Service Innovation Process Research Articles

Service innovation and its impact: What do we know about?

Despite the growing body of literature concentrating on service innovation, empirical research focusing on measuring its impact, mainly at firm-level, remains scarce. Adopting the perspective that the ability to monitor the service innovation process and to assess its impact is a pre-condition to properly manage it, we conduct a literature review of recent empirical studies on the measurement of service innovation to ascertain our current body of knowledge. We restrict our review to the period covering 2006 to 2014, as previous research has been extensively covered by Adams, Bessant, and Phelps (2006) and concentrate on published empirical academic articles which clearly examine “service innovation” and its impact on performance. Relying on several inclusion and exclusion criteria, thirteen empirical studies were retained and are discussed in this paper. Although this study does not claim to be exhaustive, it shows that knowledge on the relationship between service innovation and performance is limited and that this area of research deserves further scrutiny. We conclude with some avenues for further research, in view of stimulating more research in this promising yet emerging field.

The impact of health care professionals’ service orientation on patients’ innovative behavior

The increasing availability of medical information and the rising relevance of patient communities drive the active role of health consumers in health care processes. Patients become experts on their disease and provide valuable stimuli for novel care solutions. Medical encounters evolve toward a more collaborative health care service process, where patients are accepted as equal partners. However, the patient's active role depends on the interaction with the involved health care professionals. The aim of this article is to examine whether the service orientation of health care professionals and their proactive and adaptive work behavior and the extent of shared goals within the necessary interdisciplinary health professional team influence patients' innovative behavior. We address six rare diseases and use interview and survey data to test theoretically derived hypotheses. The sample consists of 86 patients and their 160 health care professionals. Sixty patients provided additional information via interviews. Patients' innovative behavior is reflected by the number of generated ideas as well as the variety of ideas. The service orientation of work teams plays an important role in the innovation process of patients. As hypothesized, the extent of shared goals within the health care teams has a direct effect on patients' idea generation. Work adaptivity and proactivity and shared goals both reinforce the positive effect of service orientation. Furthermore, significant associations between the three independent variables and the second outcome variable of patient's idea variety are confirmed. The study underlines (1) the important role of patients within health care service innovation processes, (2) the necessity of a service-oriented working climate to foster the development of innovative care solutions for rare diseases, and (3) the need for an efficient cooperation and open mindset of health care professionals to motivate and support patient innovation.

Network dynamics in constellations of cultural differences: Relational distance in innovation processes in legal services and biotechnology

The aims of this article are first to scrutinize the effects of cultural divergence within knowledge networks on innovation and second to explore how these relations change during the process. Using qualitative case-study data from innovation biographies in legal services and biotechnology research and development services the paper develops a phase model of innovation – induction, validation, mobilization and concretization – that allows synchronizing the longitudinal time-spatial data. It then identifies types of relations within knowledge networks that have been critical for the creation and unfolding of the core idea and positions them into the phase model. The notion “relational distance” is employed to specify what forms of cultural differences are enacted in each of these relations and what effects these differences have on the outcomes of the innovation processes. The proposed framework affords the in-depth interpretation of each type of relation, a lateral analysis of how different types of relations work together at specific stages of the innovation processes and a longitudinal dynamic analysis of how relations evolve during innovation processes.

Collaborative elaboration of early innovation ideas

Summary Web-based innovation platforms (WBIP) are common tools for the integration of customers and other external stakeholders into the product and service innovation processes of companies. WBIP of many large companies are very successful in generating many ideas. This leads to WBIP operators drowning in lots of possibly creative and high potential ideas, which are difficult to screen. Therefore, this paper suggests a collaboration process allowing customers to participate collaboratively in the elaboration of self-selected ideas. The collaboration process has been developed following the collaboration process design approach and was designed to be implemented on WBIP.

User Collaboration for Idea Elaboration

Web-based innovation platforms (WBIP) are common tools for the integration of customers and other external stakeholders into the product and service innovation processes of companies. WBIP of many large companies are very successful in generating many ideas. This leads to WBIP operators drowning in lots of possibly creative and high potential ideas, which are difficult to screen. Therefore, this paper suggests a collaboration process allowing customers to participate collaboratively in the elaboration of self-selected ideas. The collaboration process was being developed following the collaboration process design approach and was designed to be adaptable into WBIP. The contribution of this paper is a novel approach to collaborative user integration into the idea elaboration process.

Service Innovation - The Impact of Different Processes and Methods on Entrepreneurial Success

In international rankings, Switzerland is regularly rated one of the most innovative economies in the world. Despite this, it still lacks service innovations, a fact that is all the more significant considering that this represents the largest sector of the country's economy. Different types of service innovation processes are identified: R&D-based, practice-oriented, and ad hoc processes. With regard to the methods used in these processes, these may have a stronger focus on service and/or innovation, and may be used with variable frequency. In a survey of 300 Swiss service companies, it was shown that innovative service companies use service-specific innovation processes and methods more frequently, which can increase the profit share of innovative services and improve their competitive position.

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.

Discovering the unfolding of service innovations

Purpose– This paper aims to explore and demonstrate how an ethnographic research approach can reveal new aspects of the dynamics of service innovation processes. In contrast to the retrospective research approach found in most service innovation research, the ethnographic approach captures the innovation process as it unfolds.Design/methodology/approach– An ethnographical investigation of an incremental service innovation at a bank was conducted. The innovation activities were performed jointly by a team of bank members from various functions and external business partners. This was a formal project with a pre-specified plan, budget, and timetable.Findings– The ethnographical approach, capitalizing on its real-time, multi-methods, longitudinal, and up-close characteristics, made it possible to capture unforeseen events and issues at the micro level. The authors suggest that such critical events determine what direction the innovation process takes. The initial intentions and plans were partly realized; new issues emerged during the innovation work and were realized, while other emergent issues were finally not realized.Research limitations/implications– The study suggests a framework that can be used to identify four categories of micro-level processes. Critical events in the micro-level processes represent potential turning points and are important foci in practice and remain issues for further research.Practical implications– Managers may benefit from being open to including emergent issues and understanding the micro-level dynamics of the innovation process.Originality/value– This study illustrates how the ethnographic research approach captures the dynamics of innovation processes and the potential challenges and possibilities for innovation managers. This finding suggests the need to address micro-level dynamics.

Service Innovation for Improved Satisfaction: Designing Patient Call Back in Emergency Healthcare

Healthcare delivery is becoming a significant proportion of the service economy around the world. Within healthcare, the Emergency Department (ED) constitutes one of the most challenging areas of service delivery. Patient (customer) arrival is highly unpredictable, job scope is variable and uncertain, and timely service response is essential to save lives. In addition, emergency physicians and hospitals may soon be monitored and compensated with a new set of metrics including patient satisfaction measured after service delivery. In this paper, we report data and results from a study that involved a service process innovation at two academic EDs – the proposed redesign involves utilizing the addition of a new process step that uses health provider capacity when available for follow-up patient calls after discharge from the emergency department. We examine the overall impact of this process redesign on patient satisfaction as measured by the “likelihood to recommend” question on patient surveys. We also examine how follow-up caller identity (nurse vs. medical doctor) and patient characteristics influence customer/patient satisfaction. Our findings first confirm that the addition of a follow-up call back step to the service process has a significant impact on reported patient satisfaction. We focus on identifying ways to improve the efficiency of the call back step in the service design. Specifically, we find that patients over age 65 are more likely to respond positively to call back than those under 65 and the impact of call back is strongly associated for certain healthcare insurance (Medicare and MediCal). These findings can help hospitals redesign the ED service process and segment patients for call back in an effective manner. Underlying fundamental implications and future work possibilities are discussed.

Collaborative elaboration of early innovation ideas

SummaryWeb-based innovation platforms (WBIP) are common tools for the integration of customers and other external stakeholders into the product and service innovation processes of companies. WBIP of many large companies are very successful in generating many ideas. This leads to WBIP operators drowning in lots of possibly creative and high potential ideas, which are difficult to screen. Therefore, this paper suggests a collaboration process allowing customers to participate collaboratively in the elaboration of self-selected ideas. The collaboration process has been developed following the collaboration process design approach and was designed to be implemented on WBIP.

Transforming the service idea – a communication and learning process

Purpose– This paper is about service innovation processes and especially about how an idea about a new service proposition is realized and gradually transformed during the process. The purpose of this paper is to describe and explain the process by which the idea of what should be developed is formed.Design/methodology/approach– Empirically this study is built on two case studies from the public transport context. The cases studied are long-term and involves a number of different actors from different organizations put together to deliver a new system solution regarding information- and ticketing systems.Findings– The findings indicate that the service ideas gradually develop throughout the service innovation process; some of the changes are that distinct that they could be described as turning points. The reasons for the changes of the ideas are sometimes the renewed awareness that the involved actors get from communicating and learning from each other's, other times the turning points occur as a result form confrontation with the outside world, and what is their perceived as necessary and possible to do.Originality/value– The study is novel in several respects: the notion of the transformation of the service idea during a service innovation process is introduced; it provides an empirical analysis of the knowledge transformation process during a service innovation process, and it applies traditional innovation perspective in a new context.

The impact of information technology capability on firm performance; a focus on employee- customer profit chain

Employee-customer-profit(ECP) chain is one of the guidelines for organizations 'success in their life cycle. Strong relationships have been found between employees' attitudes and behaviors, employees' behaviors and customers' impressions, and customers' impressions and revenue growth. Out of this chain, there are some factors that can influence the processes through which these factors interact. One of these factors is information technology (IT) capability. In this research, we modeled the effect of IT capability on ECP chain using structural equation modeling (SEM). Service process innovation (SPI) was also used as a mediating variable between IT capability and ECP chain. This was accomplished based upon quantitative data gathered from a sample of 212 employees of the Technical and Vocational organization in Mashhad city. Results revealed a strong support for the proposed model. In particular, the association between IT capability and SPI with ECP chain and their leverage effect facilitate the organizations' movements along with the chain which was significantly confirmed.

Assessing the Link between service Innovation and Performance in Telecommunication Industry

Literature search has revealed that despite the dominance of services in modern economies, and their rapid growth worldwide, there are limited researches in the area of service innovation. This study attempted to bridge the gap by ascertaining the nature of relationship between innovation and firm performance. The study adopted a mixture of expost-facto and survey research design. The sources of data for the study were both primary and secondary. The research instrument was developed and it was subjected to both validity and reliability measures and was found to be valid and reliable for the study. Simple random sampling technique was adopted for the study. Three hypotheses were formulated and subjected to inferential statistical tests such as correlation and regression. It was discovered that service process innovation, service modification and service innovation structure are significantly related to firm performance. It was recommended that firms should put in place service innovation structure that is coupled with quality improvement practices in order to sustain and enhance its competitive advantage and customer patronage.

A taxonomy of service innovations based on the innovative activity efficiency of service firms: a DEA approach

The lack of empirical studies on the relative efficiency of the innovative activities of service firms is one of the problems of monitoring growth of the service sector. To fill this void, from the perspective of efficiency, this paper provides empirical evidence on the efficiency of innovative activities. In addition, a new taxonomy of services that yields a dominant role to service firms is further proposed based on innovative activity efficiency. For this, using data envelopment analysis (DEA): 1) the relative efficiency of service firms is evaluated; 2) the optimal weights, which are called as efficient efforts, are used to develop a taxonomy by way of a new measurement concept. As a result, a taxonomy is proposed with four clusters: service improvement innovation, IT-based external process innovation, researcher-based patenting innovation, and physical resources-based new service and internal process innovation. The comparison of innovation patterns with previous taxonomies is also highlighted.

Service innovation in product-centric firms: a multidimensional business model perspective

Purpose– This article aims to investigate the nature and characteristics of business model elements required for successful service innovation. The authors examine which unique resources and capabilities product-centric firms should develop and deploy to pursue service innovation.Design/methodology/approach– Data collected from several research projects support iterations across empirical data and theory, in an abductive process. Empirical data come from product-centric firms; interviews and focus groups were the main data collection methods.Findings– Specific resources and capabilities are needed for the proposed business model elements, as defined by the overarching strategy and structure. Firms can approach the process of service innovation from different starting points and sequences, depending on the context.Research limitations/implications– Because it takes a synthesizing approach, this research lacks some detail. By taking a business model approach with a holistic perspective, it forgoes detailed descriptions to provide greater breadth.Practical implications– Managers can use business models as tools to visualize changes, which should increase internal transparency, understanding, and awareness of service opportunities and necessary changes. Dependencies exist among elements; a change in one element likely affects the others. This study provides insights into which efforts are necessary and offers managers a guiding framework.Originality/value– By providing a multidimensional perspective on service innovation, this study merges various previous research into a synthesized discussion. Combining a resources and capabilities perspective with a business model framework also leads to new insights regarding service innovation and associated activities.

Innovation Process Model of the Meaning of a Service - A Case Study in Home Automation

Instead of a market-pull and technology-push dichotomy, applying one of the Six Senses posited by Pink (2006), the ‘Meaning’ in product innovation, this study proposes an Service Innovation Process Model based on the Design Driven innovation (DDI) process advocated by Verganti (2009), and business model configuration depicted by Battistella et al., (2012). The latter is already an extension of the former; this study further extends the model to a service design, value co-creation with stakeholders, market penetration, and market feedback as a complete cycle. The objective is to bring in radical service innovation with minimum possible risk. Repertory Grid technique had been employed to explore the affordance of the proposed new applications in the DDI process in a case study of Home Automation. It was found that the findings in the Repertory Grid were quite aligned with those in the DDI process. The case study illustrated stakeholders’ involvement throughout the process is required in order to achieve the objective. It also reveals a real life example in designing the detail workflow/process/user experience of a new service after the DDI process. Product-focused had to be complemented with service-focused innovation in order to be sustainable. Although there is no one-size-fits all Innovation process model, this study demonstrates a practical way to explore the ‘Meaning’ of a Service in a holistic practical approach.

Using Social Media for Service Innovations

This article investigates how social software such as blogs can be used to collect ideas generated by the users in the service innovation process. After a theoretical discussion of user involvement and more specifically user involvement using social software and interactive web-tools, the article reports the results from a field experiment at a university library. In the experiment, a blog was established to collect ideas for service innovations from the library users. The experiment shows that blogs may generate a modest, but very useful amount of ideas. The experiment furthermore reveals that blogs might be useful to provide the institution with an image of openness and willingness to listen to customer input.

Service development tools in action

Service innovation is a key to productivity gains and competitiveness across industries. This paper presents two management tools that can assist businesses in developing a more systematic and effective service development process. Both of these tools focus on making optimal use of customer and user inputs during the service innovation process. They assist businesses in finding effective ways to integrate customers and users into a service development process and in working together with them during this new service development. Latest research has provided a starting point for the development of these management tools. Their practical applications have been developed together with businesses in connection with their ongoing service development projects. This has provided an effective way to test and validate research-based concepts and reference processes.

Risk and Innovation

This paper focuses upon two complex and related concepts, namely risk and innovation in public services. The last two decades have witnessed an increasing policy imperative around using innovation to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services. Innovation is seen to be inextricably linked to positive risk-taking, and yet little attention has been paid to its governance in the public service innovation process. This paper argues that existing approaches to risk and innovation are not sufficiently developed and propose a framework of risk governance that aims to address these issues and suggests a research agenda for the future.

Does service innovation mirror product innovation? A multi-method study with successful evidence case from Turkey

This study is an attempt to analyse differences between product and service innovation processes. There is almost consensus among scholars about the steps and approaches regarding product innovation. Yet, for service innovation perspectives, scholars do not suggest a dominating paradigm. Moreover, due to nature of services (e.g., intangibility, perishability), suggesting a prescribed and almost a determined blueprint for service innovation process is challenging. In this study, we primarily aimed at examining and investigating differences between product and service innovation processes via a prominent and market leader company operating in Turkey. We followed qualitative approach and enriched our insights with interviews conducted with key responsible managers from the focal company. Insights emphasised key differences between product and service innovation processes and built on these differences, we provided suggestions. Further implications and limitations are also discussed.