On the Way to a Systematic Service Innovation Competence Framework

Abstract

Services dominate our societies, and for many firms, concentrating on services is a method to cope with the challenges of price-based competition. This is especially true for manufacturing firms that decide to become more service-oriented. In this context, service innovation or new service development is a highly important task. Whereas the process of new service development itself has already been researched extensively, there is still limited research on the kinds of competences needed to foster successful service innovation. This chapter develops a conceptual framework that helps firms to evolve crucial competences for a systematic service innovation process. The service-dominant logic and the competence-based perspective are used as theoretical foundations for this competence framework. The framework distinguishes between employee, organizational, network, and community competences. It provides both a structure for firms to systematically analyze and improve crucial competences for service innovation, as well as a research roadmap for future work on service innovation competences.