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

Abstract

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.