Track 1.13: Transformative Cultural Experiences: Digital Transformation for Individual and Societal Well-Being

Digital transformation is expected to drive our next future worldwide. Previous TCR conferences have already highlighted the impacts of technological evolution. Our track focuses on this issue in the arts and cultural industry). Our research focuses on transformative cultural experiences that leverage emerging technologies to engage individuals and generate higher levels of individual and societal well-being. We address the following question: How does digital transformation shape transformative cultural experiences for the individual and societal well-being?
The emerging technologies affect any industry in any country, with likely disruptive but largely unknown effects (Puntoni et al. 2021). One of the most affected industries is the arts and culture, where the need to manage the coexistence of physical and digital processes is a priority (ICOM 2020). A profound rethinking of business models in the arts and cultural industry has been recently recognized as a top priority (KEA & PPMI 2019; Massi, Vecco, and Yin 2021; Unesco 2022), especially after the disruptive impact of the global pandemic, which caused frightful loss worldwide. Although difficult, the digital transformation of arts and culture is a critical issue for any society and its urban rebirth. This is essential for a new future perspective with huge implications for any society.
The TCR perspective could greatly help creativity address the complexity of global challenges effectively, reshape societies, and manage new challenges sustainably. Applying experimental technologies is a challenging task for digitally immature organizations (Fitzgerald et al. 2014) such as the arts and cultural ones that have also basic managerial competencies (Addis and Rurale 2020).

Starting points
By digital transformation, we mean the process of adopting emerging technology to revise the value creation and value delivery processes of any organization. Emerging technology includes a wide range of technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, 3D printing, and Web technologies. They all promise big benefits in the cultural industry (Brogni et al. 1999; Sinclair et al. 2003; Wojciechowski et al. 2004). If well managed, emerging technologies have a tremendous impact on inclusivity and diversity (Srinivasan and Uchino 2021), enrich cultural projects by affecting visual, sonic, performing, spatial, transmedia, audiovisual, and narrative arts (West and Burbano 2020), contribute to solving key issues that museums face ordinarily such as space limits, monetary constraints, and the handling of fragile artifacts, generate effective cultural policies and increase economic returns in the industry.
Cultural experience is a subjective concept made by several elements that are cognitive, affective, physical, sensory, and social, resulting from a consumer journey. By designing transformative cultural experiences audience engagement increases, as well as attractiveness, and brand equity, while modernizing cultural offers and policies and generating higher levels of individual and societal well-being. Well-being is a complex, multidimensional construct, representing the ultimate goal for any engaging customer experience, and general frameworks adopted in any industry, including the arts (Thomson and Chatterjee 2014). It is defined as the “good mental states, including all of the various evaluations, positive and negative, that people make of their lives and the affective reactions of people to their experiences” (OECD 2013, p. 10). Although the conceptual and operational boundaries of well-being have remained somewhat obscure (Schmutte and Ryff 1997), well-being has been recently revised (Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitoussi 2009). It is now regarded as encompassing three main aspects (Dolan and White 2007): Satisfaction with Life (Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz 1999), Affect (Diener 1984), and Eudaimonia (Deci and Ryan 2006). 

Track Goals
Our track aims to promote a renewed dialogue between technology and the arts, the two key drivers of any future society (Alacovska, Booth, Fieseler 2020). More specifically, the team members participating in this track are expected to develop an innovative and integrative conceptual framework helpful for arts and cultural organizations and policymakers in their decision-making processes when designing and managing their cultural offers and policies. Thanks to a multidisciplinary perspective (including but not limited to emerging and digital technologies, design, marketing, cultural experiences, well-being, and innovative ecosystems) we aim at preparing a conceptual paper, which will present the framework, as well as a range of initiatives and proposals for cultural organizations and policymakers.
Our publication goal is a top marketing journal. Track co-chairs will make a list of proposals.

Participant candidates’ profiles
In accord with the inclusive spirit of TCR, we invite applications from scholars in several fields if interested in a publication in a marketing journal. Fields include but are not limited to design, consumer research, marketing, engineering, cultural policies, sociology, and well-being.
The final team will be created ensuring the heterogeneity of backgrounds and competencies. Special consideration will be given to junior scholar candidates (final stage of Ph.D. programs or junior faculty in the first three years post Ph.D.): if possible, at least one place will be allocated to a junior scholar.

Tentative Track Roadmap
Preconference Activities

• Applicants will be asked to send a statement of their research interest and vision on the track topic and their expected specific contribution to the run. They should provide evidence for their expertise, theoretical paradigms and methodological lenses they are familiar with, and research output published or in progress.
  
• Participants selection. Track chairs will select 4-6 participants to create a diversified team according to competencies, experiences, methodologies, paradigms, arts, TCR issues, and career stages. The ideal number of team members is 6-8, including track chairs.
  
• Literature review. Each selected participant will run a literature review in their area of expertise, concerning three topics: (1) emerging technologies and digital transformation; (2) cultural experiences; (3) well-being. Each participant will generate a brief note highlighting the key results (2 pages maximum) that will be shared among the team members.
  
• The track chair will prepare and share the list of questions to run the explorative qualitative analysis.
  
• Explorative analyses. Each selected participant will interview 3-4 key informed people (experts, art critics, cultural managers, consumers, and so forth) to explore this issue further. Upon specific request, other methods are also possible to leverage specific opportunities or data collections available to each team member. In any case, a brief note will be produced and shared with the team.
  
• The team might meet up virtually to discuss and advance the project.
  
• Track chairs will prepare a merging document, based on the preliminary literature and explorative analyses, as a draft for discussion at the conference.
  
• Each track participant will prepare a brief note with his/her research idea to be discussed during the conference.
  

During the conference

• 1st-day schedule:
  
  • Morning Session: Track chairs will present the resulting documents, and each track participant will present his/her document with the research ideas. The team will engage in brainstorming, and a poster will be organized to gather ideas.
    
  • Afternoon Session: Brainstorming will continue. The team will advance the poster with the key ideas discussed to define transformative cultural experiences. 
    
• 2nd-day schedule:
  
  • Morning Session: Continue the work of day 1, focusing on the TCR contribution. The structure of the paper will be defined. Enabling conditions, key obstacles, and methodological issues will be further discussed to identify the roadmap for the future of the project with a particular focus on managerial implications.
    
  • Afternoon session: The final roadmap will be refined according to timetables and other potential opportunities for funding, grants, and publications. The structure and the content of the paper will be revised, and specific tasks will be attributed to each team member. Timelines and milestones will also be identified for the next future.
    

Post-conference
Virtual meeting. Occasionally the team member will advance the project collaboratively in virtual sessions predictably limited to a single hour in length.
Task. Each team member will work on the research project separately according to the task assigned. The track chairs will merge the single parts and will share the final results, assigning new roles for future refining. Future book proposals and special issues will be eventually explored and discussed to continue the collaboration.

For queries related to this track please email: Michela Addis, michela.addis@uniroma3.it, or Andrea Rurale, andrea.rurale@unibocconi.it

To apply to this track, please email a Research Vision to Michela Addis, michela.addis@uniroma3.it, or Andrea Rurale, andrea.rurale@unibocconi.it

References
Addis, M., & Rurale, A. (Eds.). (2020). Managing the Cultural Business: Avoiding Mistakes, Finding Success. London, Routledge.
Alacovska, A., Booth, P. & Fieseler, C. (2020) The Role of the Arts in the Digital Transformation. Artsformation Report Series. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3715612. 
Brogni, A., Avizzano, C. A., Evangelista, C., and Bergamasco, M., 1999. Technological Approach for Cultural Heritage: Augmented Reality. In: Proceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Robot and Human Interaction (RO-MAN '99), Pisa, Italy, September 1999, pp. 206-212.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Hedonia, eudaimonia, and well-being: An introduction. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9(1), 1-11.
Diener, E. (1984). SubjectiveWell-Being. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3), 542-575.
Dolan, P., & White, M. P. (2007). How can measures of subjective well-being be used to inform public policy? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(1), 71-85.
Fitzgerald, M., Kruschwitz, N., Bonnet, D. & Welch, M. (2014) Embracing digital technology: a new strategic imperative. MIT Sloan Management Review, 55(2), 1.
ICOM, Museums and the Covid-19 Crisis: 8 Steps to Supporting Community Resilience, 2020. Retrieved on 6.4.2021 from: https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CommunityResilience_UpdatedArticle_EN_final_20200930.pdf.
Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (1999). Well-being: Foundations of hedonic psychology. Russell Sage Foundation.
KEA & PPMI, Research for CULT Committee – Culture and creative sectors in the European Union-key future developments, challenges and opportunities, European Parliament, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, Brussels 2019.
Lee, C., Kang, B. & Shin, J. (2015) Novelty-focused patent mapping for technology opportunity analysis. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 90, 355-365.
Massi, M., Vecco, M. & Lin, Y. (2020) Digital Transformation in the Cultural and Creative Industries. Routledge: London, UK.
OECD (2013). OECD Guidelines on Measuring SubjectiveWell-being, OECD Publishing. Retrieved on November 1 2019 from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264191655-en
Puntoni, S., Reczek, R.W., Giesler, M. & Botti, S. (2021) Consumers and artificial intelligence: An experiential perspective. Journal of Marketing, 85(1), 131-151.
Schmutte, P. S., & Ryff, C. D. (1997). Personality and well-being: reexamining methods and meanings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(3), 549.
Sinclair, P. A. S., Martinez, K., Millard, D. E., and Weal, M. J., 2003. Augmented Reality as an Interface to Adaptive Hypermedia Systems. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, Special Issue on Hypermedia beyond the Desktop 9 (1), pp. 117-136.
Srinivasan, R., & Uchino, K. (2021). The Role of Arts in Shaping AI Ethics. In AAAI Workshop on reframing diversity in AI: Representation, inclusion, and power. CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS. org).
Stiglitz, J., Sen, A. K., & Fitoussi, J. P. (2009). The measurement of economic performance and social progress revisited: reflections and overview. Retrieved on August 23 2017 from https://hal-sciencespo.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/1069384/filename/wp2009-33.pdf
Thomson, L. & Chatterjee, H. (2014) Assessing well-being outcomes for arts and heritage activities: Development of a Museum Well-being Measures toolkit. Journal of Applied Arts & Health, 5(1), 29-50.
UNESCO (2022), Culture in times of COVID-19: resilience, recovery and revival. Retrieved on July 10 2022 from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381524.
West, R., & Burbano, A. (2020). AI, Arts & Design: Questioning Learning Machines. Artnodes, (26), 1-9.
Wojciechowski, R., Walczak, K., White, M., and Cellary, W., 2004. Building Virtual and Augmented Reality Museum Exhibitions. In: Proceedings of the Web3D 2004 Symposium - the 9th International Conference on 3D Web Technology, Monterey, California, USA, April 2004, ACM SIGGRAPH, pp. 135-144.

Track Chair Bios

Michela Addis is Professor of Marketing at the Università Roma Tre (Italy). She coordinates the Research Infrastructure of the Center of Excellence of the Technological District for new technologies for cultural assets and activities of the Lazio Region (DTC Lazio). She holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics & Management from Bocconi University (2001). Her research interests include customer experience, hedonic consumption, and well-being. Some of her publications appeared in the Journal of Service Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Cultural Economics, Psychology & Marketing, and European Journal of Marketing. She recently published the book Engaging Brands (Routledge 2020) and co-edited the book Managing the Cultural Businesses: Avoiding Mistakes, Finding Success with A. Rurale (Routledge 2020).

Andrea Rurale is SDA Bocconi Professor of Marketing, Director of the Master in Arts Management and Administration, and Lecturer at the Department of Marketing at Bocconi University. He also leads the Arts and Culture Knowledge Centre at SDA Bocconi. His interests are Art management, Consumer Behavior, and CRM. Andrea is President of FAI Lombardia (Fondo Ambiente Italiano) and President of Conservatory of Music in Cremona. He holds a Ph.D. in Marketing from the Universidad de Valencia.

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