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The purpose of this study is to provide insights into the success factors of new-to-the-firm health services.

The study was based on the case study methodology with three leading health organizations.

The study’s findings indicate that the success factors of new health services are largely in line with the literature on new service development. Our study also revealed the significance of two factors that have not been identified by previous studies, namely, branding and doctors’ participation in the new service development process.

Introducing a successful new health service into the market seems to require an emphasis on a variety of factors related to the company’s internal and external environment, while two important characteristics are the role of branding and doctors. Despite its acceptance as a scientific method, the case study approach that was selected limits the ability to generalize the results to the broader health industry.

The current study represents one of the first attempts to examine the above topic in a health-related service context.

The purpose of this research is to answer the question: how can a new service development (NSD) program in the financial services industry be managed? More specifically, this research has two objectives: to explore the stages in the NSD process; and to explore how customer input may be obtained in the various stages of the development process. After a review of the new product development literature, the case study methodology involving in‐depth interviews with managers and their customers is described. Analysis of the data showed that there were ten stages in the NSD process, and whether those stages were managed linearly or sequentially was a function of the size of the firm. In addition, how NSD managers obtained customer input in each stage, was uncovered. Implications for NSD managers include which stages to concentrate on, and how to capture customer input.

The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of how individually designed services are actually developed in small companies.

This study focuses on a small number of enterprises over a relatively long period. The study has been using a qualitative method based on repeated interviews.

The findings in this study show that there is no such thing as formal and/or structured development processes within the companies that were studied. The development process is more focused on how to, in an informal way, get hold of knowledge and other resources that are needed in order to create the new service. The development process can therefore be described as an intellectual and interactive process that involves cooperation within and between a changing set of actors and intervening parties, who all strive to create the knowledge that is needed in order to form new service offerings.

The main contribution of this study is to bring new perspectives into the service development area, and thereby highlight other aspects that the traditional service development literature has been focusing on, i.e. intra-organisation service development.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the link between customer information sharing and new service development.

Through a survey of tourism firms, 295 questionnaires were collected in three large tourism locations in Tanzania. Thereafter, the hypotheses were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM) after undertaking both factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

Results indicate that there is a positive association/link between customer information sharing and new service development. The link here expresses the association that exists as customers share information and the extent of use of this information for the firm benefit in facilitating new service development. Specifically, customers post service information and customer interaction behaviors positively support new service development; however, customers’ pre-service information revealed no link.

These results offer practical evidence that post service information and interaction behaviors form the groundwork for development of new services in service-related organizations.

These results evidence that customer post service information and customer interaction behaviors form the groundwork for development new services in tourism. Hence, the study strengthens the value co-creation and innovation views in the service arena by extending knowledge in the use of both the service and the customer environment for service improvement.

This special “Anbar Abstracts” issue of the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing is split into seven sections covering abstracts under the following headings: Marketing strategy; Customer service; Sales management; Promotion; Product management; Marketing research/customer behavior; Sundry.

The purpose of this research is to provide an empirical examination of the role of the salesperson in the new product/service development process.

A survey was mailed to 2,650 sales managers representing US firms across the nation, and the resulting sample size consisted of 246 respondents with a response rate of 9.3 percent. The survey sample included firms with a business‐to‐business emphasis, and those with a minimum of 50 employees.

The majority of the respondents reported that salespeople are indirectly or directly involved in the new product/service development process. In spite of this contribution, many firms do not directly reward salespeople for their involvement. Offering appropriate incentives could greatly increase their efforts to collect information for new product/service idea generation.

Suggested future research includes the perspectives of salespeople, new product development directors, etc. In addition, the study was strictly domestic and could benefit from an international focus, as well as a comparison of products versus services sectors.

The findings from this study can be used by managers as a benchmark for assessing sales force participation in the new product/service development, and to identify ways to encourage increased participation by the sales force with incentives.

Little formalized research has been conducted on the specific role that salespeople play in the new product/service development process. The findings from this study may provide strategic guidance to organizations with respect to the role of salespeople in the critical new product/service development process.

The aim of this study is to examine the relationships among hotel employees’ creative self-efficacy, co-creation and new service development moderated by collective efficacy in the context of social exchange theory (SET).

Data were collected by using questionnaire from the frontline employees working in hotels in Pakistan. A total of 220 employees participated in the survey. Structural equation modeling has been used.

Results show that employees’ creative self-efficacy enhances co-creation and helps in new services development. Moreover, collective efficacy moderates the relationship between individual employees’ creative self-efficacy and co-creation.

Hotel managers should focus on building employees' self-efficacy beliefs to enhance their motivation and performance in new service development. Moreover, they should establish platforms for co-creation with customers, involving them in idea generation, feedback and testing, to ensure new services meet customer needs and increase their adoption.

Earlier literature has examined the co-creation and new service development from various perspectives, largely ignoring the social exchange theory. This is the pioneering study that examines these relationships through the lens of social exchange theory. Moreover, most of the literature has analyzed the co-creation separately, i.e. either employees’ co-creation or customers’ co-creation. To understand the phenomenon of co-creation in depth it is believed that co-creation should be analyzed from both these aspects. Therefore, this study examined this phenomenon by including employees’ as well as customers’ co-creation for better understanding. Moreover, the group influence is examined in explaining the new service development through collective efficacy. Therefore, this study is unique in explaining the co-creation and new service development from various angles.

What factors lead to success in the development of new businesses services? By synthesising the literature on new goods development and services marketing, the results of a major empirical investigation of new service development in the business‐to‐business services sector are reported. A set of factors that describe new service projects is identified and which factors are responsible for accomplishing different forms of success are shown. Further, the findings speak to managers about how the features that distinguish services from physical goods impact on the successful development of new services. Developing new services that provide clients improved functional and experiential quality, that are innovative and truly superior to competitive offerings, and that benefit from a proficient new service development process, as well as from the unique strengths of the firm are key requirements for creating and marketing winning new services.

This article reports on the results of a research project into the development activities undertaken during the launch of 132 new financial services in Greece. According to the results, business analysis and marketing strategy formation as well as launch are the stages of the new service development process which influence the success of a new service irrespective, for the most part, of the degree of innovativeness that characterizes it. The significance of the other three stages of the development process varies depending the degree of innovativeness that characterizes the new service and the type of objective (financial or not) that management considers in order to evaluate its actual performance.