The nature and fundamental elements of digital service innovation
ISSN: 1757-5818
Article publication date: 31 October 2023
Issue publication date: 11 March 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This paper addresses the growing fragmentation between traditional and digital service innovation (DSI) research and offers a unifying metatheoretical framework.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded in service-dominant (S-D) logic's service ecosystems perspective, this study builds on an institutional and systemic, rather than product-centric and linear, conceptualization of value creation to offer a unifying framework for (digital) service innovation that applies to both physical and digital service provisions.
Findings
This paper questions the commonly perpetuated idea that DSI fundamentally changes the nature of innovation. Instead, it highlights resource liquification—the decoupling of information from the technologies that store, transmit, or process this information—as a distinguishing characteristic of DSI. Liquification, however, does not affect the relational and institutional nature of service innovation, which is always characterized by (1) the emergence of novel outcomes, (2) distributed governance and (3) symbiotic design. Instead, liquification makes these three characteristics more salient.
Originality/value
In presenting a cohesive service innovation framework, this study underscores that all innovation processes are rooted in combinatorial evolution. Here, service-providing actors (re)combine technologies (or more generally, institutions) to adapt their value cocreation practices. This research demonstrates that such (re)combinations exhibit emergence, distributed governance and symbiotic design. While these characteristics may initially seem novel and unique to DSI, it reveals that their fundamental mechanisms are not limited to digital service ecosystems. They are, in fact, integral to service innovation across virtual, physical and blended contexts. The study highlights the importance of exercising caution in assuming that the emergence of novel technologies, including digital technologies, necessitates a concurrent rethinking of the fundamental processes of service innovation.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author team sincerely acknowledges the valuable and insightful comments received from the three reviewers, and the Guest Editors, namely Professors Marco Opazo-Basáez, Ferran Vendrell-Herrero, Oscar Bustinza Sanchez and Chris Raddats.
The authors further acknowledge the use of ChatGPT, an AI language model developed by OpenAI, to support language editing during the preparation of this article. ChatGPT (Version 3.5) provided assistance in refining the language of the manuscript. While ChatGPT aided in the editing process, the intellectual content and findings presented in this article are solely attributed to the authors and their research.
Citation
Vargo, S.L., Fehrer, J.A., Wieland, H. and Nariswari, A. (2024), "The nature and fundamental elements of digital service innovation", Journal of Service Management, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 227-252. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-02-2023-0052
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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