Thesis title: Ecosistema museale: network, obiettivi di sostenibilità e impatto
This thesis builds on the idea of the museum as a producer of public value and of cultural, economic, and territorial externalities, and investigates the ecosystem as an organizational form capable of supporting more stable and situated processes of value creation. The analysis combines interdisciplinary literature with a mixed-methods empirical design based on a frame of 48 museums, ISTAT/SISTAN data, directors’ questionnaires (N=34), and structured interviews (N=10). From this perspective, the ecosystem is understood not as a mere extension of the museum’s relational network, but as a strategic planning device operating upstream and downstream of managerial processes, grounded in co-creation, co-evolution, and compensation. The findings show that networks strengthen access to resources and economic performance, yet often function more as compensatory mechanisms than as consolidating ones, without producing full organizational internalization. The thesis argues that, in the museum field, value does not stem from relational density per se, but from the capacity to translate relationships, competences, and resources into a configuration consistent with the institutional mission and the territorial context.