Types Of Service Innovation Research Articles

The impact of service robots on consumer response: Examining the roles of consumers' service expertise and technology expertise

AbstractService robots as an example of service innovation has been of great interest to researchers as it could produce greater value‐in‐use for consumers during service encounters. However, the question of how and why service robots may affect consumers remains inadequately understood. Leveraging service‐dominant logic and the heuristic‐systematic model, Study 1 examines the impacts of service innovation types on brand equity and the moderating role of consumer expertise. Study 2 explores whether cognitive and emotional trust can bridge the underlying mechanism. We find that consumers with higher levels of service expertise rate firms with supportive innovation (vs. interactive innovation) higher in brand equity. On the other hand, service novices rate firms with both types of service innovation similarly. Emotional trust significantly mediates the effect mentioned above. In addition, consumers with high technology expertise will better recognize firms' service innovation efforts regardless of innovation type. Our findings extend the service innovation literature by demonstrating how individual‐level factors such as consumer expertise help explain the relationships between various types of service robots and consumer response. Moreover, we reveal the importance for service brands to invest in different service robots based on target groups and build emotional trust with consumers.

A longitudinal analysis of organisational capacity determinants of the perceived need for change, adoption of ‘light’ sports initiatives and organisational growth in voluntary sports clubs

Considering wider societal developments that reflect a demand for personalised services, this study aims to uncover the relationship between the perceived need for change by voluntary sports clubs (VSCs), their adoption of innovative services to promote flexibility of sports participation (also referred to as ‘light’ sports initiatives) and their organisational growth (in terms of membership evolution). Simultaneously, the impact of key organisational capacity (OC) determinants on each of the aforementioned variables is taken into account. In this study, VSCs in Flanders (Belgium) are examined utilising three (generalised) linear mixed model analyses on longitudinal panel data from 2012, 2015 and 2018. The results show a positive relationship between the need for change on the one hand and the adoption of ‘light’ sports initiatives and organisational growth on the other hand, whilst adopting ‘light’ sports initiatives as types of service innovations do not necessarily lead to organisational growth. The results of this study offer implications for the management and policy of VSCs to cater to shifting member demands. This study serves as a stepping-stone for further research to investigate other types of innovation on organisational change and growth.

Innovation in the sharing economy: A framework and future research agenda

The sharing economy (SE) has been variously described as a disruptive, discontinuous, and social innovation. Now, more than a decade since the emergence of seminal platforms such as Airbnb, and amid heightened competition and macroenvironmental pressures, service innovation has become a strategic priority. Our editorial essay is guided by three objectives. First, as a prelude to this Special Issue, we examine the current state of SE service innovation literature. Despite some important contributions, especially in relation to business model innovation, other salient types of service innovation remain underexplored. Second, we position the contributions of the 13 papers in this Special Issue on our novel Sharing Economy Innovation Framework, which stipulates both the type of service innovation examined, and the focal dyadic relationships involved. Third, based on remaining gaps in the framework, we outline an agenda for future research on SE innovations.

Mapping product and service innovation: A bibliometric analysis and a typology

Research conducted in the innovation field lags behind organizations’ general technological development and innovativeness. Literature that previously depicted innovation types in developed markets is markedly different from progressively publicized emerging market innovation types. While capital-abundant firms tend to engage in respective pioneering and incremental innovation loops, resource-constrained firms and firms in emerging countries may partially free-ride on existing products and services through innovations such as copycat and frugal. To date, there have been no attempts to holistically consolidate product and service innovation types into one overarching typology. Using novel methods of text mining and co-citation analysis, this study systematically maps three decades of product and service innovation scholarship to provide a typology of eight major product and service innovation types. This is further supported by case study analysis to demonstrate how these innovation types fit into the cost vs market novelty matrix. This study is unique in its methodological proposition to systematically review the innovation scholarship of more than 1,400 articles through comprehensive, quantified, and objective methods that offer transparent and reproducible results. The study provides some clarity regarding the classifications and characteristics of the innovation typology.

A service-dominant logic perspective on the roles of technology in service innovation: uncovering four archetypes in the sharing economy

The role and influence of information technology in firms’ business and value creation remains controversial. The question of how technology can drive service innovations is especially crucial in highly competitive and rapidly developing areas such as digital platforms but not well understood. This study investigates the role of information technology in service innovation in sharing economy organizations. These organizations are digital platforms that combine physical and digital service elements. Adopting a service-dominant logic perspective, we conduct an interpretive multiple-case study to gain a deeper understanding of the types of service innovation in this area and the different roles that IT can play in these initiatives. Our findings reveal different manifestations of service innovation and thereby help to identify previously unexplored interdependencies between the service ecosystem and value co-creation. We furthermore find that organizations’ choices regarding the role of IT are dependent on the level of heterogeneity and standardization of the mediated transactions. We derive four archetypes for the role of IT in service innovation that explain how and why sharing economy organizations exploit IT. We then translate our findings into practical guidelines for managers of digital platforms.

A Study of the Relations among Driving Force of Service Innovation, Service Innovation Types and Consumer Satisfaction of Service Enterprise: Focusing on Chinese Hotel Industry

[연구목적] 본 연구는 상대적으로 연구가 적었던 소비자의 관점에서 서비스 혁신추진력과 서비스 혁신유형 그리고 소비자 만족도 간의 관계를 분석하고, 시사점을 제공하고자 한다.BR[연구방법] 선행연구와 이론적 고찰을 통하여 연구모형을 설정하고, 변수 간 관계분석을 위해 수집된 자료의 신뢰성과 타당성을 검토하였으며, 구조방정식 모형의 경로분석을 통하여 그 효과를 실증적으로 분석하였다.BR[연구결과] 첫째, 협력능력, 고객지향적 동태적 능력은 점진적 서비스 혁신에 유의한 정(＋)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 협력능력, 고객지향적 동태적 능력, 지식 인터페이스는 급진적 서비스 혁신에 정(＋)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 점진적 서비스 혁신과 급진적 서비스 혁신은 소비자 만족도에 정(＋)의 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다.BR[연구의 시사점] 본 연구는 기업 관점에서 벗어나, 소비자 관점에서 서비스 혁신에 관한 연구를 수행하였다. 서비스 기업은 고객지향적 서비스 혁신추진력을 구축하고 맞춤형 서비스 혁신유형을 선택하여 소비자와의 공동가치를 창출함으로써 서비스 품질과 소비자 만족도를 향상시켜야 한다.

Do non-profit sport organisations innovate? Types and preferences of service innovation within regional sport federations

Little is known about innovation in the non-profit sport sector. The current research addresses this gap by questioning whether and to what extent sport federations innovate. It aims to identify types of innovation implemented by sport federations and their attitude and preferences towards innovation. An online questionnaire was administered to a sample of key representatives (i.e. Chair, Secretary General or Directors) of regional sport federations in Belgium (n = 101; 70% response rate). Directed content analysis of the service innovations described by respondents reveals ten different types of sport and non-sport service innovations. Results suggest that membership size and categories of sport influence preferences in knowledge creation/appropriation, and ultimately the type of innovation developed. This paper also suggests that sport federations are driven by demands by members in meeting their expectations of new services and are not risk averse. On average, the sport federations surveyed have a positive attitude towards newness that favours innovativeness. The current study would help researchers to advance further into the knowledge of service innovation in non-profit organisations. It should act as a foundation for research and practice on specific types of service innovation in sport. Managers should realise the importance of attitude for innovation and use the suggested typology to provide new services in different categories and meet members’ expectations.

The Relationship among Social Capital, Service Types and Service Innovation Performance in Logistics Enterprises

This study focuses on the relationship of social capital, service innovation types and service innovation performance. Through the empirical research on 210 logistics enterprises, we will find that vertical relationship capital can only promote the incremental service innovation, horizontal relationship capital can only promote the breakthrough service innovation, and social relationship capital can promote both types of service innovation. Both the two types of service innovations can improve the enterprise’s service innovation performance. Finally, the research puts forward suggestions for logistics enterprises and points out the limitations and trend for future research.

Persuasive narrative advertisement generator: A microenterprise service innovation perspective

In the era of the service economy, service innovation is a means to cope with fierce competition within a fast-changing industry. However, most microenterprises are at a competitive disadvantage in that they have limited resources and information for putting service innovation into their business practice. Owing to their inferior situation, microenterprises often do not think service innovation is related to them, nor do they have the bravery to engage their innovation endeavors. This paper presents a novel and automatic approach that can generate persuasive narrative advertisements in the form of customized motivation stories intended to encourage microenterprises to consider innovation just as the protagonist does in a story. This study adopts a three-act structure as the story framework and takes advantage of Story of Mind elements, service innovation types and microenterprise individual information as the story elements. Our approach and its information system uses Probabilistic Extended FSMs to model the story frameworks and the story elements. The approach proposed here has preliminary been justified through the observational and analytical evaluation method and is believed to shed light on the development of automated persuasive narrative communications for electronic services.

Exploring value propositions and service innovation: a service-dominant logic study

This paper presents an eight-firm study, conducted from the service-dominant logic perspective, which makes a contribution regarding knowledge of the anatomy of value propositions and service innovation. The paper suggests that value propositions are configurations of several different practices and resources. The paper finds that ten common practices, organized in three main aggregates, constitute and fulfill value propositions: i.e. provision practices, representational practices, and management and organizational practices. Moreover, the paper suggests that service innovation can be equated with the creation of new value propositions by means of developing existing or creating new practices and/or resources, or by means of integrating practices and resources in new ways. It identifies four types of service innovation (adaptation, resource-based innovation, practice-based innovation, and combinative innovation) and three types of service innovation processes (practice-based, resource-based, and combinative). The key managerial insight provided by the paper is that service innovation must be conducted and value propositions must be evaluated from the perspective of the customers’ value creation, the service that the customer experiences. Successful service innovation is not only contingent on having the right resources, established methods and practices for integrating these resources into attractive value propositions are also needed.

A practical perspective on the classification of service innovations

Purpose – This paper aims to link academic classifications of service innovation with practical activities by firms to detail the essence of service innovation. Design/methodology/approach – This research employs both qualitative and quantitative analyses. The qualitative study features interviews with senior managers from 590 companies, covering nine industries in Taiwan, to gather practitioners ' perspectives on service innovation. A content analysis details specific forms of service innovation. The quantitative study provides a homogeneity test and two-sample proportions test to examine differences in service innovation perspectives/activities across organizational characteristics. Findings – The interview data link three types of service innovations to 11 associated elements and 25 labels, derived from 659 potential service innovation incidents (550 new service concepts, 82 new service processes, and 27 new service business models). This study also shows that elements of service innovations vary by company size, service innovation experience, and industry life cycle. Practical implications – The three types of service innovations enable businesses to benchmark and modify their current service innovation activities. Service managers can use the results of this study to develop their own service innovation strategies and concrete action plans. Originality/value – This pioneering study links the viewpoints of academics with practical service innovation activities and empirically shows that service innovation is dissimilar, depending on various organization characteristics.

Sectoral Heterogeneity in New Service Development: An Exploratory Study of Service Types and Success Factors

The service industry is of fundamental relevance for the economies of industrialized countries, as the service industry produces the highest growth in the gross domestic product. In this regard, new service development (NSD) represents a critical resource for competitive survival and a decisive factor of growth in the service industry. However, service firms across many industries are increasingly faced with the challenge of determining how best to manage their development of new service offerings. Although researchers have shown growing interest in NSD issues, this area is still underutilized. Furthermore, although the heterogeneity of the service industry has been emphasized for years, the current body of research on NSD mainly focuses on specific service environments, providing data that are often not comparable across different service sectors. Additionally, there is no study to date that comprehensively examines innovation activities and the relevance of service innovations’ success factors within different service industries. The aim of this exploratory study is to establish a more balanced picture of the nature of innovation activities in terms of NSD characteristics and success factors in the heterogeneous service industry. From this perspective, this paper begins with an examination of the factors that contribute to the success of NSD. Based on a meta‐analysis of new service success factor studies, 17 different success determinants are classified and aggregated to service‐related success determinants. Subsequently, a cluster analysis of 1016 service companies is used to identify different service innovation types. For the service sector, four service innovation types are determined: efficient developers, innovative developers, interactive adopters, and standardized adopters. Furthermore, based on interviews with service innovation managers, the previously identified success factors are examined for each innovation type using a standardized survey. Finally, based on the results of this exploratory study, the paper concludes with recommendations for NSD management and research propositions for each service innovation type. These propositions support innovation managers to successfully manage service innovations for the innovation type they are operating in.

The role of service innovation in the market orientation—new service performance linkage

While most academics generally agree that innovation plays the mediating role between market orientation and new product/service performance, relatively little research has examined how each component of market orientation contributes to new service performance through various types of service innovation. Based on a survey of 235 managers and taking a component-wise approach, this study finds that customer orientation spurs incremental service innovation while inter-functional coordination spurs radical service innovation, both of which, in turn, enhance new service performance. A surprise finding shows that the impact of competitor orientation on new service performance is fully mediated by radical service innovation. The results of this study should help market oriented managers create and evaluate service innovation.

Typology of Service Innovation from Service-Dominant Logic Perspective

This study provides a conceptual framework with respect to service innovation, especially from a service-dominant logic (S-D logic) perspective. Even though innovation has been discussed as one of the most critical elements in enhancing the competitiveness of service industry, it was not clear how service innovation should be different from diverse types of existing innovation. The S-D logic provides a novel and valuable theoretical perspective that unifies the conventional literature on innovation. According to this new logic, four types of service innovation are presented based on two dimensions: the degree of co-creation and the degree of networked collaboration. We argue that service innovation can arise by the activity of value co-creation between firm and customer on the first dimension. On the second dimension, the firm needs to enhance their own capabilities for service innovation by applying the resources of all actors including suppliers and customers. Our framework indicates that it is critical for productive service innovation to make customers participate in value creation process and to integrate the dispersed resources held by participants. Examples are discussed with respect to different types of services innovation.

Innovation management in technology-related knowledge-intensive business services

This paper aims to contribute to the fragmented research fields of service innovation and knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). On the basis of synthesis of results from extensive literature reviews as well from case studies in technology and engineering consultancies in Singapore, we have been able to develop a framework with propositions for investigating how KIBS, especially technology-related KIBS innovate and how does the internal and external knowledge and typical service characteristics (IHIP) affect service innovation in KIBS firms. Case studies have revealed different types of service innovations as well as enablers and barriers of innovative behaviour in technology-related KIBS and the developed framework as well as detailed hypotheses will be utilised in the future quantitative study for complementing the qualitative data. From the managerial point of view, the results and propositions may provide new insights for technology-related KIBS on how to promote knowledge processing activities and service innovation.

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.

Identifying Neo-Schumpeterian Innovation in Service Firms: A Conceptual Essay with a Novel Classification

The identification of innovation in service firms is problematic since there is no consensus of opinion on its conceptualization. Recent papers suggest both distinctive features of innovation in services and distinctive types of service innovation. This article reviews and evaluates these findings from a Schumpeterian perspective. The evaluation justifies conceptualizing service innovation as a specific case of service development with a reference to Schumpeter, but not as strict as proposed by Drejer (2004) [Drejer, I. (2004) Identifying Innovation in Surveys of Services: A Schumpeterian Perspective. Research Policy, 33, 551–562]. Despite the simultaneity of production and consumption in services, this article claims that the distinction between product innovation and process innovation should be preferred to other ways of classifying innovation in service firms. Finally, changes in the denomination of services are advanced as a key to the identification of development and innovation in service firms.

Innovation and ICT in service firms: towards a multidimensional approach for impact assessment

This article focuses on the multimodal character of innovation in services firms as the analytical framework by which to assess the role of different sources and agents, ICT in particular, in enabling various impacts of innovation. The peculiarities of service innovation require a wider approach than that observed for goods innovation, which is less focused on non-technological aspects. An ad hoc survey was carried out in the region of Madrid to test a microeconometric and multidimensional approach at the firm level. Specific impacts of innovation are examined by carrying out an ordered probit model with sample selection. Results indicate a certain correspondence between the multidimensional nature of service innovation and a preliminary impact assessment. The paper notes that ICT and clients–providers interactions are both important, acting to facilitate different types of service innovation.

Project management. Lessons learned from introducing a multitask environmental worker program.

During a 13-month successful introduction of unit-based, multiskilled environmental workers at an academic medical center, responsibility for environmental support services migrated from centrally managed departments to more than 30 patient-care units. The authors discuss six project management lessons that may be used by clinicians and managers as they participate in service reorganization. Points related to the identification of committed leaders, exploration of barriers, planning, continuous training, negotiation, and communication are presented. Professional nurses who demonstrate their ability to work with these types of service innovations while clearly identifying clinical aspects best left unincorporated in such job descriptions will be in demand as participants in redesign efforts.

Deregulation of local bus services in Great Britain: an introductory review

The major impacts of the deregulation of local bus services in Britain under the Transport Act 1985 are reviewed, identifying issues to be examined further by contributors in a series of papers in this journal. Costs per bus‐kilometre have fallen very sharply. This is primarily due to increased labour productivity through reductions in engineering and management staff. Ridership has also fallen while bus‐kilometres run have increased, resulting in a sharp drop in average load carried. The major change in type of service is in the use of minibuses. Little impact has been observed of other types of service innovation. Much competition has taken the form of expanding bus‐kilometres run, rather than in price—in contrast to the express coach market. Public expenditure has fallen substantially, but the operating industry has only remained (marginally) profitable. Investment in new vehicles has been low, and the fleet is ageing. Safety levels show no statistically significant change. Parallels may be drawn with ...