ICT adoption in heritage organizations: Crossing the chasm

This article studies the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by heritage organizations in southern Europe and contributes to the understanding of how these organizations use technology, an underresearched sector in the management literature but an important one in knowledge society. A multi-case study approach, based on ten reference heritage organizations in France, Portugal, and Spain, generates a theory to identify various types of heritage organization adoption behavior of ICTs and the factors that favor or inhibit this adoption. The authors then test this theory on a complementary sample of 20 other heritage organizations from the same regions. The study characterizes adoption behaviors and influencing factors more precisely. The authors make recommendations to support heritage organizations in their efforts to adopt digital technologies and integrate them in a more meaningful way into their missions.