On the edge between tradition and innovation: Reassembling museums as emerging creative organizations

Museums are undergoing an organizational shift, regarding their role within society
and professional competences. This shift is often depicted as positive, turning
museums into more democratic, creative, and efficient organizations (Fleming 2005).
Others claim, however, that an innovation process cannot succeed, if it is not
supported by a favourable global network, providing a negotiation space (Law and
Callon 1992). Starting from this theory, we analyze the case of two local museums, in
order to gain insights into museum innovation and the emerging interplay with
traditional practices. We investigate also how external pressure from a network,
apparently supporting innovation, may instead create a conflicting system of values,
compromising the emergence of a negotiation space and hindering the innovation
process.
Our study suggests that museum innovation is still unsettled, on the edge between
tradition and innovation, because it is being negatively affected by a global network
claiming to support innovation, but in reality denying a negotiation space and
demanding for traditional practices to be preserved.
Therefore, according to museum practitioners innovation is hindered by a conflicting
system of values, creating a “double bind” dynamics (Bateson 1972), which denies a
clear way to succeed in achieving innovation and a new organizational identity.
Therefore, innovation practices are confined within safe spaces, that we call
innovation enclosures, such as temporary/thematic exhibitions, coexisting aside of
traditional, often criticized, practices.