Abstract
Decision support systems (DSSs) have been traditionally identified as useful information technology tools in a variety of fields, including the context of cultural heritage. However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior study has developed a DSS framework that incorporates all the main decision areas simultaneously in the context of cultural heritage. We fill this gap by focusing on design-science research and specifically by developing a DSS framework whose features support all the main decision areas for the sustainable management of cultural assets in a comprehensive manner. The main decision-making areas considered in our study encompass demand management, segmentation and communication, pricing, space management, and services management. For these areas, we select appropriate decision-making supporting techniques and data management solutions. The development of our framework, in the form of a web-based system, results in an architectural solution that is able to satisfy critical requirements such as ease of use and response time. We present an application of the innovative DSS framework to a museum and discuss the main managerial implications and future improvements.
Highlights
Cultural heritage can be everything tangible and intangible that constitutes evidence of the value of a civilization
We remark that the Decision support systems (DSSs) yields an optimal price considering data-driven demand function and variable costs, but being the output of a simplified economic model, the final decision on which price to set for each segment of customers is left to the manager, who can always opt for the price suggestions provided by the DSS or use them as starting points for more informed decisions
In our pilot study discussed we considered an annual number of visitors of less than 5000 and a sample size of 100
Summary
Cultural heritage can be everything tangible and intangible that constitutes evidence of the value of a civilization. This leads to a lack of evidence-based strategies, inefficient use of resources, and missed opportunities, which make it difficult to face the current and future challenges of recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and preserving and promoting cultural assets in an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable way, as well as making heritage education accessible, participatory, and cross-cultural (e.g., [2,3]) These challenges, along with the increasing complexity and variety of management operations and their difficult analysis and control, give rise to the need for Information Technology (IT) tools that are capable of supporting the decision-making process for managing cultural heritage. DSSs help achieve this goal by supporting managers to make the best decisions for the given cultural heritage site and as such are capable of increasing social and economic sustainability [3,18].
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