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The purpose of this paper is to examine the future prospects of innovative services linked to sustainable energy systems.

Service perspective is examined in the context of socio-technical transition and linked to the bottom-up and top-down social processes that foster sustainability. The foresight method applied is trend analysis.

Two groups of trends were identified: the trends driven by technological development and the trends focussing on societal, managerial and consumer issues. The former consists of renewable energy sources, hybrid solutions, smart grids and smart energy markets. The latter involves distributed energy production, demand response, optimisation of sustainability and the role of energy as an opportunity and as service. The study reveals that energy is increasingly understood as a comprehensive and tailor-made service solution for communities and individual households. Consumers will enter the energy market as active participants; it raises the need for many types of services.

Deepening of understanding is required in several topics of this study, and more formal methods of foresight are needed to test the generalisability of its qualitative results.

More effective policy measures are needed for fostering new services and social and system innovations in the area of sustainable energy. Innovation management practices should be developed in these areas.

The paper aims to narrow the research gap linked to foresight in services by examining services in the area of sustainable energy systems – one of the “grand challenges” today.

The purpose of this study is to examine the challenge of cultural differences in servitizing manufacturing. The focus is on services that the representatives of small, developed and open economies (exemplified by Nordic countries) provide in a large, developing and centralized economy (exemplified by China). Along with internationalization, cultural differences in business practices have become a topical issue. They may be particularly challenging when the business area is new and the cultures of business parties include opposing characteristics.

A multiple case study approach is applied, including five case companies from Finland and Sweden. They are all manufacturing companies in metals and mechanical engineering industries, offering product services, process optimization and consultancy services. Empirical data have been collected from both Nordic service providers and their customers in China.

The data reveal that services including tangible elements (e.g. spare parts) are successful in China. However, there is also a growing demand for total solutions. Customers’ buying behavior is not only influenced by the Chinese business culture, e.g. “guanxi”, but it also varies according to the ownership of companies (state-owned, private, foreign) and to the geography. A prerequisite for success is a shared understanding of central business concepts – in this case, the interpretations of “tangibility” and “added-value” turned out to be particularly important.

This study indicates that generalizations based on the experience of developed countries may be misleading in developing countries, as they may “jump over” some steps on their way toward advanced services. In China, services as offerings are newcomers, but service culture in a “tacit” form is embedded due to the Confucian influence. The recent view of service-dominant logic that highlights the mutual benefit as the core of service business may actually be quite near to the original Chinese thinking.

The paper seeks to introduce the concept of knowledge‐intensive business services (KIBS) in the context of regional networks and to analyze the roles of KIBS in regional development, especially from the viewpoint of regional intellectual capital.

Regional networks are presented as the networks of production, development and innovation in the region. Drawing from recent literature, the roles of KIBS in regional networks are discussed.

It is argued that networks for production emphasize explicit knowledge, networks for development emphasize tacit knowledge, and networks for innovation emphasize emergent, potential knowledge. It is further stated that KIBS provide the timely information needed in production networks, transfer best practices that support learning in development networks, and function as sources of innovation and facilitators of innovation processes in innovation networks.

The paper provides an approach to reduce the complexity of regional networks into a more manageable level, and highlights the importance of knowledge‐intensive business services in regions.

The approach used in this paper addresses the following gaps in existing research: it argues that KIBS are important actors in the regional IC development, highlights that the roles of KIBS are different in production, development and innovation activities, and argues that a successful region needs all of these activities.

In this paper the authors aim to introduce the perspective of shared meanings as a prerequisite for the formation of market‐focused strategic flexibility.

The authors apply the ideas of co‐creation of meaning, which derive from research into the narrative process of strategy and the practice turn of strategy. The authors' view is illustrated with a case example from a Finnish property rental company. Using action research methodology, data were collected through interviews and workshops from the company, from its clients and from its subcontractors.

The case presented here shows that the lack of common understanding may lead to poor service quality even though the provider aims at meeting clients' needs. On the other hand, the results confirm that developing a shared understanding is possible in business practice. A common lexicon and the conscious use of human narrative capability facilitate the achievement of this goal.

Since the empirical results are based on one case, the possibility for generalisations is limited. However, the study highlights important aspects of strategic flexibility that are worthy of further research.

The study shows that flexible market orientation needs shared meanings between all the relevant actors in a service chain. The study also suggests some ideas on how the co‐creation of meaning can be promoted in practice.

Linking the perspectives of co‐creation of meaning and market‐focused strategic flexibility is a new approach. The paper illustrates these topics in a subcontracting chain, whereas earlier studies have usually focused on companies.

The research fields of service innovation and social innovation have, until now, been largely disconnected. At the most basic level, a great many social innovations are services, often public sector services with social entrepreneurs organizing and delivering service innovations. As well as this overlap in the focus of research, scholars in both research fields address socio-economic concerns using multidisciplinary perspectives. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework that can bridge the two research fields.

Inter-linkages between service and social innovation are shown by identifying research areas in which both find a joint heuristic field. This approach has been illustrated in a set of case studies in the health sector in Europe.

The bridge between social innovation and service innovation research can be built when social innovation is examined through a multi-agent framework. The authors focus on social innovations where the co-creation of novel services is guided by the prominent position taken by citizens, social entrepreneurs or third sector organizations (NGOs or charities) in the innovation process. Of particular interest are the ways in which the interests of individual users and citizens are “represented” by third sector organizations.

The case study of the Austrian nationwide public access defibrillation programme provides an exemplar of the process of co-creation by which this social innovation was developed, implemented and sustained. Here the Austrian Red Cross acted on behalf of citizens, organizing an innovation network capable of creating both the demand and the supply side of a sustainable market for the production and safe application of portable automated external defibrillators (AEDs) in Austria. This process involved, first, raising public awareness of the need for portable defibrillators and acting as a user representative when inducing changes in the design of portable AEDs. Later, there was the institutionalization of AED training in every first aid training in Austria, work with local manufacturers to produce this device, and with large user organizations to install AEDs on their premises.

The paper develops multi-agent model of innovation that enables one to synthesize key concepts in social and service innovation literatures and, thereby, examine the dynamics of invention and diffusion of social innovations.

The aim of this paper is to analyze conceptual specificities and practical applications of Chinese eco-cities. The eco-cities, promoted by the government, reflect the combined pressure of urbanization and environmental protection in China.

In addition to literature and documentary material, the study is based on the experience of a Western architectural company which has participated in eco-city projects in China. This experience has been mapped via interviews in the company and among its partners and governmental stakeholders.

This study examines in detail the contents and practical applications of the Chinese eco-city concept. It illustrates and categorizes eco-city projects and analyzes the specificities of the urbanization in China as a driver for the development of eco-cities. Similarities and differences with the corresponding concepts, like smart cities, are discussed.

The eco-city concept is an important expression of sustainability concerns in China. New insights about its practical applications help to understand the specificities of environmental issues in developing economies, and comparison with the corresponding Western discussions helps to foster international collaboration in the sustainability context.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the articles presented in the Special Issue on the topic of “Marketing and flexibility”, and to discuss key issues associated with major debates relating to flexibility in order to position the articles within a wider context and highlight some key issues for further research.

Themes in prior research relating to “Marketing and flexibility” are documented and the growth of research interest into strategic flexibility is tabulated. The contributions of each article are briefly discussed.

There has been a steady growth of research interest into flexibility. To provide an example of this growth, the increase in the number of articles published on the topic of strategic flexibility in scholarly journals is highlighted over a 20‐year period. Key issues in prior research such as alternative definitions and the different postulated relationships between market orientation and strategic flexibility are revealed, as are issues for future research.

Key issues relating to research into flexibility for marketing scholars are revealed.

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 study is to develop a service logic oriented framework for business model development. “Service logic” covers the basic principles of the three contemporary customer value focused business logics: service-dominant logic, service logic and customer-dominant logic.

This study is based on an empirical qualitative research and deployed the focus group method. The data are generated in a series of interactive co-creative focus group workshops involving both practitioners and academics.

As the outcome, a new tool was developed, called Service Logic Business Model Canvas. The new canvas is a modified version of the original Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010).

This study adopts service logic in business model thinking and increases knowledge on how to keep the customer needs in the centre of business model development.

The developed canvas makes the theory of service-dominant logic tangible and easily applicable in practice. It enables service innovation truly based on customer value by ensuring that the customer is in the centre of all the elements of a business model. It can function both as a rapid prototype of a new business model and as a communication tool that quickly illustrates the company’s current business model. It can also help in creating a customer-centred business culture. It is designed to be applied to each customer profile separately, thus enabling a deeper understanding of the customer logic of each relevant profile.

Earlier business model frameworks tend to be provider-centric and goods-dominant, and require further development and adaptation to service logic. This study adopts service logic in business model thinking. It embeds the true and deep customer understanding and customer value in each element of the business model, and contributes to both business model and service-dominant logic literature.