Online art collections fact or friction?

Online Art Collections: fact or friction?

University of Amsterdam

Mariken van Gulpen 6170889

MSc. in Business Studies

Thesis Entrepreneurship & Management in the Creative Industries Supervisor: Joris Ebbers

Statement of Originality

This document is written by Mariken van Gulpen who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

Foreword

I sincerely hope that giving birth will be easier than writing a thesis.

I am immensely grateful for my parents, brother, sister and friends for supporting me with advise and kind words, all the coffee in the world and nonstop liquorice supply during the process of doing research and writing my thesis. I would also like to thank my supervisor, dr. J.J. Ebbers for all the

input given and for not giving up on me.

Even though the process of writing my thesis was tough, I can honestly say that the topic is very close to my heart. As an art historian and manager at a start-up I was able to combine and research my

biggest passion with my greatest interest: art and management.

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Content

1. Introduction ... 3

2. Literature review ... 8

2.1 Introduction ... 8

2.2. Nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders ... 8

2.2.1. Arts and the cultural industry ... 8

2.2.2. Finance and Focus: Nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders ... 10

2.3. Doing business: Online versus offline... 12

2.4. Definition of motivation ... 14

2.4.1 Introduction ... 14

2.4.2 Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation ... 15

2.4.3 Prosocial motivation ... 15

2.5. What are prosocial motivations of nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders to bring collections online? ... 17

2.5.1. What is open access? ... 18

2.5.2. Prosocial motivations for providing open access data ... 18

2.5.3. Altruistic prosocial motivations to provide open access ... 19

2.5.4. Egoistic prosocial motivations to provide open access ... 22

3. Methodology ... 28

3.1. Research rationale ... 28

3.2. Research method ... 29

3.2.1 Unit of analysis ... 31

3.2.2 Data collection process ... 35

3.3. Quality of research ... 37

3.4. Data-analysis ... 40

4 Results ... 42

4.1 Introduction ... 42

4.2 Nonprofit art organization and their stakeholders ... 43

4.2.1. Nonprofit art organizations ... 43

4.2.2. Governments ... 44

4.2.3. Funds ... 44

4.2.4. Sponsors ... 44

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4.3. Online vs. offline ... 45

4.4. Prosocial Motivations ... 48

4.4.1. Altruistic prosocial motivations ... 48

4.5. Egoistic prosocial motivations ... 52

4.5.1. Brand Image ... 52

4.5.2. Increasing offline revenue ... 56

4.6. Challenges ... 58

4.6.1. Financing online collections ... 58

4.6.2. Differences in motivation ... 59

4.6.3. Copyrights ... 61

5. Discussion and Conclusion ... 63

5.1. Summary of findings ... 63

5.2. Discussion of findings ... 66

5.3. Implications for practice ... 70

5.4. Limitations and future research ... 71

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1. Introduction

During the recent economic crisis of the 00’s many organizations have suffered financial cutbacks. Amongst these organizations, nonprofit art organizations are suffering greatly under the financial crisis and have had to deal with severe cuts in government subsidies. In order to deal with these changes, nonprofit art organizations are extending their businesses and started to form alliances with funds, and sponsors from the corporate world to secure income (Austin, 2000). They furthermore are trying to reach larger audiences and extend and invent new services in order to increase their visitor’s satisfaction and loyalty (Kotler & Kotler, 2010). Nonprofit art organizations are engaging more and more in marketing activities to create more awareness and to extend their offerings (Kotler & Kotler, 2010). One way nonprofit art

organizations have been extending their offerings is by digitizing their art collections and distribute the online collections via open access data. This way anyone, anywhere can download Rembrandt’s Night Watch on their own computer. The phenomenon of becoming more commercial is interesting since the more commercial focus of these activities contradicts the nonprofit art organization’s first focus, which is an artistic mission instead of an economic mission (KEA, 2010, p.3). Nonprofit art organizations therefore need to make the right

choices and think about how online collections fit their goals and how it can promote their core mission without jeopardizing the relations built with their stakeholders. It is therefore important to understand what motivates nonprofit art organizations to move online but it is equally important to understand the differences in motivations between them and their stakeholders since this could be a source of potential friction if not paid attention to.

Therefore nonprofit art organizations need to understand how they can promote new offerings such as online art collections, thereby realizing their own mission and the various needs of all their stakeholders.

4 Organizations other than nonprofit art organizations have led the way in using open access data as a way of extending their businesses online. Some of these companies have succeeded in creating a superior competitive advantage through maximizing the utility of the Web (Khouja & Wang, 2010). The movie and music industries are a good illustration of how the Internet and digitization of the product has impacted business models (Khouja & Wang, 2010). A great example of such a company is Spotify. They understood how to create revenue streams from letting people have legal access to thousands of digitized music albums. People are offered the choice between free use of the service or a paid subscription service. The free version is less extensive and comes with ads between songs, the paid subscription comes without the ads and offers the service of downloading the songs. Where companies as Spotify clearly have an economic motivation of increasing revenue, nonprofit art organizations offer their services online for free and are less likely to have a dominant economic goal (KEA, 2010). It is therefore important to understand other possible motivations and their expected outcomes.

Motivation has been described differently across different disciplinary fields and research. In general motivation refers to “the reasons underlying behavior” (Guay et al., 2010, p. 712). As mentioned before, nonprofit art organizations mention they have an artistic mission which includes preserving cultural heritage, educating people and promoting research (Alexander, 1996, Thomas et al. 2009, Kotler & Kotler, 2010). These are motivations that focus on benefiting others instead of focusing on self-success. Literature identifies this type of

motivation as prosocial motivations (Grant, 2008). An organization doing business based on a prosocial motivation has “the intention of promoting the welfare of the individual, group, or organization towards which it is directed” (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; p.711). A difference is

5 made between altruistic prosocial motivations and egoistic prosocial motivation. Altruistic motivations purely focus on benefiting others. Egoistic prosocial motivations might seem to be directed at others, but the underlying intention is to benefit yourself (Grant, 2008).

Nonprofit art organizations might bring these collections online for purely altruistic reasons of benefiting their audiences by educating them and enable research. But on the other hand they might have the underlying intention of increasing their own income via improving brand image and loyalty and increasing offline revenue.

So what are the motivations of nonprofit art organizations to bring collections online and distribute them online for free? Is it an egoistic motivation of finding new revenue streams and trying to increase their income (Tonin & Vlassopoulos, 2010)? Or does it serve a more altruistic purpose of education and preservation which seem to be more congruent with their core artistic mission (Tonin & Vlassopoulos, 2010)? Do their stakeholders have different motivations to support and use online collections? And does this lead to frictions between stakeholders or the opposite, does it solve any existing frictions? The phenomenon of nonprofit art organizations moving online with their collections led to the above questions being asked and has led to the main research question of this thesis: “What are the prosocial

motivations of nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders, and can online collections

solve or cause friction between these different stakeholders?

This research explores what motivates nonprofit art organizations to distribute their

collections online. In order to answer the research question a qualitative study is conducted. The study revolves around three major nonprofit art organizations and more specifically around three museums. Furthermore important stakeholders such as governmental agencies, fund and visitors are interviewed. Studying the motivations of all stakeholders this research sets out to explore the true motivations of these organizations and sets out to find out whether nonprofit art organizations are truly altruistic organizations or if they are more commercially

6 oriented. It will reveal the differences in motivations between different stakeholders and it is explored how online collections are used to solve these differences.

This research will contribute to our knowledge on current research on motivations and their possible outcomes and the potential of online versus offline. In order to do this, previous research on motivation a as well as prosocial motivations for using open access data will be analyzed. Furthermore the anticipated outcomes of prosocial motivations are discussed and compared among different stakeholders.

In order to structure this research this study will start by giving an insight in the current situation in the cultural industries. This will help explain potential differences in motivations between different stakeholders such as governments, funds, sponsors and the general

audience. Secondly, this research will discuss theories on prosocial motivations and expected goals of these types of motivations. when nonprofit art organizations focus on a specific prosocial motivation. After explaining relevant theory, the choice of a qualitative method is explained. This qualitative research will revolve around three museums and their stakeholders such as governments, funds and audiences. After the research method is discussed, results are discussed and in the end the main and prosocial motivations and possible challenges are explained and discussed in the conclusion and discussion section.

First of all, in order to structure this research, an insight in how the cultural industries are structured and organized is given. The main stakeholders and their interests are discussed in order to describe potential conflicts in motivation to bring collections online.

Secondly, the paper will discuss theories about prosocial motivations and will elaborate on their differences and their underlying aimed goals. After explaining the different prosocial motivations, the methodology will be discussed. The research method chosen is a qualitative research existing of thirteen interviews in total with nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders. Following the careful description and explanation of the research method used,

7 results are provided. After having presented the results the main motivations and challenges are explained in the conclusion and discussion section.

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2. Literature review

2.1 Introduction

Many authors have discussed the topic of nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders (DiMaggio, 1986; Hansmann, 1986; Thomas et al, 2009; Weinstein, 2010). In order to find out what the motivations of nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders are to move collections online, it is important to understand what a nonprofit art organization is and to identify their stakeholders. After discussing what nonprofit art organizations are, motivation will be explained and the different types of motivation organizations and individuals can have will be discussed. The types of prosocial motivations will be discussed in depth and will be linked to possible motivations of nonprofit art organizations and stakeholders for using open access data.

2.2. Nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders

2.2.1. Arts and the cultural industry

The cultural industries are focused on producing goods and services that have a cultural value rather than a commercial value (Hagoort and Kooyman, 2010). In general nonprofit art organizations are organizations which focus on other goals than profit maximization and exist to preserve and conserve heritage of humanity and want to contribute to society in order to educate, innovate and enrich people, achieve artistic excellence and get peer recognition (DiMaggio, 1986; Hansmann, 1986; Thomas et al, 2009; Weinstein, 2010). Nonprofit art organizations therefore are organizations that produce and exhibit performing arts, visual arts, music and/or literature (Hagoort and Kooyman, 2010). These organizations focus on creating goods and services whose value is not purely economic but rather focus on communicating cultural value. (KEA, 20103).

9 In Europe most nonprofit art organizations have been heavily relying on subsidies from governments. Since the recent cuts in financial support from these governments, nonprofit art organizations have been forced to seek for alternative financial sources. Nonprofit art

organizations had to become more commercial in order to survive and secure financial stability (Thomas et al., 2009). Nonprofit art organizations were forced to rethink their business strategies. Building relations and forming alliances with stakeholders such as

corporate sponsors, funds and audiences became more important (McNicholas, 2004). A shift from philanthropic funding towards an idea of more integrated alliances became apparent, in which commercial and economic factors and positions of nonprofit art organizations became more important (Austin, 2000). However this shift towards becoming more commercial as a nonprofit art organization, contradicts the artistic mission of these organizations (KEA, 2010). Nonprofit art organizations therefore needed to find new ways in which their artistic mission will not be compromised by more commercial demands from their stakeholders (Janes, 2004, O’Neill, 2006). Over the past few years nonprofit art organizations have extended their businesses beyond their physical realms. Organizations such as concert halls offer live

streaming of concerts and museums now offer their collections online for free. Moving online could be a way to express their artistic mission but also a way of increasing commercial value to ensure financial support from their stakeholders. This last point however, has consequences for how nonprofit art organizations in the cultural sector adapt their activities to the wishes of their stakeholders. Therefore it is important to first understand how nonprofit art organizations depend on their stakeholders and what the different focusses of stakeholders allying with nonprofit art organizations are.

10 2.2.2. Finance and Focus: Nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders

Nonprofit art organizations not only rely on the visitors they are selling their tickets to but also on external partners like the government, sponsors and funds (Alexander, 1996). These different stakeholders have different interests when cooperating with nonprofit art

organizations. These different missions and goals of the stakeholders should be considered by the art organization and be carefully balanced in order to answer to both their own artistic mission and the missions of other stakeholders when extending their business online (Janes, 2004).

The government has spent 2.7 billion euro’s on the cultural industries in the Netherlands in 2015. Around 14.2 million euros was spend on making collections of art organizations appropriate and available for the general public (Rijksbegroting, 2015). Even though (local) governments invest huge amounts in the cultural industries, percentage wise the total expenditure on culture compared to the complete expenditure of the government has

drastically decreased (Rijksbegroting, 2015). In 2013 Jet Bussemaker (Minister of Education, Culture and Research) has called attention to museums having to become more economically oriented (Bussemaker, 2013). Rick van der Ploeg, Secretary of State, pitched the term

Cultural Entrepreneurship to make cultural organizations aware of the need to become independent (Vinkenburg, 2013).According to Alexander (1996) many governments have a mission to protect cultural heritage such as art and to make art accessible to a large audience. Governmental bodies review and control a firm’s actions and behavior and thus nonprofit art organizations are depending on the demands and motivations from the governments

(Donaldson & Preston, 1995). Governments are mostly interested in expanding the audiences of nonprofit art organizations and educating the audiences on their cultural heritage

(Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed, 2013, Alexander, 1996). Besides a focus on the

11 and cultural heritage (Alexander, 1996, Froelich, 1999). On first glance the government and nonprofit art organizations both share a concern for preservation and protecting cultural heritage (Press release, Rijksoverheid, 2012). However governments are more interested in reaching as many people as possible and are less concerned about the artistic mission of the nonprofit art organization. Governments pressure nonprofit art organizations to become more commercial institutions. This seems to contradict the core artistic and cultural heritage

preservation mission the nonprofit art organizations have.

In 2013 funds invested 91 million euros into art and culture (Consultancy.nl. Berenschot). This makes funds the second largest contributor to funding arts and culture. Funds, in contrast to the government, are usually less interested in the audiences of nonprofit art organizations but are more focused on the scholarly aspect of the projects they are funding (Alexander, 1996). This group of stakeholders is interested in the reputation of the organization they are funding and the demands and wishes are very specific and tend to be conservative in what is expected of how the money is used (DiMaggio, 1991, Alexander, 1996). The focus is more on the art and artist and its impact than on the audience. These stakeholders will thus be more interested in supporting a scientific and scholarly projects of nonprofit art organizations (Alexander, 1996).

During the recent years, sponsors have become more and more important in securing financial income for nonprofit art organizations. In 2015 around 80 million euros came from for profit organizations (consultany.nl, Berenschot). According to Galaskiewicz (1985) and Alexander (1996) for-profit organizations are mostly interested in becoming involved with nonprofit art organizations because they believe it is a way to improve their brand image. For this reason these corporations will be interested in creating the largest visibility possible when sponsoring a nonprofit art organization. They furthermore will be interested in projects that will draw large audiences that give them more publicity. These projects tend to be more accessible and

12 create an experience for the visitor (Alexander, 1996). This jeopardizes the artistic mission of the nonprofit art organization and is a potential source of friction between the artistic and commercial values of nonprofit and for profit organizations.

Last but not least, nonprofit art organizations should not forget about their audiences since these are the people that will buy the tickets to visit the institution and ensure direct income. Over the course of the past 10 years the income from ticket sales and other direct income has increased with 170 million euros. The audience visiting can have various motivations to visit a museum. Falk (2006) describes different clusters of visitors and their focus. He describes the explorer as a visitor who is curious and want to learn more about a certain subject or content of a nonprofit art organization. The professional or hobbyist is the type of visitor who possesses knowledge on a certain subject and they visit a museum with a specific goal of learning more. Falk (2006) also describes the experience seeker. These individuals seek a certain experience. They visit the museum for recreational purposes rather than visiting an art organization for and educative purpose. Creating online collections, nonprofit art

organizations need to take into account that they have to both focus on entertainment but also on information that will inform and deepen the knowledge of certain visitors.

2.3. Doing business: Online versus offline

The Internet has given organizations great opportunities to enable and extend their business online (Porter, 2001; Varadarajan & Yadav, 2002). It has proved to be a very important strategic tool on different levels such as marketing and strategy of an organization

(Varadarajan & Yadav, 2002). It is important to understand how doing business online can differ from offline business. The major advantages of a brick-and-mortar business is the connection with the customer and the direct experience of a service or product (Ahn et al. 2004). Customers are able to experience a service in a more complete context offline. On the

13 other hand some of the greater advantages of extending online are; convenience, broader selection, access to information and 24h availability (Shankar et al., 2003; Ahn et al., 2004). Extending online leads to companies being able to reduce costs, facilitate building

relationships with both consumers and partners and improve customer satisfactions and loyalty (Ansari & Mela, 2003). Typically, online customers are able to gather more information, especially concerning functional products and services (Shankar et al. 2003). Functional or utilitarian products are products that are “more cognitively driven and can accomplishes a functional or practical task.” (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000, p. 61). The opposite of utilitarian products and services are hedonic goods and services (Dhar &

Wertenbroch, 2000; Chitturi, 2007). Hedonic goods are characterized as goods that are more affective and lead to aesthetic or sensual pleasure (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000). Since hedonic goods and services are more sensory in nature, an online medium could not always display all these aspects (Ahn. et al., 2004). However the online channel does offer an opportunity to reduce risk (Jepsen, 2007; Pauwels et al., 2011). Since hedonic services such as a visit to a museum have to be experienced on the spot, a consumer risks his time and money on the unknown. Gathering all information prior to making use of hedonic services therefore reduces risk (Chitturi, 2007, Jepsen, 2007). Shankar et al. (2003) show in their research that loyalty actually increases when using online services. They explain that since consumers put more effort in finding more information online, thereby reducing risk, they will be more satisfied with the online service offered which positively influences loyalty.

Even though multiple studies have shown advantages of online businesses, especially regarding loyalty (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; Chitturi, 2007), it is also understood that the one does not necessarily exclude the other. Therefore online businesses are not seen as a substitute for offline businesses but rather as complementary (Ahn et al. 2004).

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2.4. Definition of motivation

2.4.1 Introduction

As became clear when defining nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders, motivation plays an important role in what different stakeholders expect of nonprofit art organizations. Nonprofit art organizations mostly have an artistic mission of preserving and making art available for everyone (KEA, 2010). This mission is however jeopardized by external wishes and motivations from partners they collaborate with. These partners are for profit businesses, funds, governments and individual donors and audiences (Alexander, 1996). These

stakeholders might be less interested in a pure artistic mission of a nonprofit art organizations but are more interested in economic goals they could achieve in cooperating with such

organizations. Therefore motivation is an important factor in how nonprofit art organizations run their business and how they extend their mission to online channels.

Motivation has been described differently across different disciplinary fields and research on motivation is still to find some consensus on the meaning of motivation. In general motivation refers to “the reasons underlying behavior” (Guay et al., 2010, p. 712). More specifically motivation is defined as: “The psychological process that directs, energizes and maintains action towards a goal, task or project.” (Grant & Shin, 2011, p.2). In general a distinction can be made between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Where intrinsic motivation is based on personal interest and pleasure and extrinsic motivation relies on external reinforcement like appraisal or monetary compensation. These differences will be explained in paragraph 2.3.2. However, these contradicting types of motivation are expanded by the idea of prosocial motivation (Grant, 2008). This type of motivation which will be further discussed in

paragraph 2.3.3 and can explain why organizations are willing to engage in activities in order to benefit others (Batson & Shaw, 1991; Grant, 2008).

15 2.4.2 Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation

Motivation is an important topic in psychology and organizational studies. It describes the reasons why people undertake activities and do their jobs. It is furthermore important in explaining organizational behavior (Mitchell & Daniels, 2003). Motivation is described as the process of directing and energizing actions (Kanfer, 1990) or an inner force that drives

someone to undertake activities (Dowling & Sayles, 1978).

Extrinsic motivation has been studied and discussed by many researchers. Ryan & Deci (2000) refer to extrinsic motivation as someone doing its job or task because this person knows it will lead to a separable outcome. Therefore the motivation of doing a job is not derived from the job itself but an external and separable factor outside of the job. With the emergence of the human-relations movement in the 1920’s an important shift came about in which famous researchers like Roethlisberger (1934) discovered motivations other than extrinsic ones. Researchers started to look at what the intrinsic motivations of people were to do a job. Being intrinsically motivated means that people get enjoyment out of the work itself (Deci & Ryan, 2004). Furthermore intrinsic motivation refers to the personal satisfaction employees derive from the achievement of goals and tasks (Deci, 1975). Intrinsic motivation is usually contrasted with extrinsic motivation since the reward and motivation is found in the job itself whereas with extrinsic motivation the reward is found external to the activity

(Amabile, 1993).

2.4.3 Prosocial motivation

Besides being intrinsically motivated or extrinsically rewarded via wages and bonuses recent literature also calls attention to people motivated for other reasons. One such type of

motivation is prosocial motivation. Prosocial motivation has been defined as: "the desire to expend effort in order to benefit others." (Grant, 2008, p.49). This would mean that someone

16 is likely to do a job in order to have someone or a group benefit from it (Grant, 2008).

Prosocial motivation has been studied separately from intrinsic motivation but in recent research, attempts are made to integrate the two. It is believed that intrinsic motivation and prosocial motivation are related (Grant, 2008). Where the drivers of intrinsic motivation are pleasure and enjoyment of an effort, the drivers of prosocial motivation are meaning and purpose. Therefore prosocial motivated people are driven by introjected goals such as fulfilling core values and identities (Ryan & Deci, 2000, Sheldon & Elliot, 1999). Furthermore prosocial motivated people are more focused on future outcomes of their activities whereas intrinsically motivated people would be more concerned with the here and now of their job leading to satisfaction (Grant, 2008). Prosocial motivation not only is important on an individual level but also on an organizational level where it influences the performance and productivity of an organization (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; Grant, 2008). Research is expanding on prosocial motivation and it is especially becoming more and more important in organizations engaging in the provision of education, and social services as well as in charities and nonprofit organizations (Tonin & Vlassopoulos, 2010).

Prosocial organizational behavior is described as a behavior which is “performed by a member of an organization and directed toward an individual, group, or organization with whom he or she interacts while carrying out his or her organizational role, and performed with the intention of promoting the welfare of the individual, group, or organization towards which it is directed” (Brief & Motowidlo, 1986; p.711).

In the literature two forms of prosocial motivation are identified: egoistic or warm-glow prosocial motivation and pure altruistic prosocial motivation (Tonin & Vlassopoulos, 2010). Batson (1987) describes the distinction between those two as follows “prosocial motivation is egoistic when the ultimate goal is to increase one’s own welfare; it’s altruistic when the ultimate goal is to increase another’s welfare” (Grant, 2008; p. 67.).

17 Altruistic prosocial motivation is a pure form of altruism in which the motivation to do

something is completely focused on sharing with others and benefiting others without

thinking about oneself or the organizational goals (Batson & Shaw, 1991; Grant, 2008). Even though egoistic prosocial motivation can also be about helping another group of people, the act of helping is with the underlying motivation to benefit yourself or the organization as an ultimate goal (Batson & Shaw, 1991).

Organizations justify their existence based on a specific mission (Speckbacher, 2003). Nonprofit organizations in most cases state their core mission to be of an altruistic nature (Rose-Ackerman, 1997). However this mission statement might not always align with how the organizations are managed (Rose-Ackerman, 1996, Janes, 2004, Davies et al., 2013). Especially now that nonprofit organizations suffer from the economic crisis, they have to find new sources of income and will be responsible for a greater part to break even or make a profit. This is also especially the case for nonprofit art organizations. Their core mission will be an artistic mission in which art is treated as a public good (KEA, 2010). Even though driven by an altruistic prosocial mission the underlying true motivations of nonprofit art organizations to engage in certain activities could be egoistic in nature.

2.5. What are prosocial motivations of nonprofit art organizations and their

stakeholders to bring collections online?

The various stakeholders of nonprofit art organizations have been identified earlier on. These stakeholders are: the art organization itself, for-profit corporations, governments, funds and the audiences. These different stakeholders can have different motivations to engage in providing open access data such as online collections of museums. Before moving on to what motivations of organizations using open access could be, it is good to first understand what is meant by open access data. After having explained what is understood by open access data

18 different prosocial motivations will be explored, distinguishing between egoistic and altruistic prosocial motivations.

2.5.1. What is open access?

Open access data is data “in which all content, past and present, is freely available online” (Chibnik, 2015, p.225.). Besides making the content online available for free, the data is free of most restrictions like copyrights and licensing (Suber, 2012). This means that people could reuse the data in the way they want and share it with others. There are different forms of open access (Suber. 2012). Some (online) libraries for example ask a fee at first after which people could search through all the articles and books in their archives. There is also open access data with some limited restrictions on copyrights. For example, people are allowed to download a picture for private use but have to ask for permission when using that same picture for commercial reuse. So in general open access data is data that is open and unlimited for usage by the audience.

2.5.2. Prosocial motivations for providing open access data

Nonprofit art organizations are likely to have prosocial motivations to provide their

collections via open access data to their audiences. They can be driven by both altruistic and egoistic prosocial missions to serve their audiences. As mentioned before nonprofit art organizations are expected to be firstly driven by an altruistic artistic mission of serving and giving back to society. On the other hand nonprofit art organizations might want to serve their audiences via online channels in order to gain something like increasing awareness and visibility. This would mean that they have egoistic prosocial motivations. Nonprofit art organizations seem to have found a new way of sharing and giving data to the audiences. They provide open access data via online channels. These online channels such as websites and online archives and collections make it possible for anyone to download pictures and

19 reuse them. In some cases it is even possible for the audience to add information and start communities around an art object. More and more of the nonprofit art organizations are online and are showing and giving their art collections online for free through their digital

collections. Open access data enables nonprofit art organizations to reach their altruistic and (or) egoistic prosocial goals. Open access might even be a solution to minimizing tensions caused by different expectations of different stakeholders (Davies et al., 2013). Open access data could be used in multiple ways and can have multiple layers meeting the expectations of the different stakeholder groups. In this chapter egoistic and altruistic prosocial motivations of nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders to move their collections online and share them with their audiences for free are discussed.

2.5.3. Altruistic prosocial motivations to provide open access 2.5.3.1. Art is a public good

Only 7.7 percent of artworks in collections of museums are on display each year and to be seen by the public (Volkskrant, 18th of February 2016). All other works are either on display in other museums or more common in the depots of the museums, hidden from the audiences. Museums are aware of this problem and aware of audiences having a right to see all of the art collections since it is their cultural heritage. There is a growing body of critique making nonprofit art organizations even more aware that things need to be changed (Volkskrant, 18th of February 2016). The main motivation for museums to open up depots is that all art should be available for everyone and should be seen as a public good (Wubs &Huysmans, 2006; Volkskrant, 18th of February 2016). Nonprofit art organizations are now responding to their audiences by organizing tours through their depots or organizing exhibitions showing the artworks that have been stored in these depots. Another way nonprofit art organizations could deal with this problem is showing their collections online (Volkskrant, 18th of February 2016).

20 Nonprofit art organizations explain that they are motivated to bring collections online since they feel it is their duty to give back to the people and educate and inform them in the best way possible (Fry, 2001). A major problem however, is that it is a very costly process to digitize all the art objects (Wubs & Huysmans, 2006). Nonprofit art organizations are depending on others to fund the digitizing projects in order to give back to society.

Also funds are likely to have an altruistic goal when being involved with online collections. Funds involved with nonprofit art collections focus on the scholarly impact of a project. Their goal is to promote education and research through visibility. Extending the art collections online is a clear-cut chance to open up collections in order to improve education and research. It makes collections more visible.

2.5.3.2. Providing online collections for scientific research improvement

Providing open access online is an ongoing and much debated topic in the scientific research journal world. Recent research has proven that articles that are freely and openly available online will be cited more and thus be of a greater impact for research (Lawrence, 2001; Antelman, 2004; Suber, 2014). Researchers conclude that this means that the research impact is greater for online available articles than for print articles. Lawrence (2001) and Suber (2014) explain that some researchers claim they would deliver their work unpaid because they are motivated to publish their research for free in order to improve research impact as a whole and help other researchers across the world perform better research (Lawrence, 2001; Suber, 2014). This means that these research authors are motivated to make their work available online for free in the name of science. They are thus likely to have prosocial altruistic motivations to provide open access in order to have other people benefit from it without the expectation of being extrinsically rewarded. Suber (2014) goes on by explaining how open access not only benefits research but also society since research that is openly available will help others to make better decisions which society can benefit from (Suber, 2014). When

21 looking at nonprofit art organizations research is a very important of preserving collections (Davies et al., 2013). Research enhances and deepens knowledge on collections (Davies et al., 2013). Using open access data could enable professionals in the museum and art world to share their knowledge and enhance understanding of collections. Both nonprofit art

organizations, governments, funds and professionals like conservators can benefit from the digitized art collections. These stakeholders are likely to have altruistic prosocial motivations to share open access data in the name of science and have other people benefit from that.

2.5.3.3. Providing online collections for educational purposes

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was an early adaptor to the new online reality where data was shared for free amongst the users. MIT realized the MIT Open Courseware Project where almost all course materials are made available online for free. MIT believes that providing online free access to their courses “unlocks knowledge and empowers minds” (MIT website, 2015). Thus making courses available online for free can serve an educational goal in which managers at MIT are altruistically motivated to have as many students and others benefit from these services. In the case of the art domain, many nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders are motivated to display their collection in order to educate the audiences (Alexander, 1996). For non-profit art organizations providing open access online could be a way to reach and teach more people. Furthermore, especially governments will be interested in educating people and will be prosocial motivated to promote open access in order to educate people (Adriaans et al. 1998).

22 2.5.4. Egoistic prosocial motivations to provide open access

2.5.4.1. Improving Brand Image to secure financial support from external stakeholders

Prosocial motivations and image are known to be related to each other in human behavior (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). A prosocial motivation to do something might be to acquire a good image and it’s vital for human cooperation (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). When an organization does good in order to improve their own brand image this could be classified as an egoistic prosocial motivation. The same goes for nonprofit organizations. Even though their mission might be altruistic in nature, the real underlying motivation to undertake activities might actually be to improve their image which will result in improved financial performance.

Some of the advantages of a good and positive brand image are increased financial

performance (Roberts & Dowling, 2002; Schwaiger & Raithel, 2012), ability to draw more customers (Fombrun, 1996), attracting investors (Srivastava, 1997; Schwaiger & Raithel, 2012) and create a superior competitive advantage (Barney, 1991; Deephouse, 2000). Nonprofit art organizations, as mentioned before, are financially depending on external stakeholders like corporate sponsors, funds, government and their audiences. This means that it is important to receive social approval by these different stakeholders in order to attract them and set up alliances to receive financial support (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990; Deephouse, 2000; Ariely et al., 2009; Austin & Seitanidi, 2012). One way organizations can establish this is by managing their image towards the outside world (Ariely et al., 2009).

Expanding business online has proven to be a way to attract more people towards your organization and increase brand awareness which can influence brand image, leading to improved financial performance (Porter. 2001). Several studies have shown the relation between brand awareness and brand image (Aaker, 1991; Dodds et al. 1991; Keller, 1993). Brand image is the consumer’s perception of his or her attachment to a brand (Keller, 1993).

23 Aaker (1991) explains that a consumer will have a more positive image of a brand if he or she is more informed about a brand. Therefore when nonprofit art organizations become more visible, for example online, they can create more awareness leading to an improved brand image (Hsu et al. 2011). Brand image is only improved if the perceived quality of the brand is viewed as positive (Keller, 1993). This means that when organizations are able to signal good quality of their products and services this can positively impact brand image (Chen & Tseng, 2010).

On the one hand a positive brand image can secure financial input from external investors. On the other hand signaling a positive brand image can increase financial performance through perceived quality and customer loyalty (Grewal et al., 2004; Chen & Tseng, 2010).

Towards investors a positive brand image can signal how viable an investment could be. When alliances are formed between a nonprofit organization and a corporate sponsor, resources are exchanged (Austin and Seitanidi, 2012). A very important factor in forming alliances between nonprofit organizations and corporate sponsors is brand image (Austin & Seitanidi, 2012). A corporate sponsor can improve its own brand image by borrowing reputational resources and vice versa (Graf and Rothlauf, 2012). It is thus important for nonprofit art organizations to invest in their brand image to ensure alliances with corporate sponsors and funders in order to guarantee income. Research has shown that nonprofit art organizations use their positive brand image as a way to seek more publicity in order to attract sponsors, funds and visitors to increase revenue (Faircloth, 2005). In his research Faircloth (2005) even showed that a positive brand image increases donations from patrons. Since the internet has proven a viable medium to increase brand image the movement of bringing collections online could be explained as an egoistic motivation of improving brand image with the goal of improving financial performance through finding and retaining sponsors and funds (Porter, 2001).

24 A positive brand image not only enables nonprofit art organizations to form alliances with stakeholders such as sponsors and funds but it also positively influences customer’s feelings about the organization. Towards customers brand image can signal quality and reliability (Fombrun, 1996, Schwaiger & Raithel, 2012). This way an organization can attract more visitors to buy and use their services thereby increasing revenues (Schwaiger & Raithel, 2012). Several studies have shown the relationship between brand awareness, brand quality, brand image and brand loyalty (Rogerson, 1983; Andreassen, 1994; Chen & Tseng, 2010). Hsu et al. (2011) showed that when consumers are aware of a brand and they easily recognize the brand, they will prefer this brand over others. This means that increased awareness and positive evaluation of the quality of a brand could lead to a more positive brand image and increased purchases. A positive brand image in turn improves brand loyalty (Grewal et al., 2004). In case of nonprofit art organizations more loyal audiences could mean that visitors will return and are also more likely to recommend the organization to others (Rogerson 1983; Samu and Wymer, 2008). Brand awareness increases the perceived quality of the nonprofit art organization. When a brand is more visible and consumers have more information on a brand this can positively influence brand image. The brand image of an organization is therefore assessed through the information available (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990, Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Of increasing importance is online information availability (Reichheld et al., 2000; Jepsen, 2007). When trying to create customer loyalty, trust is one of the most important factors determining loyalty (Pitta et al., 2006). Trust levels of consumers can be increased when information becomes more complete (Pitta et al., 2006). So when customers are provided with appropriate information about products and services of an organization online this will increase trust which influences brand image and eventually customer loyalty (Smith, 2002; Reichheld et al., 2000).This means that it is very important for organizations to be

25 visible online and provide appropriate information about services and products offered.

Besides sharing appropriate information, trust can be created through website design

(Schlosser et al., 2006). Investing in a clear lay out which is well-organized and where people can easily find more information has proven to be contributing to trust building and

improving brand image (Schlosser et al., 2006). A possible explanation for nonprofit art organizations to make collections available online is that they can signal their efforts and increase levels of information and awareness which in turn improve brand image and increase customer loyalty (Grewal et al. 2004).

Digitizing art collections and bringing these collections online could be an egoistic prosocial motivation to increase financial performance through increasing awareness leading to a more positive brand image which enables nonprofit art organizations to attract and retain sponsors, funds and audiences.

2.5.4.2. Increasing offline revenues via online channels

Giving goods and services away for free online seldom means that organizations do not expect something in return. Earlier on building brand image was discussed as a possible outcome of giving things away for free online. Organizations are also very likely to have prosocial egoistic motivations to improve their offline revenues when moving online and distributing their services online for free (Pauwels et al., 2011). Giving something away for free is a potential marketing tool which allows organizations to attract new users (Kumar, 2014). Since the upcoming of the Internet many brick and mortar stores have created

webpages. Not all of these webpages offer online-shopping possibilities for their consumers, meaning that consumers still have to visit the stores to purchase products or experience the service offered by an organization. The same goes for most non-profit art organizations and their website designs. Their websites are more informational than transactional since usually most of the original artworks are not for sale. Some of these organizations like museums

26 however did decide to offer high resolution images of these artworks to be downloaded and reused without any restrictions. A possible egoistic prosocial motivation for doing this, is informing and entertaining consumers in order to attract them to their offline venues and thus to increase offline revenue (Kumar, 2004, Pauwels et al. 2011).

Research has shown that consumers most often use the Internet for information search (Peterson & Marino, 2003; Fallows, 2005). As mentioned before customer loyalty increases when more information resources are available leading to a more positive brand image. More information also reduces the perceived risk of purchase for consumers (Jepsen, 2007; Pauwels et al., 2011). Decreasing risk through offering more and better information online is an

important factor in increasing offline revenues (Pauwels et al., 2011). Risk is especially experienced when there is an intention to buy sensory products or services. In their research Pauwels et al. (2011) describe sensory products as products that need to be experienced before purchase. They give clothing as an example of such products since consumers rely on seeing and touching the products first. For sensory products more information could reduce risk and lead to higher chances of consumers buying the product and going to the offline stores. In their research Pauwels et al. (2011) conclude that revenue impact of informational websites for sensory products is higher than for non-sensory products. Furthermore this research showed that the revenue impact of an informational website is higher for customers who do not live near the stores. This is because customers who live farther away do not have the chance to pass by a store to gather information, therefore they perceive a higher risk for buying products. Informational websites reduce this risk since it offers these customers to browse for information prior to the decision to visit the store (Pauwels et al., 2011).

Non-profit art organizations could qualify for offering sensory products since the artworks on display need to be experienced. Exhibitions are physical experiences and the visitor

27 what is being displayed (Chang, 2006). Informational websites with digitized collections from nonprofit art collections enable visitors to reduce the risk of purchasing a ticket and not knowing what to expect. Also online collections enable people who live far away from nonprofit art organizations to be better informed about what is on display before making the decision to travel, diminishing risk and uncertainty.

28

3. Methodology

In this section the research rationale and method is described. It is clarified why certain methods are chosen, what the unit of analysis will be and how the process of collecting data can be justified. Furthermore the quality of the research will be discussed and explained.

3.1. Research rationale

With this research I am trying to explore the prosocial motivations of nonprofit art

organizations and the different stakeholders to digitize their main asset, their art collections. Even though digitization of goods and services is not a new phenomenon in itself, the context in which the digitization of collections is explored is. Music and films are already digitized and distributed online. Several organizations like Spotify and Netflix have proven to be successful with digitizing music and movies and designing different options and subscription possibilities for the consumer. However these organizations differ from nonprofit art

organizations. Where Spotify and Netflix are depending on people paying to use their online services and third party advertisements, nonprofit art organizations often offer their services online for free without advertisements. Nonprofit art organizations further are unique organizations in that they have to balance their activities between their core mission of collecting and preserving the national cultural heritage and the financial dependence on external stakeholders like sponsors and visitors who have exhibition preferences with more commercial value (Gainer & Padanyi, 2002). This unique mix of stakeholders consisting of the government, visitors and sponsors and funds all pressure the nonprofit art organization in a different way and they need to find a way of dealing with them without compromising their core business. Furthermore nonprofit art organizations are becoming increasingly more important since the tourist stream keeps on growing pressuring the organizations to think about new ways to attract and accommodate the growing number of potential visitors (van de

29 Wiel, 2015; Bockma. 2015). Digitizing art collections is a way of opening up collections to the stakeholders. It has the potential to exhibit art works that otherwise would have remained in depots. Since most art organizations share the feeling that art belongs to everyone, online collections create an opportunity to show everything to the audiences. These motivations mentioned above are altruistic in nature since effort is made in order to serve other people. On the other hand digitizing collections could well have an egoistic component to it. Creating more awareness via online channels could also attract more visitors and could help improve the organizations’ reputation which could lead to attracting more visitors. Furthermore online visibility will improve offline revenues due to reducing risk and informing the consumer about what to expect (Pauwels et al., 2011). All potential egoistic motivations for nonprofit art organizations to be involved in open access data by digitizing their collections.

This unique position nonprofit art organizations find themselves in is interesting to research since it will further extend the knowledge on prosocial motivations for organizations to provide open access. Moving collections online by nonprofit art organizations has been a subject understudied. It is therefore interesting to see what specific motivations nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders can have to engage in online activities such as digitizing their collections and how they can be balanced.

3.2. Research method

In order to study the motivations of nonprofit art organizations to move online with their collections, I will perform a qualitative research in which I gather empirical data on the prosocial motivations of nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders involved in digitizing art collections. Using a qualitative method enables me to gather more contextual information on prosocial motivations of nonprofit art organizations in digitizing collections and study this movement in a social context (Gephart, 2004; Saunders et al. 2009). Using

30 qualitative data allows me to not only understand different prosocial motivations but also felt constraints and tensions between different actors to better understand the phenomenon of why nonprofit art organizations are moving art collections online.

In order to gather this qualitative data, I will do 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with different stakeholder groups which will allow me to gather inclusive and more contextual data than when I would use quantitative data gathering methods (Yin, 2009). The in depth

interviews can help uncover the social context in which nonprofit art organizations and their stakeholders work and how it has led to digitizing collections on a large scale, something quantitative data would not allow to be measured (Yin, 2009).

The main aim of this research is to find patterns on prosocial motivations that will allow for general conclusions on motivations for creating digital collections in the nonprofit art world. I will structure my research and interviews based on a deductive research approach. The

deductive approach gives me the opportunity to observe, match and analyze similar motivations the different interviewees will give me and detect to what extend the existing literature on prosocial motivations applies to the setting of digitizing art collections in the nonprofit art world. Furthermore a deductive method allows previous research on prosocial motivations to guide the questions asked in the semi structured in-depth interviews. This gives me the opportunity to ask focused questions based on prosocial motivation literature. On the other hand the research will in part be inductive in nature. This allows for interviewees to bring up new themes and topics that can be analyzed and used to either extend existing theory or help build context specific theory (Yin, 2009).

I will do a multiple case study in which I will interview people from different nonprofit art organizations and from different departments within that organization. Also stakeholders from governments, audiences and funds will be interviewed to get a deeper understanding of the

31 nature of the motivations to digitize collections of nonprofit art organizations. This will allow me to develop a richer understanding of different motivations to move online and allows to detect patterns or differences in motivations between and within organizations and their stakeholders (Yin, 2009). Detecting these patterns allows me to quantify the main prosocial motivations and analyze and match the mentioned tensions between nonprofit art

organizations and their stakeholders influencing the motivations distributing art online. Furthermore it brings along the opportunity to discover how nonprofit art organizations see the current and future developments of digitizing collections (Yin, 2009).

The multiple case study includes three nonprofit art organizations, two higher government institutions, two art funds and six visitors of museums. The nonprofit art organizations

selected are all museums. The reason for selecting museums as the unit of analysis is that they are representative of high art organizations that pursue a clear artistic mission. Because of this museums are typical to experience a tension between the artistic mission and the pressure to commercialize which is imposed on them by subsidy cutbacks by governments due to the current economic crisis. This tension imposed by governments along with other stakeholders such as audiences, sponsors and funds can shed light on the actual prosocial motivations of museums to start digitizing and distributing artworks online.

3.2.1 Unit of analysis

The unit of analysis will be focused on museums and their stakeholders: governments, audiences and funds. In the Netherlands 74 museums of the 443 registered museums are art museums. In total the museums attract almost 20, 6 million visitors a year

(Erfgoedmonitor, 2015). Fifteen museums were responsible for 35% of all museum visits. Eight out of these museums could be found in Amsterdam (Erfgoedmonitor, 2015). The

32 museums are funded by a mix of governments, sponsors, funds and audiences money

(Alexander, 1996; Berbers & Krabhuis, 2013).

I selected the sample of museums based on their intention to digitize collections or the fact they had already started digitizing collections. I further narrowed the sample size down to medium to large museums based on the number of visitors (Erfgoedmonitor, 2015). The museums in the final selection were all based in Amsterdam (see table 1). Medium and larger sized museums were chosen since they are key players in the art world and I expect them to have a clear vision on digital collections. Furthermore these larger institutions lead the way for many other museums making their actions and motivations for bringing

collections online typical for the nonprofit art world.

Table no. 1

Table 1: Museums in sample are part of the top 10 of best visited museum in the Netherlands based on numbers of 2013, Erfgoedmonitor 2015.

Within the selected museums I will interview directing managers, online collection

managers and people responsible for raising funds and attracting sponsors. All of them are on some level involved in initiating and setting up the digitization of art objects. These people can best motivate the reasoning behind the trends of moving their collections online.

Museum Number of visitors (2013)

Rijksmuseum 2.200.000

National Maritime Museum 330.000

33 Another group important in identifying motivations of why museums move online is the government. In the Netherlands multiple government bodies are involved in the cultural sector. The overarching ministry on a national level is the ministry of Education, Culture and Science (EC&S). Within this ministry the Rijksdienst voor Cultureel Erfgoed, the CHA (Cultural Heritage Agency). The CHA is responsible for coordinating and supporting the Dutch national heritage preservation. One of their tasks has been the digitization of cultural heritage in the Netherlands (Erfgoedmonitor, 2015). Another initiative from the Ministry of EC&S is the DEN foundation (Digital Heritage

Netherlands). According to their website “DEN supports archives, museums and other heritage institutions to improve their digital strategies and service” (www.den.nl). DEN works closely with the Ministry of EC&S in improving online collections of museums amongst other organizations.

The government bodies CHA and the independent agency DEN were selected based on the level of involvement with the selected art organizations and the involvement in promoting digitization. Furthermore since they have a leading and overarching role in the digitization of cultural heritage, they know what is going on in the art world and have a good overview of what motivates museums to start digitizing and distributing art online. This led to interviewing employees from CHA and DEN. Both organizations were involved in developing strategies for museums and on some level with the museums selected.

The third group interviewed are people within funds supporting Dutch museums. Since the subsidy cutbacks from the government during the recent economic crisis museums have become more dependent on other sources of income. Funds might have become even more important now than they were before. In the Netherlands there are several funds that focus

34 on supporting the arts. A distinction can be made between government funds, like the

Mondriaan fund in the Netherlands and privately owned funds like the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. Museums that will not be directly subsidized by the governments can apply for funding from these organizations in order to realize certain projects. The funds

interviewed were selected based on the fact that they were related to the museums in the sample and have supported several projects set up by the museums. Via the websites of the museums a list of funds could be found. Within the selected funds people responsible for granting money to digital projects of museums were interviewed since they could best describe the motivations to do so and point out any differences and similarities compared to museums in motivations to digitize art collections.

The last group being interviewed were the audiences of the museums. Some of the visitors had heard and seen the online collections of museums whilst others had never heard of it. The sample was chosen in such a way that all kind of audiences were interviewed. A distinction between visitors was made based on Fry’s focus groups in his research on how web based catalogs impacted offline visits. Fry (2001) identified: the Hobbyists, Students & Researchers and the General User (Fry, 2001). An additional group was added, called the Experience Seeker based on Falk’s research on museum learning. The Hobbyist has an interest in certain art or objects or themes covered in the museum, this interest goes

beyond curiosity. Falk (2006) refers to this group as explorers. These visitors would describe themselves as curious and willing to learn more about the institution and a certain subject. The next group are Students or Researchers. These people are either professionals in the art world or are involved in studying specific objects or themes presented within the museum. The last group mentioned by Fry (2001) is the General User. General users are visitors that visit the museum or website to get some basic or practical information on

35 exhibitions and the museum. They are not searching for any specific information on art, but rather just search for broad themes (Fry, 2001). Falk (2006) adds an additional group relevant for this research, the Experience seeker. People within this group are seeking for an experience. They usually visit a museum because others have recommended it. These visitors attend exhibitions and see what’s on display through recreational glasses (Falk, 2006).

3.2.2 Data collection process

Since I have worked at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. I first contacted museums I had already access to via personal connections like friends and colleagues. When contacting these personal connections within museums I asked if they could refer me to other museums, government bodies and funds.

I contacted eight museums of which five responded negatively due to lack of time or the fact they did not want to participate in the interviews since they were already working with other institutions on the same research topic. In the end over a period of six months three museums responded positively and I conducted four interviews of which two within the same museum but with two different persons with different positions within the

museum. The people interviewed at the museums were all willing to bring me into contact with governmental bodies. Via this referral and a personal connection I was brought into contact by email with the project manager of digital collections at the RCE and with the coordinator and a researcher at DEN. All three responded positively and three extensive interviews were conducted over a course of six months.

Via the interviewees at the museums I was also made aware of the funds involved in the digitization project. I contacted four funds of which two responded positively. The other two replied positively at first but then told me that on second thought they had no time and

36 did not want to participate since they already participated in a questionnaire similar to the subject of this research. In the end two interviews were conducted over the course of seven months.

The individual visitors were contacted via personal connections. The interviewees in the hobbyist group were all selected based on the knowledge they had a personal interest in art that went beyond curiosity. These people were frequent visitors of the museums in the sample group and other museums. For the student and researcher audience group I contacted individuals who studied art history or were working in this field and frequently visited museums and had to search for information online. These people were contacted via personal connections since I have studied art history and was still in contact with people from this field. The last group were the general users. These people were selected based on the fact that they did not go to museums at all or only two to three times a year. These people were contacted via my own contacts and they explained they had no real interest in specific art nor had any knowledge about it. I contacted ten people of which three responded negatively and had not enough time to meet or talk to me. Seven people responded positively of which two in the Hobbyist group, two in the Student/Researcher group and three in the General User group.

The interviews with the museums, governments and funds were mostly held within the offices at their organizations. Only one interview was conducted at a hotel bar. The interviews with the audiences were held either at their homes or at my own home.

At the start of each interview I asked for permission for the interview to be recorded. I explained to the interviewees that anonymity was offered and that they were free to read and comment on the transcribed interviews. I used the same protocol as the basis for all the interviews (see Appendix 1). The protocol consisted of questions that stressed and

37 followed the themes dealt with in the theory on prosocial motivations. Each interviewee from different groups was asked about their involvement and function in relation to digital collections, their relation to every single other stakeholder group, differences and

similarities in motivations and the challenges and tensions faced in bringing collections online or using them. For all interviews more or less the same protocol was followed but at the same time room was left for new topics to be brought up and discussed as well as some questions irrelevant for some stakeholder groups were left out. In some cases the sequence was changed in order to be able to ask better directed questions.

All interviews took between thirty-five and ninety minutes. All interviews were recorded and notes were taken during the interviews. These notes taken were either about the next questions to be asked as well as noting down how some respondents reacted to questions. All interviews were transcribed within one day of the actual interview after listening to the audio records. The transcripts of the interviews can be found in Appendix 2.

3.3. Quality of research

Quality of qualitative research can be ensured through validity, trustworthiness and rigor (Guba, 1981; Rolfe, 2006). These research objectives are derived and applied in quantitative research. Guba and Shenton make a case for introducing related objectives more suitable for explaining the quality of quantitative research. The following objectives were introduced:

a) credibility (related to internal validity)

b) transferability (related to external validity and generalizability)

c) dependability (related to reliability)

38 These different objectives ensuring quality of the research are discussed and it is explained how they were applied during research.

Credibility in qualitative research is linked to the internal validity of a research and it ensures that the phenomena under study are accurate and that what the research sets out to measure is actually measured (Shenton, 2004). Credibility of the research was achieved by interviewing top leaders and managers of some of the best museums in the Netherlands. The people interviewed within museums, funds and governments were all high ranked professionals within their organizations working on digitizing projects on a daily basis. This means that the interviewees had a clear and leading role and extensive knowledge about the research topic. Furthermore credibility was sought by interviewing multiple cases from different

organizations and stakeholder groups. This way viewpoints could be checked and verified against each other developing a richer picture of motivations to move collections online. The answers of the interviewees were also compared to the previous literature and theory on prosocial motivations to assess congruency and frame the findings (Silverman, 2000). Also in the interview protocol iterative questions were used aiming to check if the interviewees would answer the same way each time ensuring credibility (Shenton, 2004). Credibility was also ensured by taking notes during the interview and letting the interviewees check the

transcriptions to make sure that the way answers were formulated actually truly reflected what they had intended to answer (Guba et al., 2007). Unfortunately random sampling was not possible and instead a method of purposive expert sampling was used making generalizations harder. Having a purposive sampling method could lead to researcher bias. This was however reduced by using clear criteria and theoretical framework justifying this method (Shenton, 2004).

Transferability concerns the extent to which the findings of a study can be applied in a different situation (Guba, 2007). In this research transferability is ensured through careful