Collaborative Service Innovation Research Articles

Designing boundary resources in digital government platforms for collaborative service innovation

On the path to creating digital platforms, governments are opening organizational boundaries to cultivate cross-agency collaboration in public service innovation. This collaborative innovation takes place in the context of paradoxical tensions between openness and closeness, stability and flexibility, and generativity and control. The concept of boundary resources provides an instrument to balance these platform design paradoxes. Yet, little is known about designing boundary resources in digital government platforms. We contextualize the concept of boundary resources in digital government platforms to develop design theories. These design theories guide an action design research, where a national tax service platform was redesigned to enable cross-agency collaboration for service innovation. Design knowledge was thus generated into three design principles for the design of boundary resources in government platforms. These principles help in making design decisions by which government platform owners use different boundary resources to address the three paradoxes. We suggest that government platform owners cultivate collaborative platform ecosystems and define unified data standards to address the openness, design data modularity and interfaces for resourcing complementors, and use data relationships and accessibility as control points for securing the platform.

Collaborative Service Innovation: A Quantitative Analysis of Innovation Networks in a Multisectoral Setting

Partial least squares structural equation modelling has proven very valuable to study the unexplored and complex public service innovation networks (PSINs) in the public sector, from a socio-economic stance. Web have modelled PSINs’ three structural variables—Social, Actors, and Functioning mode—using a sample of original data (n = 233). Our PSINs’ model confirms them as instruments that produce public service innovation—involving technological and nontechnological characteristics. Additionally, we set-up a novel and potentially fruitful methodology to study the intricate formation and impact of complex socio-economical structures that connect innovation and public services. Hence, our research supports a better and extended use of PSINs as a tool for policy and service co-design and co-implementation. And we open a promising line of studies involving multi-actor collaboration in the public sector.

Triad collaboration of hotel employers, employees and customers for service innovation in a changing world

The purpose of this paper is to build a triad collaborative service innovation model, examining the effects of an employer's customer orientation, employee adaptability and customer participation on service innovation in a changing world through the knowledge of customers' needs. This study uses data from both frontline employees and their customers. A total of 300 valid matching data records were obtained. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data and to estimate the proposed research model. This study finds that an employer's customer orientation, an employee's adaptability and a customer's participation positively influence customer need knowledge, which in turn enhances service innovation. Accepting the model contributes to the literature by providing new evidence that both employees and employers should realize the importance of customer needs and by showing the effect of customer need knowledge on service innovation.

When are strategic orientations beneficial for collaborative service innovation?

ABSTRACTDespite the importance of collaborative innovation, the existing literature tends to be somewhat vague in identifying when strategic orientations are beneficial for service innovation between a focal firm and its business partners. The purpose of this study is to examine the relative effects of four strategic orientations (market, service, interaction, and learning) on collaborative service innovation performance, while considering the contextual factor of service offerings (basic installed base, maintenance, operational, and professional). Results based on survey data from 362 paired B2B firms show that learning orientation has the strongest effect on collaborative service innovation performance, and is the most effective for basic installed base services and maintenance services. In contrast, interaction orientation best supports those firms with operational services, while market and service orientations are more effective for professional services. Managers are advised to consider alternative strategic orientations individually aligned with service offerings to achieve desired collaborative service innovation outcomes.

Protection for profiting from collaborative service innovation

PurposeProfiting from service innovations can be challenging. It is not only a question of pricing and marketing the services appropriately, but also of keeping competitors from imitating them. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how service innovation differs from technology/product innovation in terms of protection, and how this shows in collaborative innovation activities.Design/methodology/approachThe paper offers a literature review combining discussion related to service research and strategic management. Empirical evidence is provided in the form of a multifaceted case study illustrating some of the aspects of collaborative service innovation.FindingsThe results indicate that characteristics separating service innovations from product or process innovations influence the efficacy of protection. This, in turn, may make or break the subsequent value appropriation. Furthermore, as service innovation typically includes collaborative activities, there is another twist to protection: companies must protect knowledge that brings them competitive advantage, but on the other hand they need to foster knowledge sharing, which may be in conflict with protective measures. As a result, service innovators cannot rely solely on intellectual property right strategies, as their counterparts working with products might do, but the service element requires taking a wider look around, and utilizing means such as human resource management, lead time, and contracting.Originality/valueThe novelty of this paper lies in its analysis of two very recent trends: collaboration (and coopetition) in innovation, and the tendency to introduce business models that bring service innovations to the core of the offering. Augmenting prior knowledge, the paper brings forth issues that need to be acknowledged when service innovations are created, protected, and appropriated.

Innovating for and with your service customers: An assessment of the current practice of collaborative service innovation in Germany

Methods for managing innovation have been described in academia in many contexts. Service innovation processes pose particular challenges compared to those of product innovation – one of the core reasons being the lack of dedicated R&D structures in service firms or units. Collaborative innovation both with employees and with customers can be an effective means to drive innovation in services. Based on empirical evidence of a study of German innovation managers, this paper discusses findings of service innovation in organizational practice. We review the current extent and future potential of the involvement of employees and customers in the innovation process, as well implications for companies and academia.

Service Innovation Myopia? A New Recipe for Client-Provider Value Creation

Traditional management thinking addresses either the service provider's or the client's individual competences and competitive advantage in service innovation. This is myopic in the extreme; value creation should be based on the simultaneous recognition of the interests and competencies of both parties. This article examines the service innovation strategies in the ICT field from the perspective of the resource-based view of the firm and the management competencies involved. First, the characteristics of three main types of service innovations (established service, incremental service innovation, and radical service innovation) are outlined, as these can be shown to require different value creation approaches. Second, a service strategy matrix is constructed illustrating the client-driven, provider-driven, and collaborative service innovation strategies. The article provides a recipe for managing the service co-creation modes, with guidelines given on how to succeed through collaborative capabilities and culture, as well as appropriate business models.