The impact of service innovation on firm-level financial performance

This article empirically investigates if firms focusing on service innovation perform better financially than firms not focusing on service innovation. Analysis of the financial performance of 3575 Norwegian firms in the manufacturing industries supports the proposition that firms focusing on service innovation have significantly higher growth of operating results than firms not focusing on service innovation. However, this proposition is not supported in a corresponding analysis of 1132 Norwegian firms in the service industries. We elaborate on these results by investigating a variety of performance measures and by comparing the effects of service innovation between manufacturing and service industries. The article contributes to the service innovation measurement literature and to a better general understanding of the determinants of service innovation performance effects.     

基于服务质量形成模式的服务创新模型

服务创新是推动服务业发展的强大动力,同时对增强制造业企业的竞争力有重要作用。由于服务质量形成模式与一般产品质量形成模式的差别,服务创新与制造业技术创新在创新内容和形式上有所不同,关键在于创新维度的不同。通过对基于服务质量形成模式的服务创新四维度模型的探讨,识别了服务企业创新活动包含的四个一般性维度及其关联。     

创新驱动战略下物流服务业创新经营模式探析

中共十八大报告指出,我国已进入了以创新能力及创新水平为主要动力的驱动发展阶段,国家应实施创新驱动发展战略促进经济的再增长。服务业作为新世纪产业发展的主力,其可持续的发展对提升国家的综合实力非常关键,服务创新在其中将起到决定性的作用。主要就当下物流服务业的经营管理创新进行详细分析研究,并构建了物流服务供应链的结构模型,一定程度上提高了大家对创新驱动战略下物流服务业创新运作模式的了解。     

Co-production of service innovations through dynamic capability enhancement

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of co-production practices with customers on service innovation. Specifically, we sought to determine whether dynamic capabilities (the specific abilities a company has to shape, reshape, configure, and reconfigure idiosyncratic assets to respond to changing technologies and markets) could mediate the effect of co-production on service innovation. In this paper, we examine the factors that could influence co-production practices and determine whether organizational commitment moderates the effect of co-production practice on an organization's dynamic capabilities. Using a survey approach of Taiwanese firms, we showed that dynamic capability fully mediates the effects of co-production practice on service innovation and that market orientation and customer matching have a significant influence on co-production practices. In addition, this study has empirically demonstrated that service firms would be well advised to engage in developing service innovation through enhancing their own dynamic capabilities.     

一种新的服务开发理念:可持续服务创新

随着环保和可持续发展的观念日益深入人心,环保意识和环保消费创造了新的市场需求,不仅在制造业领域,而且在服务业领域都应当重视和实践可持续发展式的经营管理。将可持续发展的思想用于服务创新理论的理念,对实施可持续服务创新具有重要意义。归纳总结可持续服务创新的主要途径,旨在引起服务业对可持续发展思想的足够重视,为实施可持续服务创新提供一定的参考。     

When are strategic orientations beneficial for collaborative service innovation?

Despite 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.     

服务业创新理论国外相关研究综述

基于国外理论与实践的研究,对创新过程的理解、传统的制造业向服务业转移、服务业创新实证研究、服务行业创新模式的研究进行了理论综述。从服务业创新研究现状看,原有的创新理论与服务业的发展现状已出现较多矛盾:传统的创新理论主要来源于制造业,而制造业创新与服务业相距甚远,所以在服务业领域缺乏规范的实证研究,从而使理论研究缺乏实证依据;服务业的多样性、交叉性及差异性,以及其行业的飞速发展性,使其创新内容、创新类型、创新模式等创新基本理论问题的概念化难度相对较大;服务业的相关研究较为零散,缺乏整体性和系统性。     

Service innovation as a political process

Service innovation processes are driven by stakeholders in interaction and are understood and sketched as a value negotiation process that consists of an iterative process of securing potential value in service. While previous research has focused on service innovation as a harmonious closed system, our study explores service innovation as a political process in which stakeholders negotiate to create and secure future value. Data are collected through interviews and participant observations in four different case studies. Our study contributes to the field by illuminating service innovation as a political process and explaining how this is operationalized. The findings also contribute to an understanding of how stakeholder resources impact a chosen strategy; the resulting strategy’s impact on the service concept vis-à-vis its potential value; and how several involved stakeholders formulate, negotiate, and secure future potential value, which are the activities that drive a service innovation process.     

Introduction to the Special Issue — Social Computing and Service Innovation: A Framework for Research

ABSTRACT

Recently, we more and more observe service innovations emerging from social interactions among a network of actors inside and outside of organizations. Social computing technologies are the main facilitators of social interactions, hence increasingly play a vital role in the service innovation. Yet, research on the role of social computing in service innovation lacks clear theoretical and empirical basis. This special issue was designed to stimulate research on the intersection of social computing and service innovation. In this paper, we outline a broad research framework in this regard, including the papers in this special issue and areas for future research.     

Strategies towards innovative services: findings from the German service landscape

The specifics of services seem to prohibit a simple transfer of innovation strategies from the manufacturing to the service sector. To better understand what works, successful strategic service innovators and their strategic approaches have been the focus of this study. To do so, 80 service innovators in Germany have been monitored over a period of one year. By analyzing them, according to the basic strategies they follow (low cost, differentiation or mixed emphasis) and the dominant design of their service delivery system (information technology-based, people-based or mixed approach), this paper provides an understanding of the strategic approaches followed by successful service innovators. Our findings propose that there is a fit between the complexity of service offerings and variety of the interaction approaches by successful service innovators. In sum, we argue that for an appropriate design of service innovation strategy both managers and researchers need to go beyond the traditional distinction of low cost and differentiation strategy.     

The evolution of service innovation research: a critical review and synthesis

The number of service innovation articles has increased dramatically in the past 25 years. By reviewing 128 articles published between 1986 and 2010, primarily in leading marketing and innovation journals, this study analyzes the progression of service innovation research according to topicality and perspective. The authors summarize prior research by clustering it into three evolutional phases and drawing parallels with the evolution of the wider services marketing field. Overall, the view of service innovation has evolved, from a complement of traditional product innovation to a multidimensional, all-encompassing notion that entails several functions, both within and outside the firm.     

FDI溢出效应与自主技术创新效率:一个高技术产业特征的视角

本文通过高技术产业1999-2007年15个三位码行业面板数据的实证研究表明,该产业FDI进入对不同三位码行业内资企业的自主技术创新产生了异质性溢出效应,行业特征的差异性是造成这种异质性溢出效应的主要原因。与外资企业生产率差距较小、R&D强度差距较大,具有较强消化吸收能力且规模较大的内资企业相应行业中,FDI进入对其自主技术创新效率提高具有显著的正向溢出效应。同时,行业出口导向型程度及行业集中度的上升,有助于内资企业在技术创新过程中更好地吸纳FDI的正向技术溢出效应。     

Interactions,innovation, and services

Although research has acknowledged the importance of supplier–buyer relationships for goods innovation, empirical evidence on the extent and nature of the effects of original equipment manufacturing (OEM) supplier–buyer relationships on service innovation remains scarce. Based on a survey of 152 suppliers in Taiwan, this study concludes that the interaction orientation of OEM suppliers is a key factor influencing the development of two competencies: joint innovation competence and cross-functional information dissemination competence. These two competencies contribute to OEM suppliers’ exploitative service innovation and explorative service innovation, respectively. In other words, applying a resource-based view, this study provides clarity regarding the linkages shown below (an organization’s strategic orientation influences its development of organizational capabilities and results in organizational performance) for the purpose of exploring the relationship between interaction orientation and service innovation.     

Inter-firm relational resources in cloud service adoption and their effect on service innovation

This study examines (1) inter-firm relational resources for cloud service adoption and (2) their effects on service innovation. A research model and the related hypotheses are developed based on resource-advantage (R-A) theory that combines inter-firm relational resources identified in theoretical and empirical research as important antecedents of cloud service adoption and its effect on service innovation. This study collects data from 165 managers from service firms in Taiwan. The results show that resources, including reliability, cost, and compatibility significantly affect a firm’s cloud service adoption. Furthermore, the adoption of cloud service significantly contributes to service innovation. The findings add to the current understanding of service innovation in two important ways. First, drawing on R-A theory, this study is among the first attempts to identify inter-firm relational resources (reliability, cost, compatibility, and customer orientation) for cloud service adoption and their effect on innovation performance. Second, this study introduces cloud services as effective technological platforms for a firm and its business partners to share, integrate, and reciprocate information, knowledge, and experience for service innovation.     

医药零售行业竞争力及服务创新研究

医药零售行业本质上属于服务业,用波特的五力模型分析医药行业的竞争环境,发现服务创新是医药行业进一步发展和提高竞争力的基础,医药零售行业服务创新体系包括服务理念创新、服务界面创新、服务产品创新、服务组织创新以及服务标准化五个方面。根据孙伯和加卢的服务创新驱动力模型,明确创新的轨道,将消费者纳入创新的主体,将服务创新作为企业不变的战略之一,激发员工的创新积极性,将服务创新专门化、专业化,是医药零售行业服务创新的基本对策。     

制造业创新与服务业创新:比较与融合

制造业的产出——产品与服务业的产出——服务在特征上有很大的不同,因而制造业创新与服务业创新也表现出不同的特征,主要在创新载体、消费者体验、生产者消费者界限、技术创新地位、研发依赖性等方面存在差异。同时,制造业创新与服务业创新也不是各自孤立进行的,二者相互作用、相互影响。当前,在制造业与服务业融合的背景下,制造业创新与服务业创新也出现了一系列融合特征,包括技术主导力度趋弱、创新周期缩短、非R&D活动在创新中的作用增强、专利制度对创新的影响增强等。     

Operationalisation of service innovation: a systems thinking approach

This paper initialises an effort to explore the impact of an innovative systems thinking approach for service operations design on creating innovation. A qualitative exploratory case study approach in two of the UK’s service sector departments was conducted, using face-to-face semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and extractions from both observations and documents. The results identify that operationalising service innovation is positively linked with applying the Vanguard Method for service operations design. Twelve micro-determinants for service innovation operationalisation have been identified that reside at three different levels in the service organisation, namely employees level (i.e. Micro), the functional level (i.e. Meso), and corporate level (i.e. Macro). The value of this paper is the introduction of a step-by-step guidance on how to build service operations design to operationalise service innovation, the paper also theorises service innovation with systems thinking methodology that emphasises holistic, multi-disciplinary, and integrative characteristics of the service system.     

Emergence of innovations in services

Along with the ‘servicisation’ of society, innovation in services has become a topical issue. However, analytical and detailed discussion about the nature of service innovations and their emergence is only beginning. This article aims to contribute to this discussion through a theoretical analysis supplemented with findings from two empirical case studies. The theories examined are multi-disciplinary including general service theories, general innovation theories and theories linked to new service development and innovation management. The empirical studies have been carried out in Finland in the fields of real estate and construction services and of knowledge-intensive business services.     

Influence of innovation on performance: analysis of Spanish service firms

The main objective of this research was to analyse innovation in service firms. In strategic management, the methodology of fit allows us to study the adjustment between two dimensions by revealing the internal consistency between them and its influence on the efficiency of firms. This paper is focused on the analysis of fit between types of services (classified according to intensity of innovation) and the innovation decisions made by these firms. The fit has been contrasted through the methodology of adjustment as an approach to the ideal profile. An important question in this paper consists in revealing whether the fit between the type of services and innovative decisions influences a firm's performance.     

Service innovation: Inward and outward related activities and cooperation mode

Knowledge of how customers co-create value, the way that suppliers and providers co-produce services, and how research and development centers and universities transfer technologies is becoming increasingly important to scholars' understanding of service innovation. This paper presents an analysis of the relationship between inward and outward innovation activities in service organizations and their modes of innovation, using network innovation premises and an extended innovation model. Empirical data from retail, health and education sector service organizations show the existence of a relationship between the degree of development of the inward innovation process and the degree of development of outward innovation activities. The majority of service organizations have innovation processes with an orientation toward customers and suppliers rather than other service network members, and leading service organizations follow a path that the literature defines as oriented toward the service value network. Findings lead to implications of how innovation managers could develop their internal innovation capacity to balance inward and outward activities properly.