Maria Francesca Renzi

Innovation in service ecosystems: an empirical study of the integration of values, brands, service systems and experience rooms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of innovation in service ecosystems by focussing on the role of values resonance in relation to the integration of brands, service systems and experience rooms. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical, explorative case study of an innovative service system is carried out using a narrative approach and presented in the form of a saga. Findings – Insights gleaned from the empirical study are used for conceptual developments. Analysis of the empirical case study is presented as four lessons linked to values, brands, service systems and experience rooms. Originality/value – The paper extends a conceptual framework of innovative resource integration in service ecosystems. The paper also contributes four propositions to inform theory: values resonance is a basis for service innovation, the innovative integration of brands based on values resonance can foster innovation, the integration of resources across service system boundaries grounded in...

Reconciling internal and external performance in a holistic approach

The paper innovatively proposes the use of BNs in higher education sector.A holistic approach is adopted to jointly monitor internal and external indicators.Most relevant variables affecting KPI were identified by mutual information analysis.Results point out the critical issues of the analyzed Master degree. University education is crucial for cultural and economic growth. Thus, the academic mission recognizes the achievement of both institutional and social objectives, and research provides the basis for the systematic creation of knowledge and the development of human capital. Universities attempt to manage a global system with a holistic vision based on data and facts and oriented to the continuous improvement of its effectiveness and efficiency. The goal is achieved by implementing a monitoring system based both on internal and external performances. As a consequence, it is necessary to consider both students perspective regarding needs, expectations, level of satisfaction and loyalty and internal key performance indicators.This paper proposes the use of Bayesian networks for jointly monitoring internal and external performance of a Masters programme of an Italian University in a holistic approach. A Bayesian network is estimated using a learning algorithm able to analyze the association structure among mixed ordinal and nominal variables. Various scenarios are evaluated thanks to efficient computational algorithms of Bayesian networks.

Peer evaluation to develop benchmarking in the public sector

Purpose – The urgency to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of public administrations has led to the adoption in the public sector – in Italy as well as in other countries – of tools and models inspired by the total quality management (TQM) approach, such as the common assessment framework (CAF). A parallel need was felt within public structures to train people, the “peers”, who aside from being able to implement the self‐evaluation activities of their own administration, also needed to be equipped with the necessary skills to complete external evaluation activities, namely “peer evaluations”, with the ultimate aim of spreading quality management culture and best practices in the field through an approach based on benchmarking. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey designed to determine the training requirements that a “peer” should acquire in order to perform “evaluation” activities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper has strong empirical connotations and is essenti...

Cultural heritage and consumer behaviour: a survey on Italian cultural visitors

Purpose – The urgency to cope with the international economic crisis has led to efforts to identify innovative tools and frameworks that are capable of regenerating local and national economic development. The enhancement of the cultural heritage sector can be a strategic factor in improving the competitiveness of country systems. In Italy, the nation’s rich cultural heritage is not managed in an efficient and effective manner, even though it embodies a tremendous opportunity to enhance local economic growth, especially in light of the role of new Cultural Technology Districts (CTDs). In this context, the purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey conducted to investigate the behaviour of tourists who consume Italian cultural resources. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is an empirical investigation that attempts to identify the needs and expectations of cultural consumers through descriptive statistics, as well as factor and cluster analysis. This study is the beginning of an effo...

Cultural technology district: a model for local and regional development

The urgency to cope with the international economic crisis has led to efforts to identify innovative tools and frameworks that are capable of regenerating local and national economic development. The enhancement of the cultural heritage sector can be a strategic factor in improving the competitiveness of country systems. In Italy, the nations rich cultural heritage is not managed in an efficient and effective manner, even though it embodies a tremendous opportunity to enhance local economic growth, especially in light of the role of new cultural technology districts (CTDs). This article intends to present the CTD business model aimed to promote local and regional development in Italy, to attract domestic and international tourist flows and spread them out more evenly across all regional territories and to verify the CTDs opportunity through the Lazio Region experience.

TQM for a master’s programme: a case study integrating Kano’s model and quality function deployment

This paper seeks to identify effective procedures for increasing student satisfaction and modernising the reputation of a master’s programme by improving the quality of service. Hence, the main objective of this study is to identify innovative factors that could transform student views into systematic operational procedures. The QFD house of quality (HOQ) methodology, which was adopted and integrated with Kano’s model, was used to identify student needs, determine the types of programme qualities that students found attractive, and translate these elements into the services provided by the programme. The study identifies concepts relevant to the continuous improvement of a master’s programme.

Testing a customer satisfaction model for online services

Purpose – The paper aims to illustrate the results of a testing activity of a general customer satisfaction management model designed for online services provided by public administrations.Design/methodology/approach – The results are part of a wider research project, aimed at the implementation of a customer satisfaction management model for online services, starting out from citizen evaluations concerning the quality of services provided by public administrations. The model presupposes that the aspects of the service on which citizens are called to express their perceptions refer to well‐identified phases of the supply process, in such a way as to facilitate improvement measures. The testing activity involved a pilot group of Italian public administrations.Findings – As a result of the testing activitys initial stage, some major issues can be identified that concern the need to properly focus the questionnaire design and simultaneously make use of different data analysis techniques in order to strength...

A scaling up framework for innovative service ecosystems: lessons from Eataly and KidZania

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore why innovative service ecosystems scale up, using a service-dominant logic lens. The focus is on identifying the key drivers of the scaling-up process as the basis for a new conceptual framework on the scaling up of service innovations. Design/methodology/approach An inductive research design is used to zoom in on two innovative service ecosystems, Eataly and KidZania, to identify the key drivers that can explain why innovations scale up. For both companies, the triangulation of semi-structured interviews, archival sources and in-store observations is used as complementary data sets. Multiple investigators and multiple coders have been involved in the data collection, coding process and analysis. Findings An extended conceptualization of service innovation is obtained, grounded in a framework of four drivers of scaling up: effectuation as the basis for creating the value proposition; sensing and adapting to local contexts; the reconfiguration and alignment of resources and forms for collaboration between actors; and values’ resonance. Originality/value This study represents one of the first empirical investigations of the key drivers of the scaling up process of service innovations. The paper contributes with a conceptualization of service innovation and why scaling-up processes emerge, emphasizing the existence of multiple constellations of four drivers.

Heritage and identity: technology, values and visitor experiences

ABSTRACT This editorial examines the notions of identity, visitor experience, values and technology in the context of heritage tourism. In particular, in highlighting the contributions of the special issue, it points out how important these concepts are within the context of heritage cuisine-based tourism and identity meaning-making in leisure and family-oriented consumption of traditional foods. As well, it focuses on the use of technology in enhancing the visitor experience and how visitors identify with heritage places, museum branding as a means of fostering identity and a sense of belonging and the use of crowdfunding as an alternative means of heritage funding that can enhance the heritage identity and facilitate a more democratic way of managing heritage resources.

Technology and Cultural Heritage Management: Can Technology Have an Impact on Word-of-Mouth and Territorial Attractiveness?

The main aim of this chapter is to explore the existence of a bond that tied together the satisfaction of a cultural heritage’ visitors (after the experience of the technological visits), their propensity towards the word-of-mouth and their intention to discover the local territory in which the cultural attraction is located. To achieve this purpose, a theoretical review was carried out, in order to analyze the existing literature on cultural tourism and relative flows, visitors’ satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and destination management. Nowadays, the cultural visit is changing and a wide number of sites provide to their customers the possibility to experiment a “technological visit.” Starting from the results of the literature analysis, a theoretical model was developed with the following objectives: (a) detecting the main aspects that impact on the visitors’ satisfaction; (b) understanding the relation between the visitors’ satisfaction and the word-of-mouth (WOM) inherent to a cultural site; (c) identifying the existence of positive relation between the WOM and the willingness to come back to discover the local territory. Many authors studied the factors that affect visitors’ satisfaction, but only few researches have been oriented to deep analyze the specific role played by the technological applications along the cultural path. In addition, the literature on cultural tourism shows a lack in the analysis of the tourists’ satisfaction ability to generate a positive WOM, in turn able to increase the attractiveness of the territory in an important way. To verify the developed model, a survey on the visitors of the Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri was carried out. The presented cultural site is part of the Cultural and Technology District (CTD) of Lazio region and providing the possibility to experiment a technological visit, allows the study of this new feature on visitors’ satisfaction. The model was test by using a structural equations modeling (SEM).