Technology adoption in small Italian museums: an empirical investigation

The last digital revolution of this century has shaped every industry, including the cultural one, which has also had a tremendous impact on museums. In this vein, museums have adopted technologies to meet the new needs of visitors. However, literature has not identified the most adopted technologies in museums and if there is a difference according to the museum’s typology. In order to fill this gap, directors/curators of 88 small Italian museums (SMs) were asked to identify the technologies they adopted, through a questionnaire. Data were analysed in quantitative terms through the ANOVA and Chi-squared tests. Results show that natural science and technology museums have a greater level of technology adoption than other museum typologies and that the most implemented technologies are: mobile website, multi-language website, online ticketing, social media, e-commerce, forum, newsletter, targeted newsletter, and mobile application. Findings provide useful implications for scholars and practitioners as well as interesting suggestions for future research.