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1 – 10 of over 282000Zoltán Pápai, Péter Nagy and Aliz McLean
This study aims to estimate the quality-adjusted changes in residential mobile consumer prices by controlling for the changes in the relevant service characteristics and quality…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to estimate the quality-adjusted changes in residential mobile consumer prices by controlling for the changes in the relevant service characteristics and quality, in a case study on Hungary between 2015 and 2021; compare the results with changes measured by the traditionally calculated official telecommunications price index of the Statistical Office; and discuss separating the hedonic price changes from the effect of a specific government intervention that occurred in Hungary, namely, the significant reduction in the value added tax rate (VAT) levied on internet services.
Design/methodology/approach
Since the price of commercial mobile offers does not directly reflect the continuous improvements in service characteristics and functionalities over time, the price changes need to be adjusted for changes in quality. The authors use hedonic regression analysis to address this issue.
Findings
The results show significant hedonic price changes over the observed seven-year period of over 30%, which turns out to be primarily driven by the significant developments in the comprising service characteristics and not the VAT policy change.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the literature on hedonic price analyses on complex telecommunications service plans and enhances this methodology by using weights and analysing the content-related features of the mobile packages.
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Margaret Glogowska, Melissa Stepney, Stephen Rocks and Mina Fazel
As part of an evaluation of the nationally mandated Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) “transformation” in one foundation NHS trust, the authors explored the…
Abstract
Purpose
As part of an evaluation of the nationally mandated Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) “transformation” in one foundation NHS trust, the authors explored the experiences of mental health staff involved in the transformation.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a qualitative methodology and followed an ethnographic approach. This included observation of mental health staff involved in the transformation and informal interviews (80 h). The authors also undertook semi-structured interviews with key staff members (n = 16). Data were analysed thematically.
Findings
The findings fall into three thematic areas around the transformation, namely (1) rationale; (2) implementation; and (3) maintenance. Staff members were supportive of the rationale for the changes, but implementation was affected by perceived poor communication, resulting in experiences of unpreparedness and de-stabilisation. Staff members lacked time to set up the necessary processes, meaning that changes were not always implemented smoothly. Recruiting and retaining the right staff, a consistent challenge throughout the transformation, was crucial for maintaining the service changes.
Originality/value
There is little published on the perceptions and experiences of mental health workforces around the CAMHS transformations across the UK. This paper presents the perceptions of mental health staff, whose organisation underwent significant “transformational” change. Staff demonstrated considerable resilience in the change process, but better recognition of their needs might have improved retention and satisfaction. Time for planning and training would enable staff members to better develop the processes and resources necessary in the context of significant service change. Developing ways for services to compare changes they are implementing and sharing good practice around implementation with each other are also vital.
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Maricela Salgado, María Valeria De Castro Martínez, Esperanza Marcos Martínez, Marcos López-Sanz and María Luz Martín-Peña
The purpose of the paper is to present a service design (SD)-based methodology developed to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) undertake organisational change.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to present a service design (SD)-based methodology developed to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) undertake organisational change.
Design/methodology/approach
This research used the design science research methodology, which enabled the creation of the Service Design for Organisational Change (SD4OCh) methodology. A real case study of a small service company specialised in neuropsychological disorders was used for the definition and validation of SD4OCh.
Findings
The main outcome of this study is the SD4OCh methodology, which is based on three key stages: diagnosis (knowing where to begin by detecting the organisation's strengths and weaknesses), innovation (improving the structure/processes and designing/redesigning services by employing a customer-centric approach), and implementation (enabling the definition of the route towards organisational change). There is also a transversal evaluation stage, which quantifies the organisational changes.
Research limitations/implications
This study adds valuable knowledge to the service science research field and contributes to the awareness of the usefulness of SD theory within companies, especially those which are small and medium-sized, since those companies lack the tools and methods required to tackle organisational change, signifying that the challenges the companies confront are different to those of larger companies.
Originality/value
Although this is a SD-based research, the SD4OCh methodology was developed in order to enable companies to make holistic changes, namely, to innovate their services, structure, and processes, thus supporting and guiding organisational change.
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Benjamin Biesinger, Karsten Hadwich and Manfred Bruhn
(Digital) servitization, referring to service-driven strategies and their increasing implementation in manufacturing, is one of the most rapidly growing areas in industrial…
Abstract
Purpose
(Digital) servitization, referring to service-driven strategies and their increasing implementation in manufacturing, is one of the most rapidly growing areas in industrial service research. However, the cultural change involved in successful servitization is a phenomenon that is widely observed but poorly understood. This research aims to clarify the processes of social construction as manufacturers change their organizational culture to transform into industrial service providers.
Design/methodology/approach
This research takes a systematic approach to integrate disparate literature on servitization into a cohesive framework for cultural change, which is purposefully augmented by rationale culled from organizational learning and sensemaking literature.
Findings
The organizational learning framework for cultural change in servitization introduces a dynamic perspective on servitizing organizations by explaining social processes between organizational and member-level cultural properties. It identifies three major cultural orientations toward service, digital and learning that govern successful servitization.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the servitization literature by presenting a new approach to reframe and explore cultural change processes across multiple levels, thus providing a concrete starting point for further research in this area.
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Isabel Alexandra Brandenberger, Mervi Anneli Hasu and Monika Nerland
This paper aims to generate a better understanding of how challenges and opportunities for sustainable change during digitalization relate to the organizing work of change agents…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to generate a better understanding of how challenges and opportunities for sustainable change during digitalization relate to the organizing work of change agents mandated to facilitate technology adoption from within local work organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the work of welfare technology coordinators, health-care professionals who are mandated to facilitate the use of technologies in home-based services in a Norwegian city. Data comprise ethnographic observations of meetings and work practices, interviews and documents collected over one year. A practice-based approach was applied to analyze how the welfare technology coordinators go about integrating technologies with the work practices, and the forms of negotiations this work implies in their work community.
Findings
The analysis identified four sets of practices in the coordinators’ work: exploring and integrating new technologies into work practices, legitimizing aims and values, formalizing routines and responsibilities and critically considering existing and envisioned service practices. Through these practices, emerging problems and disconnections in the service organization were attended to in a continuous manner.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature by examining the work of internal change agents mandated to facilitate multiple and simultaneous technology adoption and demonstrates the importance of recognizing the continuous efforts and negotiations of these agents as significant to sustainable organizing.
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Bo Edvardsson, Pennie Frow, Elina Jaakkola, Timothy Lee Keiningham, Kaisa Koskela-Huotari, Cristina Mele and Alastair Tombs
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service innovation by developing a conceptual framework that illuminates the key elements and trends in context…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service innovation by developing a conceptual framework that illuminates the key elements and trends in context change.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts a service ecosystem lens for understanding how elements and trends in context foster service innovation. A conceptual framework identifying the role of context change in fostering service innovation is developed and justified through illustrations across industry settings of health, retailing, banking and education.
Findings
Context change is conceptualized by three trends – speed, granularity and liquification – that provide an analytical foundation for understanding how changes in the elements of context – space, resources and institutional arrangements – can foster service innovation. The analysis indicates emerging patterns across industries that allow exploring scenarios, grounded in emerging trends and developments in service innovation toward 2050.
Practical implications
Managers are offered a framework to guide service innovation and help them prepare for the future. The paper also suggests areas for further research.
Originality/value
The paper contributes with a new conceptualization of context change to identify and explain service innovation opportunities. Managers are offered a framework to guide service innovation and help them prepare for 2050. The paper also suggests areas for further service innovation research, zooming in on contextual changes to prepare for 2050.
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Arto Juhani Wallin and Lars Fuglsang
Although the digital era has given rise to major transformations in many industries, health care has been remarkably resistant to radical innovations coming outside the field. The…
Abstract
Purpose
Although the digital era has given rise to major transformations in many industries, health care has been remarkably resistant to radical innovations coming outside the field. The purpose of this paper is to explore and explain how new ventures aim to break institutional arrangements (i.e. regulations, normative rules, and cultural-cognitive beliefs) protecting the field by introducing digitally enabled service innovations into health care markets.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is qualitative and interpretative in nature and utilizes case study as a research strategy. The paper is based on data that were collected through narrative interviews and document analysis from seven new ventures participating in a start-up accelerator program.
Findings
Results indicate that service innovations that require a change in the institutional structures of the health care system are enacted through three highly iterative key processes: institutional sensemaking that creates an understanding of prevailing institutional arrangements and that constructs meaning for institutional change efforts, theorization of change through linguistic device, and modifications of institutions by building legitimacy and mobilizing external constituencies.
Practical implications
The findings provide practical insights into how new ventures struggle, navigate, and negotiate on specific alternatives related to institutional change while pursuing the introduction of innovations to market.
Originality/value
This research extends the institutional perspective on service innovation by zooming into micro-level processes of institutional change driven by new ventures. The study develops the theory of institutional entrepreneurship by highlighting cognitive processes of change, and suggests incorporating “institutional thinking” more tightly into the study and management of service innovation.
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Per Andersson and Bengt G. Mölleryd
A longitudinal case study of the diffusion and change of mobile telephony in Sweden highlights the effects on service distribution against the background of rapid technological…
Abstract
A longitudinal case study of the diffusion and change of mobile telephony in Sweden highlights the effects on service distribution against the background of rapid technological development and deregulations in the telecommunications industry. The descriptive and explorative study advances a contextual‐historical and interorganizational network perspective on service channel change and retail evolution. Explores the service distribution consequences of the emerging, increased technological integration within telecommunications, between fixed and mobile telephony, and between telecommunications and information and computer technology. Argues that these technological changes and the move towards convergence of telecommunications and information technology functions are connected to important structural changes in the distribution channels for these services. Builds on a case study of the Swedish distribution network for mobile telephony and identifies a number of significant structural channel changes. Discusses the distribution network consequences of technological convergence, in terms of new emerging patterns of channel relations and in terms of new roles and role sets. Elaborates on some general business implications of the convergence of former independent telephone, cable and information technology services.
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Alex Lord, Anna Tickle and Anna Buckell
This study aims to understand how staff in homelessness services conceptualise readiness for change in the individuals they support and how this informs their decision-making in…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to understand how staff in homelessness services conceptualise readiness for change in the individuals they support and how this informs their decision-making in practice.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative design was used. Ten staff members participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were examined through inductive–deductive thematic analysis, using a social constructivist epistemological lens.
Findings
Five main themes were constructed: “multiple complex needs mean multiple complex changes”, “talk versus behaviour”, “change is not a linear trajectory”, “the role of consistent boundaried relationships” and “change is not solely within the individual’s control”.
Practical implications
This research challenges existing notions of “readiness for change” as located within individuals and a prerequisite for using support from services. It has implications for staff and services, particularly those which are time-limited and address only single problems; service users may not be ready for some changes, but it should not be assumed they are not ready for change in other areas of their life. The offer of supportive relationships may precede and contribute to readiness for positive changes. Support should be offered based not only an individual’s intra-psychic readiness for change but also how the system might actively work to promote hope that change can be achieved and maintained.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore staff members’ conceptualisations of readiness to change in relation to individuals with multiple complex needs and how this might influence practice.
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