Enacting vitality of culture heritage information: exploring configurational paths to sustainable cultural heritage crowdsourcing

Purpose Cultural heritage crowdsourcing (CHC) has become a prevalent model in cultural heritage information practices, with numerous cultural memory institutions adopting this approach to advance their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, the factors contributing to the sustainability of CHC projects remain unclear. This article aims to explore the influencing factors and critical paths for the sustainable development of CHC projects. Design/methodology/approach Our study identifies six key factors that influence the sustainability of CHC projects based on a comprehensive literature review. To examine the configurational effects among these factors, we employ the archival research approach by using the Wayback Machine to collect Internet archival data from 27 CHC projects and conducted a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the data. Findings Our analysis reveals five distinct combinations of conditions that result in high project vitality, suggesting that CHC projects can achieve sustainability through multiple pathways. One such pathway is characterized by the presence of fundraising capacity in the initial phase. Two paths are focused on fundraising capacity in the sustained phase and low task complexity, while the other two paths emphasize socio-technical alignment and the openness of outputs. Originality/value This study contributes to an in-depth understanding of the intricacies inherent in the sustainability of CHC initiatives while providing practical insights into the sustainable advancement of various CHC projects and ancillary cultural heritage information practices.