Malin Andersson
Senior lecturer
City innovation as resonance: : the case of outdoor offices and conferences in the open air museum
Stadsinnovation som resonans: : fallet utomhuskontor och utomhuskonferenser i friluftsmuseet
Author
Summary, in English
This paper explores an innovation case within a “smart” Swedish mid-sized city that works extensively with digitalization.
Over a long period in time, city populations and city tourism have increased, while more urgentchallenges connected to sustainability have emerged along with health-related problems. In parallel the already established and ongoing digitalization of society was fortified in the pandemic period, something that may have changed the tourism industry. Today, manyprofessional meetings happen both on- and offline.
One challenge for public officials who manage urban space, is a societal expectation to maximize and improve tax payers ́ life quality on limited budgets and resources that are commonly owned.
This is one of the reasons to why contemporary urban planners and city tourism development organizations need to find new solutions in response to problems related to local and global change. I will focus on norm- changes related to digital nomadism (Makimoto & Manners, 1997) and in connection with a movement for outdoor office work (www. outdoorofficeday.nl,Petersson et al., 2021). The city culture department is testing to offer outdoor offices and meetings in an urban public open air museum, a place that is used for leisure and for pedagogicpurposes.
These new offerings can be conceptualized as innovative value propositions (Corvellec & Hultman, 2014) because new values, for instance rich nature experiences or a feeling of doingthe right thing, are made available for tourism consumers. These proposed services can be understood as a re-negotiation of socio-cultural values, where the public institution re-frames space in response to external change.
In sociologist Hartmut Rosas (2019) words, this constitutes a form of an ongoing dialogue withthe world, in resonance. Based on eight qualitative interviews with local managers, participant observations, online communication and documents, I explore innovation from this sociologicalperspective.
The aim of this research project is to understand tourism innovation discursive practices in public management, as responses to local and global change. Three research questions guide the study; How are outdoor offices and conferences constructed as value propositions for potential visitors? To which problems/risks do these value propositions respond? With what terms are outdoor offices constructed as answers to problems?
So far, it was found that some of the strategic actions taken by the project leader was to launchthe outdoor office through a local innovation program, and to frequently work with professionalsocial media platforms.
References
Corvellec, & Hultman. (2014). Managing the politics of value propositions. MarketingTheory, 1470593114523445.
Makimoto, T., & Manners, D. (1997). Digital nomad: Wiley.
Petersson, T., C., Lisberg, J., E., Stenfors, C., Bodin, D., C., Hoff, E., Mårtensson, F., & Toivanen, S. (2021). Outdoor Office Work – An
Interactive Research Project Showingthe Way Out. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.636091 Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance : a sociology of the relationship to the world: Polity Press.
https://www.outdoorofficeday.nl
Over a long period in time, city populations and city tourism have increased, while more urgentchallenges connected to sustainability have emerged along with health-related problems. In parallel the already established and ongoing digitalization of society was fortified in the pandemic period, something that may have changed the tourism industry. Today, manyprofessional meetings happen both on- and offline.
One challenge for public officials who manage urban space, is a societal expectation to maximize and improve tax payers ́ life quality on limited budgets and resources that are commonly owned.
This is one of the reasons to why contemporary urban planners and city tourism development organizations need to find new solutions in response to problems related to local and global change. I will focus on norm- changes related to digital nomadism (Makimoto & Manners, 1997) and in connection with a movement for outdoor office work (www. outdoorofficeday.nl,Petersson et al., 2021). The city culture department is testing to offer outdoor offices and meetings in an urban public open air museum, a place that is used for leisure and for pedagogicpurposes.
These new offerings can be conceptualized as innovative value propositions (Corvellec & Hultman, 2014) because new values, for instance rich nature experiences or a feeling of doingthe right thing, are made available for tourism consumers. These proposed services can be understood as a re-negotiation of socio-cultural values, where the public institution re-frames space in response to external change.
In sociologist Hartmut Rosas (2019) words, this constitutes a form of an ongoing dialogue withthe world, in resonance. Based on eight qualitative interviews with local managers, participant observations, online communication and documents, I explore innovation from this sociologicalperspective.
The aim of this research project is to understand tourism innovation discursive practices in public management, as responses to local and global change. Three research questions guide the study; How are outdoor offices and conferences constructed as value propositions for potential visitors? To which problems/risks do these value propositions respond? With what terms are outdoor offices constructed as answers to problems?
So far, it was found that some of the strategic actions taken by the project leader was to launchthe outdoor office through a local innovation program, and to frequently work with professionalsocial media platforms.
References
Corvellec, & Hultman. (2014). Managing the politics of value propositions. MarketingTheory, 1470593114523445.
Makimoto, T., & Manners, D. (1997). Digital nomad: Wiley.
Petersson, T., C., Lisberg, J., E., Stenfors, C., Bodin, D., C., Hoff, E., Mårtensson, F., & Toivanen, S. (2021). Outdoor Office Work – An
Interactive Research Project Showingthe Way Out. Frontiers in Psychology, 12. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.636091 Rosa, H. (2019). Resonance : a sociology of the relationship to the world: Polity Press.
https://www.outdoorofficeday.nl
Department/s
- Department of Strategic Communication
Publishing year
2022-09-28
Language
English
Pages
166-166
Full text
Document type
Conference paper
Topic
- Social and Economic Geography
Conference name
30th Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research
Conference date
2022-09-27 - 2022-09-29
Conference place
Porvoo, Finland
Status
Published
Project
- The meeting industry of the future: business models, interactions and hospitality in the age of digitalisation