authenticity interacts with other constructs relevant to consumption.

This purpose of this paper is to discuss how experiential design can provide a basis for museums’ branding strategies in order to attract visitors, particularly those visitors with a low involvement with museums.

The authors first analyze the experiential motives that museums should consider as relevant in attracting potential visitors. Consequently, the authors examine effects of experiential design on the participants’ behavior and attitudes, which are relevant for achieving branding objectives and institutional objectives of museums. In an experiment, using computer simulations, the authors tested the effects of an experiential vsus a non-experiential museum design on potential, especially low-involved participants.

The results of the experiment show a positive impact of the multidimensional experiential design on low-involved participants concerning branding relevant behavior, such as loyalty and perceived differentiation. There is also a positive influence on institutional goals such as perceiving the museum as role model and a positive change of attitude toward museums in general.

Because of the virtual character of the examined museum the results show only a tendency for potential behavior of real museum visitors. Future studies should test the effects of experience design for a real museum with a distinct brand profile.

The study reveals that once in a museum, potential visitors with a low involvement can be addressed by a museum design that appeals to their experiential motives and which, at the same time, communicates a differentiated brand profile of the museum. Following the visit, this impression can help to overcome barriers in terms of further museum visits and stimulate positive word-of-mouth advertising to other potential visitors.

The results suggest that from a global perspective, experience inducing museums can become role models for other museums, thus altering the image, expectations, and attitude of potential visitors with low-involvement toward museums as social institutions.

For the first time the explicit effects of a strategic experiential museum design on potential visitors are analyzed in terms of relevant branding and institutional objectives of museums.