Brand museums, commodification of cultural heritage and cultural transfer: The case of IKEA museum ☆

Abstract

This paper examines how brand museums, as themed environments, commodify and transfer the cultural heritage of organizations to their stakeholders. We conduct a qualitative study based on six in-depth interviews with top management professionals at the IKEA Museum. Rooted deeply in the Swedish socio-cultural ecosystem, the IKEA Museum uses various strategies to commodify its cultural heritage, such as displaying historical artefacts, creating interactive exhibits, narrating stories of innovation and social responsibility, and offering co-creation opportunities to visitors. In doing so, it plays a prominent role in enabling cultural transfer and fosters intergenerational cultural memory among its stakeholders. The theoretical conceptualization is presented by proposing the Synthesis of Cultural Transfer, Value Outcomes, and Intergenerational Memory framework (SCTIM), and implications are discussed. [Please refer to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2024.101388 for an open access full-text published article.]

Keywords: Cultural heritage, Cultural transfer, Intergenerational memory, Brand museums, IKEA Museum, Brand heritage