Introduction to the experience economy

Abstract

this book deals with the experience economy, which is a name for a scientific and management approach that deals with business and economic activities related to peoples’ experiences. no authorized definition of the experience economy exists, but in this handbook we emphasize that the experience economy concerns activities carried out in the public and private sectors that focus on fulfilling peoples’ need for experiences. it also focuses on how the users or receivers react to, and use, experiential elements. the experience economy encompasses more than the creative industries and cultural economy (cf. caves, 2000; du Gay and pryke, 2002); it also includes the way in which the use and consumption of goods and services can be experiential. the experience economy is a topic that has attracted increased attention in the last decade, particularly in northern europe, but also to some degree in the USa and canada, asia, australia and South america. an increasing number of books and articles have been published on the subject (for example, pine and Gilmore, 1999, 2011; department for culture, media and Sport, 2001; mossberg, 2003, 2007; o’dell and billing, 2005; baerenholdt and Sundbo, 2007; boswijk et al., 2007; caru and cova, 2007; Sundbo and darmer, 2008; Horn and Jensen, 2011; Lorentzen and Hansen, 2012). the topic has been a basis for business development in firms, for industrial policy (department for culture, media and Sport, 2001; kk Stiftelsen, 2003; erhvervsog byggestyrelsen and center for kulturog oplevelsesokonomi, 2011) and for national, regional and local development initiatives (Sorensen et al., 2010; erhvervsog byggestyrelsen and center for kulturog oplevelsesokonomi, 2011; FreireGibb, 2011; Lorentzen and Hansen, 2012). certain theoretical assumptions, research questions and analytical traditions have emerged and point to the experience economy being a scientific paradigm with its own discussion and explanatory agenda. one may generally term this emerging scientific paradigm ‘experience economy studies’. this handbook collects together most of these issues to present a stateoftheart of experience economy studies and new findings and theoretical contributions. the handbook thus presents how far the scientific field of experience economy studies has come. it presents general knowledge – something in between textbooks and scientific articles. the chapters are research based; however, they present a general perspective. Some are more empirical, but presented in a generalized and theoretical perspective, others are more theoretical. the perspective of the book is on business and economic (including planning and innovation) processes. However, other aspects are also included. psychological and sociological aspects are treated because these are necessary for explaining how and why people as customers or citizens actually experience. However, it is not a handbook on psychology just as it is not a handbook on leisure, aesthetics or content analysis