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The innovation of urban contexts is even more a hot topic in the international debate (Cocchia 2014; Roberts et al. 2016). New technologies are currently considered as an unavoidable element in managing modern cities (Camagni et al. 1998; Ishida and Isbister 2000; Wolfram 2012), since they support spreading sophisticated services to improve the quality of life of citizens (Bifulco et al. 2014, 2016).

The research aims to underline the increasing importance of digital communication in stimulating service experience in museums (Siu et al., 2013; Di Pietro et al., 2014). The museums’ need to attract audience is an emerging issue, especially as the European Union has launched different funding programmes on the audience development (Bamford and Wimmer, 2012). Museums challenges to develop new communication strategies and the innovative initiatives cultural managers are experimenting to attract visitors seem to be increasingly related to the already known concept of omnichannel communication in retailing (Verhoef et al., 2015). These features are even more relevant for the twenty autonomous public museums in Italy, as the autonomy in the resource management has been the driving force for the development of new initiatives, especially concerning communication. This research analyses the impacts of the different communication initiatives of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) through the lens of omnichannel strategies.

Purpose The wider possibility of connectivity offers additional opportunities for customers to experience value propositions. The online world is only one side of the customer experience. The integration of digital technologies, social presence and physical elements increases the complexity of customer journey. This paper aims to map the phygital customer journey by focusing on millennials. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a qualitative methodology to investigate 50 millennials from Italy. Millennials had to describe, in two phases, a journey they had recently made. First, they used sticky notes with no restrictions on expressing their feelings and structuring their CJ. Second, customers transferred the sticky notes’ contents, consider the information provided and map the journey with additional details using the Uxpressia software. Findings This paper frames the Millennials customer journey as a cycle of four moments: connect, explore, buy and use. Each moment enacts the customer experience as a mixture of emotional, behavioural and social responses. Online and offline interactions blur the boundaries between the physical and digital world (i.e. phygital): millennials move back-and-forth or jump from one action to another according to the evolving path of emotions and interactions. Originality/value The phygital customer journey provides an alternative understanding of customer journey occurring as a fuzzy process or loop. A phygital map develops as a circular path of moments seen as phenomenological microworlds of events, interactions, relationships and emotions.

This article deals with how innovation ecosystems emerge and become established. It focuses on technologies and how they favor interaction among actors, resources, and practices to facilitate an ecosystem's workability from a long-range perspective. The intrinsically complex and systemic nature of an innovation ecosystem is investigated by looking at the social and material issues concerning the organizing of social interactions, technologies, and other resources. This article adopts an action research approach through the combination of theory and practice and the support of actors—including the authors—involved in the empirical context of the Technological District for Cultural Heritage (DATABENC). This article contribute to the innovation ecosystem literature by assuming that innovation ecosystems emerge from the interplay of deliberate and unforeseen processes. Prompted by technologies, three milestones emerge supporting innovation ecosystem viability: 1) setting the socio-material context; 2) establishing interdependencies among actors, activities, and resources; and 3) giving continuity to social- and material-oriented interactions. In this context, technology is not merely an artefact; it takes three different roles: context builder, mediating mechanism, and institutionalization process enabler.