Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine how collaborative service development in a public-private citizen innovation network can be approached as an organizational learning process. Although the importance of learning in networks has been highlighted in earlier studies, the actual processes and outcomes have remained less studied, especially in the public service context.

The approach taken is based on the theory of expansive learning. The empirical data were gathered in a qualitative case study that focused on a public service organization developing new activities for unemployed youth. The network around this focal organization consisted of citizens as end-users, private employers and a facilitating consultancy company.

The findings illustrate how and what was learned in the complex network setting and how this learning created potential for collaborative service development in the future. Importantly, the public service organization started to perceive itself as an active agent enhancing collaboration.

The study revealed important interfaces between service development, organizational learning, and innovation activities in networks. This observation is in line with the service-dominant logic, particularly with its focus on actor-to-actor relationships in value co-creation.

The importance of facilitation – particularly for the emergence of the agency of the focal organization – should be taken into account in the development of networked service innovations.

This study illustrates how expansive learning theory may contribute on deepening understanding of the practical collaboration processes, as well as conceptual aims and outcomes of networked service innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to report a new kind of workshop process which aims at co‐creation across disciplines in a service research network. The case concerns Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) and took place from January to May, 2009.

Both foresight and organizational learning methods are combined in the process. During workshops, researchers and management are enabled to co‐create interdisciplinary service research proposals and a service research strategy for VTT. The workshops are designed to facilitate a dialogue between users of the research and potential collaborators (universities, funding agencies and societal actors). This initiative reflects the current global service science discourse based on a renewal of service management through service‐dominant logic and network thinking.

Although the need for co‐creation across disciplines and together with the customer has often been stated in service research, methods enabling such a way of acting have rarely been tested and achieved. This method worked as a concrete way for managing future‐oriented networking across organizational borders as a basis for continuous learning and innovation.

The new approach to service science and the methods used in the VTT network are applicable in research practice.

The development process presented in this paper is an embryo for a new kind of research culture that fosters learning in networks as well as the shared and transparent planning of project proposals.

By creating the service science and business network and a process of learning by foresighting and evaluating our ideas on a concrete case are applied. This is believed to be the first time that methods of foresight and organizational learning have been combined. Furthermore, the process builds a research strategy both from below and above and together with customers and other collaborators thus establishing a network of co‐creation.