I like participatory museums but, how much? Embedding demand-side value in assessing strategies

Abstract

In contrast to traditional models of unidirectional management, new governance strategies of cultural institutions based on participatory models –grounded on the active involvement of multiple actors in management, programming, production and innovation– have gained importance over the last few years. Our aim is to evaluate a participatory approach action programme for a sample of museums, embedding the value allocated by the museum community (users and beneficiaries) to the whole model and to the different participatory strategies. We first identify four main areas of participation (collaborative co-governance, creative co-production, social co-innovation, and technological co-innovation), which in turn are divided into four specific options ranked from the highest to the lowest degree of engagement. We also add a fifth dimension –a price vector– which serves as a payment vehicle to estimate the willingness to pay for the model and options. Non-market goods valuation techniques –contingent valuation and discrete choice experiment– are used to estimate the value allocated by the museum community to participatory strategies. Results show that citizens still rely more on cultural management and programming led by museum managers, rather than being involved in their design and guidance, although they do appreciate the possibilities of being involved in the dimensions of social actions and technological innovation.