Based on the findings, the curating design aligns with national strategies, and can be beneficial to user and provider organisations, and to every individual concerned with ECHAsystem operations. The direct benefit, as shown from this research, is twofold, to make processes easier and less stressful within a culture of trust, and to significantly improve performance across all four objectives.

 

Overall, the ECHAsystem will benefit from improved organisational sustainability performance. During data collection, the levels of present (20.26%) and updated (9.51%) knowledge artefacts related to 54.97% performance (just above the average performance at 50.00%). Making knowledge search, adoption, adaption, and learning easier at personal and organisational levels would enable the knowledge artefacts to positively affect performance. We can use the regression values to calculate such performance variation based on usable quantity increase (section 5.2). If, for example presence of knowledge artefacts doubled to 40.46% of the operational drums, and half of those were up-to-date, the performance due to the presence would be (47.93%+0.59x(40.46%*51flutes))= 60.10%, and the performance due to the updated knowledge artefacts would be (60.10%+0.80x(50%*51flutes)= 80.50% (Good towards Leading in the Likert scale, section 3.2). This is above the ECHAsystem’s user organisations’ aspiration of 75.63% and matches the high aspiration by provider organisations of 80.51%. The performance increase would be 47% ((80.50%-54.97%)/54.97%). Additionally, if the quality of the knowledge resources’ content improves, alongside providing a greater variety of media, with knowledge resources being joined up and accessible, the step change (unstandardized coefficient B values of 0.594 and 0.798 respectively) would also increase, making the performance even higher.

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ECHA sites and organisations would be able to select resources and set up specific webpages and filtering functions for their people. Organisations with no intranet or learning systems could utilise the OWL ones, or they could link their own systems to the OWL webpage resources and functions. The site-specific operational topics (reflecting the knowledge resources by objectives, drums (operational areas) and flutes (suboperations)) could be set up by the site or organisation, and they could add or link their site-specific resources which will not be shared with external organisations.

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The OWL administrative and technical support would provide user organisations free access to a) the knowledge resources and b) the technical expertise to set up and manage their own site- and organisation-specific OWL webpages for all operational drums. This would benefit especially all the smaller organisations with limited capacity or funds. All users would be able to filter and select resources suitable for their habitat, size, location, management type, and so on. Overall, organisations would be able to access and manage more targeted, quality operational knowledge easier and quicker, helping to improve their absorptive capacity, operational capacity, and organisational performance.

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Personal development would be accumulative and supported throughout people’s careers, and there would be a common language in the ECHAsystem, helping people to be inducted, settle in, and learn faster when they join an organisation. Knowledge artefacts, training, and expert support would be connected for all users, even if the resources were created by different provider organisations. The knowledge collection could be searchable through a variety of filters, and accessible to freelancers, staff, volunteers, students, and apprentices. Filtering by habitats, regions, counties, organisation size, and so on, could help find knowledge resources specific to the individual users.

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Access to knowledge artefacts by staff and volunteers (permissions, ability to see what is available, and accessibility) relates to 26% higher organisational performance. The knowledge engagement level with volunteers in particular would be much improved through the knowledge curating design. The research showed that organisational performance when involving volunteer teams is much closer to staff team performance, when knowledge artefacts are provided and accessible. Volunteer teams provided with the operational knowledge and tools they need, relate to 71% higher organisational performance. However, often volunteers are seen as additional workload. Such negative experience of volunteers and volunteering is a result of the fragmented and limited knowledge sharing. This research showed the tremendous improvement in processes and organisational performance when volunteers have access to knowledge resources. We just need to enable volunteers to access a variety of knowledge media (some might prefer to read, others would rather watch a film rather than read a 200-page dull manual), and be able to select knowledge that is relevant to their interests, their motivations. So, we need to understand what their motivation for volunteering is (Brudney, 1990; Casselden et al., 2015; DCMS, 2022b; Fletcher, 1987; Goodlad and McIvor, 2005; Hardy and Cull, 1973; McCurley et al., 1994; Millar, 1991). Volunteering is a common, and often required, route to gaining experience prior to being employed in cultural heritage. Socializing is another main motivation; gaining social interaction skills and fighting isolation. Other volunteers participate because they are interested in specific cultural heritage aspects, such as history, architecture, cooking, music, gardening, theatre, and so on. They all have in common a need to learn; through experience, from social interaction, participation, or facts. A personal development knowledge collection would enable them to expand on their interests and engage more beneficially in operations. Additionally, a distinct category of volunteers includes trustees. They usually bring in expertise from their own ecosystems and may lack expertise required in the ECHAsystem. Having a socializing knowledge process that enables trustees to learn skills they need, and to add knowledge from outside into the existing practices, as well as critique and challenge existing knowledge from a different viewpoint, would enrich the cultural heritage knowledge base.  

     

There would be significant benefits for provider organisations. Knowledge resources on websites of individual networks and providers require maintenance; updating the webpages and knowledge resources, and ensuring these are continually accessible. Furthermore, knowledge resources require technical skills and infrastructure for website architecture, webhosting, and for creating a variety of media, which carry associated costs. As shown in the research, provider organisations also have limited capacity and scarce financial resources. Having a centrally coordinated platform would enable all the individual provider websites to slim down, saving on capacity and making them easier to navigate through. Additionally, a centrally coordinated platform could include all the latest technology required for knowledge resource development which would be available to all knowledge alliance (partnership board and knowledge networks) providers, with training and technical support, and would reduce their costs, administration workload, and ease off their capacity issue. Knowledge providers would be able to focus their work on developing and delivering high quality value-creating knowledge artefacts, training, and on providing expert support. Resource filtering and ECHAsystem-wide analytics on the use and feedback of the quality of all the resources could be used by provider organisations for horizon scanning, including to spot gaps for future knowledge resources development. Available knowledge resources and gaps would be visible, and there would be an accumulative way of collating feedback at ecosystem scale and at speed; shortening the timescales for knowledge resource decision making, development, implementation, and communication. The knowledge resources would each have the provider’s details and logo, and would link back to the provider’s websites, raising the profile of the providers, while reducing their workload. It would make the linked provider’s training courses, events, and their memberships more visible. As their memberships would offer holistic knowledge resource supportive packages, the design would enable provider organisations to increase their membership and sell more tickets for their training and events. Provider organisations would have more stable funding for specific remits of knowledge resources, more administrative support for themselves, improved capacity, raised profile and membership status, and reduced costs.

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The Athena design could therefore benefit individuals and organisations, both user and provider ones. It could also add value to the ecosystem through sustainably increased vitality. Currently, the prevailing valuation work is concerned with measurement as a means of value redistribution. The larger the value demonstrated, the larger piece of pie each sector can claim, and the greater need to finance it can be tabled. This research is not concerned with value distribution but with value creation, seeing the potential to grow the cultural heritage value of its capitals. Culture can be devalued when it is not participatory and not contributing to wellbeing, and heritage can be devalued when it is not maintained and not restored (Crooke et al., 2022; Rosenstein, 2018; Throsby, 2010). This research defined the ECHAsustem for its complementary parts, the cultural and artistic values enriching the historic environment and heritage assets. Curating organisational knowledge in the ECHAsystem can sustainably improve cultural education, social participation, economic development, and environmental preservation by providing professional development knowledge in a healthy organisational culture, which in itself is a cultural value. Knowledge grows the most when shared (Quinn et al., 1996); ECHAsystem operational knowledge can increase the cultural, social, economic, and environmental capitals on their own merit, not by redistribution of limited resources.​

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