Successful Service Innovation Research Articles

Linking Customer Knowledge With Successful Service Innovation

In order to satisfy customer needs and wants, the business-to-business service provider must develop and market services that provide value to the customers organization. Because of the importance and the difficulty of evaluating value from the customers perspective, a critical need exists for firms to obtain and possess knowledge about what activities create customer value for individual customers. The objective of this study is to explore the activities and knowledge needed to develop and market services that create customer value. Results of a study undertaken on the development and marketing of services and products in the telecommunications industry are provided. The report concludes with a discussion of managerial and research implications.

How do Allied Health Professionals Evaluate New Models of Care? What Are We Measuring and Why?

The aim of this study was to identify what outcome measures or quality indicators are being used to evaluate advanced and new roles in nine allied health professions and whether the measures are evaluating outcomes of interest to the patient, the clinician, or the healthcare provider. A systematic search strategy was used. Medical and allied health databases were searched and relevant articles extracted. Relevant studies with at least 1 outcome measure were evaluated. A total of 106 articles were identified that described advanced roles, however, only 23 of these described an outcome measure in sufficient detail to be included for review. The majority of the reported measures fit into the economic and process categories. The most reported outcome related to patients was satisfaction surveys. Measures of patient health outcomes were infrequently reported. It is unclear from the studies evaluated whether new models of allied healthcare can be shown to be as safe and effective as traditional care for a given procedure. Outcome measures chosen to evaluate these services often reflect organizational need and not patient outcomes. Organizations need to ensure that high-quality performance measures are chosen to evaluate the success of new health service innovations. There needs to be a move away from in-house type surveys that add little or no valid evidence as to the effect of a new innovation. More importance needs to be placed on patient outcomes as a measure of the quality of allied health interventions.

Linking internal market orientation and new service performance

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the first empirically tested model showing that internal marketing (IM) is a factor of success in new services development. It attempts to bridge internal market orientation (IMO) – the philosophical background of IM programs – with successful service innovations represented by new service performance (NSP).Design/methodology/approachTo explore the link between IMO and NSP a structural equations model was designed considering service quality and time‐to‐market as mediator variables. Data were gathered from business service firms' senior managers in Spain and Portugal (74 service companies based on a questionnaire).FindingsThe results largely support the hypothesized theoretical relationship that organizational effort in the human resources area, supported by the marketing function and implemented through an IMO, is connected with increasing service quality and innovation success.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study are context specific. In addition, surveys usually present data collection problems such as composing questions properly, key informant bias and non‐response bias. However, the actions undertaken – such as pre‐testing coupled with personal telephone contact with managers and the good results obtained in verifying the representativeness of the sample – suggested that every effort was made to obviate the limitations.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that managers must ensure that internal aspects of management, such as internal communication and employee commitment, are taken into account in order to implement successful new services. Managers need to be more proactive, trying to include the marketing function in human capital issues. Understanding internal clients' wants and needs and selling company goals internally would make external efforts in developing a new service much more likely to succeed.Originality/valueReflecting the literature which highlights the importance of the internal relationship between service employees and the company in service innovation, the paper pays particular attention to the role of IMO linkages and their effect on service innovation success. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time this relationship has been empirically tested.

Early versus potential adopters

PurposeThe success of retail service innovations is contingent upon a thorough understanding of the antecedent factors that drive adoption intention. Using the example of a novel kiosk technology, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the antecedents of kiosk use intention and to find out how perceptions of antecedent factors vary among potential and early adopters.Design/methodology/approachBased on the “Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology” and the technology readiness (TR) concept, the proposed framework identifies several factors underlying adoption intention. The framework is tested on potential and early adopters of a kiosk system recently launched by Taiwan's largest convenience retailer.FindingsResults show that while performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and social influence impact overall use intention, the perceptions of these antecedents vary significantly between potential versus early users. Further, individual TR does not intervene with technology perceptions.Practical implicationsRetail practitioners can use the findings to more effectively target these two important adopter segments and to prioritize their technology investments.Originality/valueMost of extant technology adoption researches assume that factors driving adoption behaviour remain constant as diffusion progresses. This work joins a limited number of studies, which propose a dynamic nature of antecedent factors. The paper shows how perceptions of antecedent factors differ among potential and early users of a novel kiosk system. Overall, this paper emphasizes the need for a more segmented‐oriented approach in the promoting of innovative retail technologies.

Overcoming service innovation bottlenecks using Web 2.0

This study focuses on a project with benchmark significance in the Taiwan government’s Web 2.0 plan, and employs on-site observation and in-depth interviews to explore how the government uses policies to help innovators obtain complementary resources, and thereby speed up the pace of service innovation and enhance the service innovation success rate. The results of this study indicate that the government can successfully intervene in the service innovation process. First, the government can develop systematic service innovation methodologies providing innovators with clear steps and principles to follow when determining target groups and performing service design and verification. Second, because most innovators are limited by insufficient resources and it is usually difficult for innovators to obtain relevant resources during the service innovation process, the service innovation success rate is quite low. With an eye on this, the government should actively clarify key issues that may be faced by innovators during each stage of the service innovation process, and can use various policy tools to provide innovators with the complementary resources needed at each stage, increasing innovators’ chance of success.

Driving Factors of Service Companies to Participate in Formal Standardization Processes: An Empirical Analysis

This paper develops theoretical hypotheses about driving factors of service com-panies to participate in formal standards development organizations at the na-tional, European and International level and tests them based on a sample of German service companies. Our results of Multivariate Probit regression models reveal that company size and export activities play a significant positive role. Moreover, internal R&D expenditure and successful service innovation have a positive and statistically significant impact on the likelihood of participation in for-mal standardization processes which indicates that taking part in service stan-dardization requires a certain absorptive capacity but is complementary to inno-vation activities. Based on the empirical results we derive implications both for managers of service companies and policy makers.

Market Orientation, Internal Process, and External Network: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Key Decisional Alternatives in the New Service Development*

ABSTRACTScholars from different disciplines acknowledge the importance of studying new service development (NSD), which is considered a central process for sustaining a superior competitive advantage of service firms. Although extant literature provides several important insights into how NSD processes are structured and organized, there is much less evidence on what makes NSD processes successful, that is, capable of contributing to a firm's sales and profits. In other words, which are the decisions that maximize the likelihood of developing successful new services? Drawing on the emerging “service‐dominant logic” paradigm, we address this question by developing an NSD framework with three main decisional nodes: market orientation, internal process organization, and external network. Using a qualitative comparative analysis technique, we discovered combinations of alternatives that maximize likelihood of establishing a successful service innovation. Specifically, we tested our NSD framework in the context of hospitality services and found that successful NSD can be achieved through two sets of decisions. The first one includes the presence of a proactive market orientation (PMO) and a formal top‐down innovative process, but the absence of a responsive market orientation. The second one includes the presence of both responsive and PMO and an open innovation model. No single element was a sufficient condition for NSD success, though PMO was a necessary condition. Several implications for theory and decision‐making practice are discussed on the basis of our findings.

A Staged Service Innovation Model*

ABSTRACTDrawing from the new product development (NPD) literature, service quality literature (SERVQUAL), and empirically grounded research with 53 service innovation decision makers, we develop a staged service innovation model (SIM) for decision makers. We tested the model using empirical data from 329 firms across five industries. The empirical results show that integrating prelaunch service quality training into new service development process leads to successful service innovation. The model developed in this article can be used as a decision support tool and diagnostic model for assessing service innovation ideas, evaluating performance of ongoing service innovations, allocating resources, and improving success rate of service innovations. Decision makers can use the measures developed in this study as a checklist to identify their strengths in delivering service quality to their own customers as well as areas of improvement. This article extends service innovation research by combining NPD and service quality development into a single study and opens the door to further work that could help improve the success rate of service innovations. The model can serve as a base model for future research extensions in service innovation research. A major takeaway for the academic reader is that the SIM demonstrates the value of using the SERVQUAL literature to understand how best to provide excellent quality that results in more fully satisfied customers and, ultimately, improved service performance.

Actor-Network Theory for Service Innovation

Services have become the key value driver for companies. Currently there is a lack of understanding of the science underlying the design and operation of service systems. New conceptual understanding and theoretical underpinnings are required to systematically describe the nature and behaviour of service systems. We believe that Actor Network Theory (ANT) can be used as a theoretical lens to study the development and adoption of service innovation. The development of and adoption of service innovation requires the integration of multiple elements including people, technologies and networks across organisations. Technologies and interests of actors need to be aligned and coordinated for successful service innovation. In this article we show how ANT is adopted as a theoretical framework for understanding the relationships among the actors and show how these actors have their needs shaped by the network formation during the development and adoption of service innovation for a university.

ICT based service innovation – A challenge for project management

In this paper we investigate to what extent ICT based service innovation can be successfully facilitated by traditional project management thinking. Should service innovation initiatives be organized the same way as high-tech product innovation, i.e. with expert teams in well structured projects? Or should they be organized in some looser fashion, with more interaction with users and other stakeholders? Our empirical evidence is a survey of 130 public sector projects in Norway, run within a national e-government program. We find that ICT based service innovation is not associated with a tightly run project (focused on cost, time and quality) or a professional project manager. Rather, successful service innovation is found in projects with a strong integration with the service providing organization and the external users of the services. We discuss three alternative models as an agenda for further research.

Online marketplace service innovation: the case of Lelong.com.my

Successful online marketplace service innovation requires a website platform supporting secure and pleasant trading, plus strategic integration to enhance business profitability and sustainability. This case study examined how one such innovation was introduced into a new – largely unprepared – market, using unproven technology. Interviews with 'Lelong.com.my' founder and information from public sources revealed that this comprehensive online marketplace innovation had evolved gradually through various contextual factors' interactions. Its sustainable success appears to have been achieved mainly by focusing on the tech-savvy market niche, building up a sense of community among satisfied customers, and through the passionate determination of the entrepreneurial team.

Service innovation for e-government: a broadband-based example

This paper investigates the relationship between broadband and service innovation in an e-government context. We ask, what characterises successful broadband-based service innovation projects in the public sector? The research approach is a quantitative survey in a large public broadband diffusion initiative in Norway. The paper offers three conclusions. First, broadband-based service innovation is seen as a two-step process; first a technologically oriented project, followed by an organisational implementation. The focus of the project manager should be on the second of the phases, not the first. Second, the engagement of a professional external project manager does not support service innovation. The reason is that the external project manager lacks the necessary local knowledge and alliances with central stakeholders. Third, traditional project management is not well suited to understand and manage service innovation. Our contribution is aimed at the e-government research community, but our conclusions are also relevant for project managers and public sector managers.

Towards integrated service innovation: from strategic goals to organisational structures

Service innovation is emerging as a critical source of competitive advantage for firms in the 21st century. The success of service innovation requires an integrated approach that can align abstract service strategies with specific organisation and information structures. This paper proposes a methodology that can systematically guide the creation and concretisation of new service strategies. Specifically, by integrating theories, techniques and heuristics from the fields of service innovation, strategic management and organisation modelling, we create a service-oriented organisational ontology and a process model for service strategy analysis and design. We illustrate the methodology with a real-life based case study and preliminarily evaluate the effectiveness of the methodology with a small behavioural experiment.

How to Develop Successful Hospitality Innovation

A survey of 184 German hoteliers identified nine factors that promote successful service innovations. The study found that the nature of the innovation is far less important than the effectiveness of a hotel’s human resources management and employee training, empowerment, and commitment to the service. Ensuring that the innovation is matched to the targeted market is important, of course, but such factors as effective marketing communication and public relations do not seem to support innovations’ success. Also important is the tangible nature of the service, but having innovative technology was not a significant factor in new-service development for these hoteliers.

High‐Technology Service Innovation Success: A Decision‐Making Perspective

Successful innovation is crucial for firm survival in high‐technology service industries. This article reports on an empirical study, exploring internal innovation success factors—success factors associated with the innovating firm's competencies—by taking a decision‐making perspective. The likelihood of innovation success is associated with the systematic reduction of decision‐making uncertainty, as a result of organizational information gathering, diffusion, and processing activities. Effects of interfirm differences are investigated in the new service development phase of the innovation process. Cross‐sectional data were collected about 251 innovation projects from companies in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Innovation success is found to be related positively and directly to how well informed and knowledgeable decision‐makers are. Furthermore, the study provides evidence that a market orientation contributes as an internal success factor: An organizational climate favorable to information sharing powerfully mediates the positive effects of intelligence gathering with respect to customers and technology. The effects of competitor orientation carry a negative sign, and managerial seniority appears not to play a major role in this turbulent business. Managerial and research implications are provided.

Linking communication to innovation success in the financial services industry: a case study analysis

Reports the findings of an exploratory case study research on the contribution of internal and external communication to the commercial success of financial service innovations. An extensive case study research involving four innovation projects was conducted within a leading Belgian bank. The desk research and the 32 in‐depth interviews with senior managers and project leaders served as a platform for theory development. A propositional framework was developed that offers a contingency perspective regarding the role of communication during the different stages of the service innovation process. While many of the existing studies in the field have exclusively focused on external communication, the effectiveness of internal communication is a critical success factor. Furthermore, path dependency effects were created in the project life‐cycle of the financial service innovation projects. Finally, the findings suggest that the effectiveness of internal and external communication depends on the level of intangibility, heterogeneity, simultaneity and perishability of the new service offering.