Service Innovation in Cultural Heritage Institutions: Towards a Conceptual Framework

The landscape of cultural heritage management is experiencing important changes that require and create opportunities for innovation. However, our current understanding of service innovation in cultural heritage institutions (CHI) is still inadequate. This study aims to investigate service innovation in CHI and identify its distinctive management challenges. A qualitative inductive approach based on grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1994) is adopted to develop a conceptual framework of service innovation in CHI. Based on this approach, the paper provides some preliminary insights into the nature and management of service innovation processes in this context.