Reinterpreting museums’ intended experience during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from Italian University Museums

ABSTRACT

This paper explores whether and how University Museums reinterpreted their intended experience during the COVID-19 pandemic shock. To this end, theoretical insights from the service management literature are used. Adopting an interpretative approach, this paper relies on legislative documents and a survey of Italian University Museums during the COVID-19 lockdown. Results highlight how digital technologies enabled Italian University Museums to design service offerings and value co-creation practices. Particularly, digital technologies have led Italian University Museums, as experience-centric service organisations, to reinterpret their intended experience. This research sheds light on how museums can adapt their traditional interpretation of design areas by redefining content and the interaction with their visitors through digital technologies, ultimately building a virtual interpretation of their intended experience. This allows building a conceptual model that emphasises the differentiation between synchronous (online) and asynchronous (offline) value co-creation practices. Finally, this paper adds practical insights for managing museums’ co-creation practices virtually.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19 pandemic
• university museums
• intended experience
• value co-creation
• experience-centric service organisations
• digital technologies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michela Magliacani

Michela Magliacani is Associate Professor of Business Administration at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Pavia. She got a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Siena. Her research field is focused on cultural heritage management – with particular regard to University museums – accounting history and public services accounting and management.

Daniela Sorrentino

Daniela Sorrentino is Post-Doc Research Fellow at the Department of Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (Italy) and Junior Lecturer in Business Administration at the University of Siena (Italy). She got a PhD in Business Administration and Management at the University of Pisa (Italy) and has been visiting PhD student at the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). Her main research interests focus on public sector accounting and accountability, as well as on performance measurement in public administrations.