The sustainability of museum growth: a system dynamics approach

Based on a review of existing literature in management and economics of arts and culture and on an extensive case study – the metropolitan museum district in Turin – this paper’s objective is to show that museum growth is problematic in the long term through a system dynamics model. The classical loop – investments, growth, profitability, investment – encounters difficulties when dealing with public goods, characterized by high interconnections among museums and stakeholders within the same territory. The model simulation shows the structural characteristics of this sector that determines problems in term of survival; it can thus be understood as blending management and economic perspectives. Therefore, the search for sustainability should be addressed in controlling museum growth with a long time perspective and in supporting and developing new forms of cooperation among those organizations to decrease the “cost of growth.”