Smart technologies and Service Ecosystems: a focus on social and material aspects of innovation in complex systems

This paper aims at discussing the service (eco)system perspectives to innovation (Akaka and Vargo, 2013) by considering the role of smart technologies in shaping social interactions in complex service systems. The research investigates a smart innovation project named DATABENC promoting smart innovation in heritage business in the regional area of Campania. By adopting sociomaterial approach in researching, the paper goes in depth in the analysis of how a smart service ecosystem is built and how the emerging interactions support and embed the changes it produces. The paper looks for an explanation of the much more complex interactions and negotiations that take place between human and non-human actors and considers the characteristics of smart service ecosystem as effects resulting from interactions in a social-physical word