Keywords

1 Introduction

With the rise of the SDGs in recent years, social purpose organizations (SPOs) have become increasingly important. SPOs are organizations that have both a social mission and commercial revenue goals [1]. The museums under study are SPOs with commercial goals such as increasing the number of visitors to continue their social activities of collecting, exhibiting, and disseminating educational materials. While there are examples of foreign museums enhancing their commercial activities to achieve their social mission as SPOs and reducing their dependence on increased revenues and donations by introducing digitalization [2], the concept of SPOs is not widespread in Japan. Product innovation is a necessary element for the growth of SPOs and is defined as “a product innovation is a new or improved good or service that is significantly different from the firm’s previous goods or services and has been introduced into the market” [3, p. 21]. According to this definition, the main innovation of museums is the adoption of technology to improve exhibitions and services [4], which is considered a product innovation. Camarero and Garrido [5] demonstrated that museums’ orientation to donors promotes technological innovation, which is equivalent to product innovation. However, Japanese museums receive fewer donations than their foreign counterparts, and increasing their income from admission fees and other sources has been cited as a challenge [6]. Therefore, for museums to continue their social activities in the future, they need to find ways to generate product innovation as SPOs.

Therefore, the research question of this study is where the knowledge of product innovation in museums, that is, the adoption of advanced technology in exhibitions and services, comes from. From the above, this paper aims to demonstrate the characteristics of knowledge that collaboration with external organizations brings to a museum as an SPO and its impact on product innovation.

2 Theory and Hypothesis

2.1 Collaboration and Knowledge Acquisition at the Museum’s Temporary Exhibition

For organizations, the key to generating innovation is incorporating and using new knowledge [7]. Organizations continuously search for knowledge about the external environment and acquire new knowledge to innovate, adapt, and ensure competitiveness (e.g., [8]). There are various methods of searching for and acquiring knowledge, such as observing other organizations, partnering, and exchanging personnel. When an organization finds and acquires new knowledge from other organizations, it engages in interorganizational learning and organizational learning to develop the acquired knowledge as its own. However, organizations are not free to incorporate new knowledge at any time. Certain conditions are necessary to bring new knowledge into the organization. The ability of an organization to incorporate technological knowledge from outside is called absorptive capacity, which refers to an organization’s ability to recognize, assimilate, and apply new knowledge as a product or service to create new products and innovations [9]. For an organization to assimilate knowledge, it needs an overlap between new and existing knowledge to understand it [9].

Oishi and Oe [10] demonstrated that collaboration among staff, which is the internal knowledge recognition of the organization, and collaboration with other organizations in the museum, which is the external knowledge acquisition, promote product innovation in the museum. Then, how does a museum’s collaboration with other organizations start? Various private companies are involved in museums in various aspects, such as providing and maintaining facilities for exhibitions, providing products sold in the museum store, private companies supporting publishing, and private companies supplying food to the museum restaurant.

Among them, this study focuses on private companies involved in temporary exhibitions in museums. A temporary exhibition in a museum is an exhibition held for a limited period in a corner of an exhibition room or a temporary exhibition room, as opposed to the permanent exhibitions set up in the museum since its establishment. Museums exhibit to their visitors, and their mission is to maintain and increase the number of visitors on a sustainable basis, even if they are nonprofit organizations. The customers of private companies largely correspond to the visitors to today’s museums. Museums need to survey and evaluate visitor satisfaction and implement improvement activities, and these activities should be consistent with the museum’s management strategy. However, it is difficult to frequently renew the permanent exhibitions in museums to maintain and increase the number of visitors. Therefore, by establishing a temporary exhibition separate from the permanent exhibition and changing the theme according to the period, visitors can have a highly satisfying viewing experience without getting bored, which will lead to the maintenance and expansion of the number of visitors.

For example, as part of a museum’s management strategy, a temporary exhibition may be held to create a new market by highlighting features that are different from those of conventional museums. If the management strategy is to create a new market to attract potential and new visitors, planning an exhibition or special exhibition with a theme that has never been seen before is necessary.

A good example of creating a new market is the exhibitions on ghosts and Yokai that have been actively held in Japan in recent years. The “Special Exhibition: Obake, Yokai, Ghosts” was held at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art in 1987 and was a great success [11]. This type of exhibition has been held in many places and is now a summer staple in museums [12, 13]. Also in summer 2019, the National Museum of Japanese History’s “Summer of Mononoke: Ghosts and Yokai in Edo Culture” and the Kawasaki City Museum’s “Yokai/Human: From Fantasy to Reality” were held. This is expected to attract potential visitors who have not previously been interested in museums. Since Yokai and ghosts are handed down in different parts of the country, museums can easily arrange them according to each region. Consequently, museums in different regions hold special exhibitions with similar themes in the summer, creating a market for exhibitions in this mysterious world.

The museum’s temporary exhibition is usually prepared two to three years before the exhibition, and the museum cooperates with related organizations in formulating a business plan. In addition, cooperation with related organizations, which is indispensable for the realization of the museum’s temporary exhibition, is often carried out not only once but also in subsequent temporary exhibitions. Granovetter [14], in his theory of embeddedness, which explains the pattern of organizational ties, introduces “relational embedding,” which is repeated connection with a partner once connected, and “positional embedding,” which is advantageous for information flow when network centrality is high. Relational embedding through connections in temporary museum exhibitions is advantageous for knowledge acquisition.

Knowledge brought to a museum from other communities is different in nature from the knowledge of the surrounding communities and may be an asset that other museums do not have. In private companies, knowledge acquisition from other communities is actively pursued because it leads to innovation. As mentioned above, museums need to be active in research and educational activities in addition to their exhibition activities, and the acquisition of new knowledge of a different nature is essential for developing these activities.

Camarero et al. [4] cite management expertise and hiring staff with non-museum experience as examples of organizational innovation in museums. However, museum management resources are limited, and it is not easy to increase the museum’s internal management resources, such as hiring new staff. Therefore, one possible solution is to collaborate with other organizations. Collaboration with other organizations in a museum can promote the absorption of knowledge and lead to innovation. In some areas of Japan, museums are strengthening their activities by networking with other organizations. In Kumamoto Prefecture, the Kumamoto Prefecture Museum Network Center was established in 2014 to revitalize museum activities in the prefecture through the mutual use of each museum’s collections [15].

There are numerous examples of collaboration in permanent networks and individual initiatives such as temporary exhibitions. These include a temporary exhibition in which museums sponsor each other through a collaboration agreement [16]; a mobile-type temporary exhibition co-sponsored by multiple museums under the same theme and separate exhibition periods [17]; and a temporary exhibition held in collaboration with foreign embassies [18]. Temporary museum exhibitions are held not only by their own museums but also through co-sponsorship by other museums, support and cooperation from private companies, and grants from foundations. Although it is difficult for museums to establish continuous partnerships with other museums due to a lack of management resources, it is believed that museums can actively absorb knowledge and work to improve their services by collaborating with other organizations through temporary exhibitions.

It is difficult to realize the adoption of exhibitions and services using advanced technologies with limited management resources, and there are examples of companies introducing advanced technologies by collaborating with private companies [19]. Collaboration through temporary exhibitions could be motivation to absorb such knowledge. Therefore, when museums collaborate and network with other organizations, product innovation is expected to occur through the absorption and utilization of new knowledge.

2.2 Knowledge Acquisition and Product Innovation Through Collaboration with Other Organizations in Museums

In addition to cases where the museum takes the initiative in creating new markets, there are also cases where the mass media take the initiative in creating new markets. Temporary exhibitions in museums can be planned internally by museums based on research results, or they can be planned by mass media such as newspapers and publishers. In this study, we focus on the latter case and consider that various information brought in by the mass media plays an important role in acquiring knowledge. Temporary exhibitions brought in by mass media are mainly held by borrowing collections and other materials from foreign museums [20]. If the borrowed collection is large, the exhibition is held as a traveling exhibition at several museums in Japan, and the museums and regional newspapers and publishers that serve as co-sponsors work together to promote the exhibition [20]. As the mass media gather information from various sources due to the nature of their business, knowledge acquisition from other communities is likely to occur.

Publicity is essential to increase the number of visitors to temporary exhibitions. It is believed that museums not only gain from publicity but also acquire knowledge through the formation of a network connecting different museums through mass media, and the following hypothesis is proposed regarding the connection between museums and mass media:

  • H1: Collaboration with mass media in the museum’s temporary exhibitions promotes the museum’s knowledge acquisition from other communities.

  • H2: Collaboration with mass media in the museum’s temporary exhibitions promotes product innovation in the museum.

There are various forms of collaboration among private companies in temporary exhibitions. There are cases in which large museums, such as national museums and general private companies, collaborate to hold temporary exhibitions and create product innovation [19], and there are also cases in which small regional museums collaborate with NPOs and private companies to create innovation [21]. Such medium- to long-term collaboration is thought to develop from exhibition collaboration at temporary exhibitions, which provide their products and technology through “exhibition collaboration,” to knowledge absorption and technology adoption, and is considered to be the next step for collaboration between museums and private companies. The following hypothesis is proposed for the collaboration between museums and private companies:

  • H3: Collaboration with private companies in the museum’s temporary exhibitions promotes the museum’s knowledge acquisition from other communities.

  • H4: Collaboration with private companies in the museum’s temporary exhibitions promotes product innovation in the museum.

3 Data and Analysis

The data are based on the results of “The Second Questionnaire Survey on the Characteristics of Museum Management that Generate Innovation” conducted by e-mail with 2,048 museums in Japan between September 23 and November 30, 2021, and information on temporary exhibitions held in 2019, including relationship of cooperation. The questionnaire are based on the survey conducted by Camarero and Garrido [22] in European museums. Temporary exhibitions were collected from 634 temporary exhibitions held by public museums in Chubu (Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Aichi, Shizuoka) and Kinki (Kyoto, Nara, Mie, Osaka, Wakayama, Hyogo) regions of Japan from January 1 to December 31, 2019. Temporary exhibitions, special exhibitions, or exhibitions were included in the analysis, and if the beginning of the period was 2018 or the end of the period was 2020, they are included in the collection if the year 2019 was included in the period. Among public museums, all museums established by the national and prefectural governments are included in the collection, while those that responded to the questionnaire survey are included in the collection for municipal museums. The information collected included the name and date of the temporary exhibition, the URL of the page containing the information, and other information listed on the homepage and flyers of each museum, the names of organizations listed in the sponsorship, co-sponsorship, cooperation, support, funding, and collaboration. The number of temporary exhibitions in the 157 museums in the collection was 634, and the number of related organizations, including temporary exhibition-holding museums, was 1,416.

The purpose of the network analysis is to construct a network connecting museums holding temporary exhibition and related organizations to visualize the differences in how each center or region is connected, and to calculate a network centrality index for use in multiple-regression analysis. We considered nodes in the network, the organizations that have relationships, such as sponsorship, co-sponsorship, cooperation, support, funding, and collaboration, with the temporary exhibition museums of the target museums, and undirected ties connect the nodes. Gephi (ver. 0.9.7) was used as the analysis software to calculate network indices and draw network diagrams.

A multiple regression analysis uses a negative binomial distribution model, and STATA (ver. 16.1) was used as the analysis software. The dependent variables are “Eigenvector centrality” as a network indicator for “Knowledge acquisition from other communities” in H1 and H3, and the “Number of advanced technology adoptions” as an indicator of the museum’s technology adoption for “Product innovation” in H2 and H4.

Eigenvector centrality is an index that states that nodes connected to nodes with high network centrality are highly central [23]. A high value of eigenvector centrality indicates that a node is connected to a central organization in each network and is more likely to gather information and knowledge from different communities, so it is used as a variable for knowledge acquisition from other communities. Variables are standardized and processed so that the variables are greater than or equal to zero by adding the minimum value to utilize a negative binomial distribution model.

The “Number of advanced technology adoptions” is based on the number of advanced technology adoptions related to museum exhibits and services as asked in the questionnaire survey. First, from a total of eleven technologies that have been adopted in museums, dummy variables were created from the results of responses to the four options of “have adopted,” “plan to adopt,” “have no plan but would like to adopt in the future,” and “do not plan to adopt,” with “have adopted” as 1 and the other options as 0. Next, to analyze the impact of adopting technologies with few pavilions and high demand, the technologies in the bottom 50% of the total of 11 technologies were considered “advanced technologies.” The six advanced technologies in this study are “digitization catalogs of materials and exhibits,” “viewing exhibits using 3D technology (including VR, AR, and MR technology),” “spatial presentation using digital technology,” “adoption of projection mapping technology,” “virtual visit (asynchronous) that allows visitors to view the museum on a website,” and “entrance reservation system.” The “Number of advanced technology adoptions” is the sum of these technology adoptions. However, the results for “spatial presentation using digital technology” and “adoption of projection mapping technology” were calculated as 1 even if both were “have adopted” because of the similarity of the question content.

The independent variables are “Rate of relations with mass media in the temporary exhibition,” which indicates the status of relations with mass media in H1 and H3, and “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition,” which indicates the status of relations with private companies in H2 and H4. The “Rate of relations with mass media in the temporary exhibition” is the number of private companies whose industry is television, radio, or newspaper out of the total number of organizations involved in the temporary exhibition held in each museum and represents the number of mass media per event. The “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition” is the number of private companies excluding mass media mentioned above and represents the number of private companies per event. Both independent variables are standardized.

The control variables are “Prefectural dummy,” “Chubu dummy,” “Designated administrator dummy,” “Volunteer recruit dummy,” “Number of visitors in 2019,” “Budget shortfall level,” “Importance of exhibition activities dummy,” and “Importance of education activities dummy.” First, the “Prefectural dummy” is set to 1 if the prefecture establishes the museum and 0 otherwise. The “Chubu dummy” is set to 1 if the museum is in the Chubu region (Niigata, Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Yamanashi, Nagano, Gifu, Aichi, and Shizuoka) and 0 otherwise. The “Designed administrator dummy” is set to 1 if the responding museum has a designated administrator system and 0 otherwise. The “Volunteer recruit dummy” is set to 1 if the responding museum recruits full-time or part-time volunteers and 0 otherwise. The “Number of visitors in 2019” is the number of visitors in 2019, the year before the spread of the novel coronavirus, and is standardized. The “Budget shortfall level” is a Likert variable that is defined as 4 for “strongly agree,” 3 for “agree,” 2 for “neither agree nor disagree,” 1 for “strongly disagree,” and 0 for “completely disagree” to the question “budget is not sufficient to introduce new technologies.” The “Importance of exhibition activities dummy” is set to 1 if the respondents answered “exhibition activities” as the most important activity among the museum’s main activities, which are “collection and conservation activities,” “research and investigation activities,” “exhibition activities,” “education and extension activities,” and “recreation activities,” and to 0 otherwise. The “Importance of education activities dummy” is set to 1 if the respondents answered that the most important activity among the major activities is “educational activities,” and 0 otherwise.

4 Results

4.1 Network Analysis

Fig. 1.
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Museums Network (Clustering by Modularity)

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Fig. 2.
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Museums Network (Clustering by Prefectures)

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Figure 1 illustrates the results of the network analysis. Each museum is represented by a color-coded node: red for national museums, pink for prefectural museums, orange for municipal museums, yellow for other museums, blue for mass media such as newspapers and television, light blue for private companies, and yellow-green for government and educational institutions. The node’s size indicates the eigenvector centrality, and the thickness of the string represented by a line indicates the number of times the node is associated with temporary exhibitions. The larger the number of collaborations, the thicker the string, indicating that multiple collaborations took place. The names of the organizations are given for the large and characteristic nodes. In addition, the network is divided according to modularity [24], and communities are extracted. Some networks have large communities, but the greater the number of nodes (i.e., the number of organizations) that make up the community, the greater the number of mass media. The findings indicate that the mass media cooperate with temporary exhibitions with many related organizations. In the network in Niigata Prefecture, located in the center of Fig. 1, the network consists mainly of the Niigata City Museum, and many private companies are involved, while in the network in Yamanashi Prefecture, located next to Niigata Prefecture, many administrative organizations (shown in green) are involved, indicating regional differences.

In particular, several museums with high eigenvector centrality are found in each municipality. There are many prefectural museums, such as the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Archaeology, Yamanashi Prefectural Museum, Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art, and Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art. National museums such as the Nara National Museum and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, also have a large node, indicating that they often cooperate with museums with large nodes in other communities outside the municipality. Similarly, among the mass media, we can see that the Asahi Shimbun has a large node and that it often collaborates with museums with large nodes in other communities beyond the community. Many of the communities are composed mainly of prefectural museums, and we can observe that they cooperate with national museums and mass media to transfer knowledge to other museums in the region.

Figure 2 illustrates the network divided by prefecture, indicating that there are relationships across regions and that there is also cooperation between regions. Osaka Prefecture, the second largest city in Japan, has two large communities, indicating that communities are dispersed even within the prefecture. As there are few connections to other prefectures, there is less cooperation among them compared to other prefectures. Furthermore, the size of the nodes indicating the eigenvector centrality is not so large as to be noticeable. This indicates that the cooperative activities of museums in Osaka Prefecture with other organizations are weak.

The area consisting of Aichi Prefecture, the third largest city in Japan, and the neighboring Mie Prefecture has only one large community with numerous connections to other prefectures. Aichi, Mie, and Gifu prefectures, which are called the three Tokai prefectures in various aspects and form a single cultural area, are strongly connected in terms of museums. In addition, there is strong cooperation with Shizuoka Prefecture, which borders the three Tokai prefectures.

Particularly noteworthy are Niigata Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture. Niigata Prefecture is located on the Sea of Japan side and has many disadvantages, such as transportation networks, compared with the Pacific side of the central region. Because of its disadvantageous location, Niigata Prefecture is trying to establish new private companies and develop tourism resources by focusing on regional cooperation [25]. Yamanashi Prefecture also lacks tourism resources, and the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, which opened in 1978, purchased a painting by Jean-François Millet, world-famous for “The Sower” and “Picking Up the Harvest,” and became a hot topic as the “Millet’s Museum” [26]. In 2009, the museum opened the Millet Pavilion featuring Millet’s works, and the number of annual visitors increased by 39% over the previous year [27], and now the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art constantly receives visitors from all over Japan as a “model” public museum [28]. Toward the 50th anniversary of its opening, the museum is developing activities focusing on museums and art galleries, including digital technology and regional cooperation [29]. The results of such activities can be seen in the dense community formation, cooperation with other organizations, and high eigenvector centrality illustrated in the network diagrams in Figs. 1 and 2. It can be seen that regional cities such as Niigata Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture are more active in the use of mass media than ancient Japanese cities such as Kyoto and Nara, which have long been tourist destinations, and Ishikawa Prefecture, which is called “Little Kyoto.” It is believed that regions with unfavorable conditions consciously implement cooperation with mass media, compared to regions with abundant tourism resources.

4.2 Multiple Regression Analysis Results

Table 1. Basic Statistics
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Table 2. Correlation Tables
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Table 3. Analysis Results
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Table 1 illustrates the basic statistics, and Table 2 illustrates correlation tables for the variables used in the analysis. As the maximum absolute value of the correlation coefficient is 0.59, we checked the VIF and found that the maximum value is 1.66, which is below the strict threshold of 3 [30]. Table 3 illustrates the results of the analysis. The dependent variables are “Knowledge acquisition from other communities” for Models I through V and “Number of advanced technology adoptions” for Models VI and VII. Models I and VI are control variables only, while models II and VII are models with independent variables. Comparing Models I and II to V, and Models VI and VII, the log-likelihood values have increased, and the AIC and BIC values have decreased, so we consider that there is no problem regarding the model’s fit.

In Model II, where the dependent variable is “Knowledge acquisition from other communities,” “Rate of relations with mass media in the temporary exhibition” has a positively strong effect (p < 0.01) on the dependent variable, “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition” has a weak positive effect (p < 0.10). Therefore, H1 and H3 are supported. In Model VII, where the dependent variable is the “Number of advanced technology adoptions,” “Rate of relations with mass media in the temporary exhibition” has a positive and strong effect (p < 0.01) on the dependent variable. H2 is supported. However, the “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition” is not significant, and H4 is not supported.

As for the control variables, in Model II, the “Chubu dummy,” “Volunteer recruit dummy,” and “Importance of exhibition activities dummy” positively impact “Knowledge acquisition from other communities. In Model VII, “Prefectural dummy,” “Chubu dummy,” and “Number of visitors in 2019” positively impact “Knowledge acquisition from other communities.” In Model VII, “Prefectural dummy,” “Chubu dummy,” and “Number of visitors in 2019” have a positive effect, while “Importance of exhibition activities dummy” has a negative effect on “Number of advanced technology adoptions.”

For H1 and H3, where the dependent variable is “Knowledge acquisition from other communities,” additional analyses of marginal and interaction effects are conducted. Model III includes the marginal effect variable. The squared terms of the independent variables for the dependent variable “Knowledge acquisition from other communities” indicate that “Rate of relations with mass media in the temporary exhibition” has a strong negative effect (p < 0.01), while “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition” have a negative effect (p < 0.05), respectively. Figures 3 and 4 demonstrate the marginal effects of both dependent variables. Each graph depicts an inverted U-shaped marginal effect, indicating that too much of an increase in mass media and collaboration with private companies in the temporary exhibition inhibits knowledge acquisition from other communities. Comparing Figs. 3 and 4, the position of the vertex in Fig. 3 is higher than that in Fig. 4. This indicates that the relationship with mass media has a greater impact on knowledge acquisition from other communities than private companies.

Model IV includes a variable for the interaction effect. The variable that multiplies the two independent variables has a negative effect on “Knowledge acquisition from other communities.” Fig. 5 illustrates the interaction effects of the two independent variables. For the “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition,” if the variable’s value is larger than the mean value, the value is obtained by adding one standard deviation, and if the value is smaller, the value is obtained by subtracting one standard deviation. Figure 5 illustrates that the more the relationship with private companies in the temporary exhibition other than mass media (+1 standard deviation), the more the relationship with mass media, the easier the knowledge acquisition from other communities as the number of relationships with mass media increases. However, the relationship with fewer private companies (−1 standard deviation) is more conducive to knowledge acquisition from other communities than the relationship with more private companies. Therefore, if a museum’s special exhibition has a very large relationship with the mass media, more likely to acquire knowledge from other communities with smaller relationship with the private companies. However, as the intersection of the two curves is at the relationship ratio of approximately 2, and the vertex of the inverted U-shape in Figs. 3 and 4 is also at the relationship ratio of approximately 2, the marginal effect and the interaction effect occur almost simultaneously. Therefore, the more relationships the museum has with both mass media and private companies, the easier it is to acquire knowledge from other communities, indicating a synergistic effect.

Model V is a full model that includes both marginal and interaction effect variables. Compared to model II, model V with marginal and interaction effects has a lower p-value (p < 0.01) for the independent variable “Rate of relations with private companies in the temporary exhibition,” indicating a positive and strong effect on the dependent variable.

Fig. 3.
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Marginal Effect of Rate of Relations with Mass Media

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Fig. 4.
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Marginal Effect of Rate of Relations with Private Companies

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Fig. 5.
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Interaction Effect between Independent Variables

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5 Discussion

This study aims to demonstrate the characteristics of knowledge that external networks formed through partnerships with external organizations bring to museums, which are social purpose organizations, and the mechanisms that generate product innovation. The analysis reveals that museums’ linkages with the mass media and private companies facilitate their knowledge acquisition from other communities and that linkages with the media also facilitate their product innovations. We also demonstrate marginal and interaction effects in the impact of mass media linkages and private companies’ linkages on knowledge acquisition from other communities.

There are four main contributions of this study. The first is the demonstration that collaboration with other organizations directly impacts product innovation. While previous studies have demonstrated that museums’ attitudes toward collaboration with other organizations indirectly influence their technological innovation [5], this study demonstrates that collaboration with other organizations directly influences product innovation. Camarero and Garrido [5] demonstrated that museum awareness and efforts for donor promote technological innovation in museums, but Japanese museums have lower donor revenues than foreign museums, making it difficult for them to make a rapid turnaround in their efforts. Temporary exhibitions are held in many museums, and this study demonstrated using actual data on temporary exhibition collaborations suggests a way to generate product innovation without major changes in organizational structure or business models, and we consider that this will promote the generation of product innovation in museums. Furthermore, prior studies have not demonstrated which characteristics of organizations and partnerships with them influence museum innovation. The present results indicate that collaboration with mass media, which has high information-gathering and advertising capabilities, promotes museum product innovation. As product innovation is not about novelty in society but about novelty in the organization in question, it is thought that product innovation can be achieved by museums acquiring a wide range of information from mass media through collaboration and selecting and introducing advanced technologies that fit the organization. This is a theoretical contribution to the study of product innovation, as it demonstrates how product innovation can be promoted in nonprofit organizations that do not have profitable products or services.

Second, the visualization of the status of cooperation of museums with other organizations and the networks constructed has revealed the characteristics of museums in each region. There is no visualization of what organizations the museums are working with and networking with. The network analysis was focused on some Japanese regions, and the differences in the state of cooperation among the regions made it possible to visualize the regional characteristics. The network analysis results indicated that local museums with fewer tourism resources are more active in collaborating with other museums and other organizations in different industries and are more active in acquiring knowledge from other communities. The results of the multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the “Chubu dummy” positively impacted “Knowledge acquisition from other communities” and “Number of advanced technology adoptions,” indicating that regional characteristics are related to knowledge acquisition and product innovation of museums. Indicating which organizations museums collaborate with and acquire knowledge from their network positions leads to the unraveling of the museum’s knowledge absorption mechanism, which is a theoretical contribution to organizational behavior and network theories.

Furthermore, we demonstrated the marginal and interaction effects of collaboration with other organizations in different industries on knowledge acquisition from other communities in the museum. The results demonstrated inverted U-shaped effects between the influence of both relationships with mass media and relationships with private companies on knowledge acquisition from other communities at the temporary exhibition, and also indicated that when there are more relationships with mass media, fewer relationships with private companies is easier to acquire knowledge from other communities. Museums have limited management resources, and it is difficult to rapidly expand the scale of exhibitions and increase the number of organizations with which they collaborate. This study’s results demonstrate that more active collaboration with the media can promote knowledge acquisition, and this is a theoretical contribution that links museum management theory and organizational behavior theory by showing how limited management resources should be utilized. However, the marginal and interaction effects occurred almost simultaneously, indicating that up to a certain standard, there is a synergistic effect between the relationship with mass media and the relationship with private companies. This indicates that it is important for knowledge absorption to successfully combine the characteristics of the organization aiming to acquire knowledge and the characteristics of the partner organization. This is a theoretical contribution to the theories of organizational behavior and museum management and a practical contribution to museum collaboration.

Finally, we demonstrated the impact of collaboration with other organizations from different industries on the museum’s knowledge acquisition. This study demonstrated that collaboration with other organizations in different industries in a temporary exhibition, a collaboration by organizations with different knowledge in their respective fields of expertise, impacts knowledge acquisition from other communities. This study’s results indicate that the combination of the museum’s research and exhibition capabilities, the mass media’s information gathering and advertising capabilities, and the private companies’ technological development capabilities in a museum’s temporary exhibition provide the museum with the capacity to search for and acquire external knowledge. Although the theory of knowledge absorptive capacity in firms [9] has been tested in many studies (e.g., [31, 32]), demonstrating that the theory can be applied in museums is novel. This theoretical contribution to knowledge absorptive capacity theory can be adapted to museums, which are not-for-profit organizations, and also demonstrates how knowledge can be acquired in organizations with limited management resources.

One limitation of this study is that although the impact of external networks on knowledge acquisition and innovation is demonstrated, it does not demonstrate the impact of these on performance. In this case, the control variable “Importance of exhibition activities dummy” has a positive and strong impact on “Knowledge acquisition from other communities” but not on “Number of advanced technology adoptions.” Therefore, museums may choose between “external collaboration in temporary exhibitions” and “adoption of advanced technology in exhibitions.” This indicates that museums choose the business process that fits their organization within their limited resources. Therefore, future research is needed on the impact of knowledge acquisition from other communities on the economic performance of museums, such as the increase in the number of visitors, are required. Despite the above limitations, this does not detract from the contribution of this study.