Charting service ecosystems flexibility: A museum setting

Abstract

The service ecosystems perspective has rarely been applied in literature tackling the nonprofit and voluntary sectors. Service ecosystems are defined as self-adjusting systems of resource-integrating actors connected by shared institutional arrangements and mutual value creation. By addressing service ecosystems flexibility (i.e., the ability of service ecosystems to adjust to changes), this article seeks to provide a framework that charts service ecosystems flexibility and explains its pillars, as well as the ways in which new technologies affect visitors and arts. The study focuses on service ecosystems changes initiated by technology, visitors, and organizers, aimed at increasing the level of museum visitors' experience. The study is performed in a service ecosystem comprising a sculpture arts exhibition and its online extensions in the form of Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. Collected data consist of interviews with the exhibition visitors and organizers, participative observations performed in the exhibition context, and online posts and media coverage related to the exhibition. The research process is iterative and abductive, continuously combining insights that emerge from the literature and the analyzed data through triangulation. The main findings emphasize organizers' pivotal role as the actor that orchestrates value cocreation in the service ecosystem by steering this process based on emerging changes. Additionally, the findings flesh out the role of technology in a service ecosystem and offer a more comprehensive view of service ecosystems flexibility.

Towards an open innovation ecosystem in the cultural industry: The bright side of trust and the dark side of measurement

“…In the cultural philanthropy literature, the ecosystem concept appears only sporadically, and no clearly‐defined ecosystem framework has been proposed for the analysis of philanthropically‐funded projects in the creative and cultural industries. However, related work on the non‐profit and cultural sector has served to highlight the importance for non‐profit organizations of donor relationships and quality‐oriented governance (Woodroof et al, 2020), the crucial role played by an institutions' key organizers in value creation in a service ecosystem (Brozovic & Tregua, 2020), as well as the dangers of mission drift faced by social enterprises as a result of pressure to secure funding (Jones et al, 2021). However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has thus far considered the concept of open innovation ecosystems in the context of cultural industries and no scholarly contribution has yet been made to an understanding of philanthropically‐funded cultural initiatives in the context of open innovation ecosystem strategy.…”