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1 – 10 of over 65000Mingjun Yang, Tuan Trong Luu and David Qian
Service innovation benefits hospitality organizations’ service quality and competitive advantages. However, how and when team culture amplifies team service innovation is still…
Abstract
Purpose
Service innovation benefits hospitality organizations’ service quality and competitive advantages. However, how and when team culture amplifies team service innovation is still not fully comprehended. Thus, this study aims to reveal the mediation and moderation mechanisms behind the team-level culture and service innovation nexus.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods to validate the research model. The authors collected data from leaders and their members working in the hospitality sector in China.
Findings
The results demonstrated the positive nexus of developmental culture and team service innovation. This nexus was sequentially mediated by aggregated creative role identity and aggregated creative self-efficacy and was also strengthened by task interdependence.
Practical implications
The results indicated that hospitality practitioners should consistently instill the values of developmental culture into their members to trigger their teams’ service innovative endeavors. They should also design more tasks requiring intensive teamwork and encourage members to complete these tasks collaboratively.
Originality/value
This study advances the understanding of the direct, mediating and moderating effects behind team service innovation.
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Rod Gapp and Ron Fisher
The paper seeks to demonstrate an intrapreneur‐led three‐phase model of innovation based on understanding the relationships between service delivery and product development…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper seeks to demonstrate an intrapreneur‐led three‐phase model of innovation based on understanding the relationships between service delivery and product development thought, and the application of intrapreneurial‐focused teams in the healthcare and manufacturing industries.
Design/methodology/approach
The research proposes a model that starts with effective teambuilding within an intrapreneurial context, then encompasses the relationship between service and product as a platform for the development of more effective innovation. A two‐part qualitative case study provides insight and understanding of the model's application within both service and manufacturing environments.
Findings
Investigating service delivery shortfalls with effectively developed intrapreneurial teams leads to new and/or improved services. New service developments in turn lead to the development of new products. An action research model based on Deming's PDSA (plan, do, study, act) cycle determines the point of departure for each stage of innovation. The PDSA cycle provides a method for combining innovation, knowledge development and management.
Practical implications
Current approaches focus on the characteristics of intrapreneurs rather than on the linked activities that lead to successful product/service innovation. Important issues such as how teams progress through the stages of service and product development are not usually considered. As a consequence, there is little in the extant literature to guide prospective intrapreneurs or organisations.
Originality/value
Little research has been conducted into how intrapreneurship occurs in organisations. This paper provides insight into how intrapreneurship functions through new service and new product innovations in both the service and manufacturing sectors.
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Jakob Trischler, Simon J. Pervan and Donald Robert Scott
Many firms use customer co-creation practices with the aim of benefiting from their customers’ knowledge, skills and resources. This paper aims to explore co-creation processes…
Abstract
Purpose
Many firms use customer co-creation practices with the aim of benefiting from their customers’ knowledge, skills and resources. This paper aims to explore co-creation processes which involve users with different background characteristics and motivational drivers.
Design/methodology/approach
The study builds on an analysis of data from six teams in which users collaborated with in-house professionals for the development of new service concepts. Observations and open-ended questionnaires provided insights into the teams’ development processes. Independent experts rated the generated concepts. The data were analysed using cross-comparison matrices.
Findings
The findings suggest that the co-creation process and outcomes can be influenced by numerous intra-team factors, including relationship and task conflicts, participation style, team bonding, team identity and cohesiveness and intra-team collaboration. Their occurrence and influence seem to be linked with a specific team composition. A conceptual co-creation process model and six propositions are used to describe the complex relationships between team composition, intra-team factors and key innovation outcomes.
Research limitations/implications
Research that investigates user involvement in teams needs to consider the complexity of intra-team factors affecting the development process and outcomes. The findings are limited to a specific setting, design task and user sample. Future research should replicate this study in different sectors.
Practical implications
Key to customer co-creation is the systematic recruitment of users based on their background characteristics and motivational drivers. For instance, the involvement of users with very specific innovation-related benefit expectations can cause conflict, leading to narrowly focused outcomes. This, however, can be mitigated by the form of facilitation and roles adopted by in-house professionals. Understanding intra-team dynamics can allow the firm to assemble and facilitate customer co-creation so that generated outcomes can align with set innovation targets.
Originality/value
This paper provides original insights into the “black box” of the customer co-creation process and the complex relationship between team composition, intra-team factors and key innovation outcomes.
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Vera Blazevic, Annouk Lievens and Evelien Klein
Mobile service innovations are crucial for the long‐term success of companies operating in turbulent and uncertain environments. These innovations need to be introduced at a rapid…
Abstract
Mobile service innovations are crucial for the long‐term success of companies operating in turbulent and uncertain environments. These innovations need to be introduced at a rapid pace while at the same time companies have to absorb market information during the new mobile service development. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to construct a conceptual framework on the critical antecedents of project learning and time‐to‐market during new mobile service development. An extensive case study research involving four innovation projects was performed in a leading Dutch telecommunications company. With respect to project learning, our research findings indicate the crucial influence of a flexible decision architecture, project team memory, a high information awareness and a good fit between information requirements and capabilities. Both innovative and coordinative communication are required throughout the service innovation process. With regard to time‐to‐market, our research results point to the essential impact of project complexity, top management support, information power of suppliers and technological synergy. Finally, a medium level of project learning is the ideal condition for a fast time‐to‐market during mobile service innovation.
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Elena Pellizzoni, Daniel Trabucchi, Federico Frattini, Tommaso Buganza and Anthony Di Benedetto
This study aims to shed lights on the dynamics of involving and sharing knowledge with stakeholders in the process of new service development (NSD) over time.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to shed lights on the dynamics of involving and sharing knowledge with stakeholders in the process of new service development (NSD) over time.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a paradigmatic case focused on the development of the digital MBA program by the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano. Primary and secondary data have been largely collected and analyzed, involving multiple stakeholders of the development process.
Findings
This study describes how several stakeholders have been involved during the phase of the NSD process, showing two variables that ruled their involvement: the level of control exerted by the School on the stakeholders and the level of flexibility of the stakeholders.
Research limitations/implications
This research offers insights to the understanding of the dynamics of involving and sharing knowledge with multiple-stakeholders in NSD. From a theoretical perspective, it contributes to stakeholder theory linking it with the service management literature, highlighting the role of cyclical fluctuations in the involvement activities.
Practical implications
This research offers insights to managers dealing with the development of new services, offering them a novel view on how various stakeholders may be involved over time, in different moment and in different ways, to properly enhance the development process thanks to their knowledge sharing.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the service management literature emphasizing the role of multiple stakeholders while providing insights and suggestions to manage the complex relationships created by their involvement and their knowledge.
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Jakob Trischler, Per Kristensson and Don Scott
The purpose of this paper is to explore the conditions under which a co-design team comprised of in-house professionals and leading-edge service users can generate innovative…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the conditions under which a co-design team comprised of in-house professionals and leading-edge service users can generate innovative service design concepts.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation used a field-experimental design to conduct two studies. Observations and open-ended questionnaires were used to examine cross-comparison matrices with experts rating the generated outcomes and t-tests being used to compare the outcome ratings between teams of different compositions.
Findings
The outcomes produced by a co-design team seem to be linked to the team diversity – process facilitation relationship. Bringing a variety of knowledge and skills into the team can lead to original outcomes, while a high disparity between members’ backgrounds can require extensive efforts to facilitate a collaborative process. Separation between users’ objectives can result in a user-driven process and outcomes that are too specific for the broader marketplace. Co-design teams that characterize minimum separation, maximum variety, and moderate disparity are likely to produce the most promising results.
Research limitations/implications
The research was restricted to a narrowly defined study setting and samples. Future research should replicate the current study in other service contexts using different team compositions.
Practical implications
Co-design requires the careful selection of users based on their background and motivations, as well as the facilitation of a process that enables the team to collaboratively transform relevant knowledge into innovative outcomes.
Originality/value
The research contributes to a better understanding of the team composition – process facilitation relationship affecting innovation outcomes. Doing so provides a more fine-grained picture of the co-design team composition and the facilitation requirements for service design.
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Annouk Lievens, Rudy K. Moenaert and Rosette S Jegers
Reports the findings of an exploratory case study research on the contribution of internal and external communication to the commercial success of financial service innovations…
Abstract
Reports the findings of an exploratory case study research on the contribution of internal and external communication to the commercial success of financial service innovations. An extensive case study research involving four innovation projects was conducted within a leading Belgian bank. The desk research and the 32 in‐depth interviews with senior managers and project leaders served as a platform for theory development. A propositional framework was developed that offers a contingency perspective regarding the role of communication during the different stages of the service innovation process. While many of the existing studies in the field have exclusively focused on external communication, the effectiveness of internal communication is a critical success factor. Furthermore, path dependency effects were created in the project life‐cycle of the financial service innovation projects. Finally, the findings suggest that the effectiveness of internal and external communication depends on the level of intangibility, heterogeneity, simultaneity and perishability of the new service offering.
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Victoria Helen Batt-Rawden, Gudbrand Lien and Terje Slåtten
The aim of this paper is to develop the concept of team learning capability in professional service firms. Thereafter, to examine the effect of team learning capability on…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to develop the concept of team learning capability in professional service firms. Thereafter, to examine the effect of team learning capability on innovation ambidexterity. The aspects of exploitive and explorative knowledge creation in teams and its impact on incremental and radical service innovation are in focus.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modelling was applied to establish reliability and validity and measure the size of relationships. Evidence is drawn upon an empirical sample of 210 consultants in the professional service industry.
Findings
The findings support the concept of team learning capability and reveal that team learning capability consists of relationship learning in teams, trusting team climate and employee commitment. The results indicate a strong positive relationship between team learning capability and innovation ambidexterity in professional service firms.
Originality/value
This study is the first to offer an empirical-based and contextualized framework for team learning capabilities and a valid measure.
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Heiko Gebauer, Regine Krempl, Elgar Fleisch and Thomas Friedli
This paper aims to answer the following two research questions: “What antecedents are required for the innovation of product‐related services?” and “How do the antecedents differ…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to answer the following two research questions: “What antecedents are required for the innovation of product‐related services?” and “How do the antecedents differ for product‐related services developed during the product development process or during the product usage?”
Design/methodology/approach
A multi‐case research design was employed.
Findings
Involvement of frontline employees, information sharing, multifunctional teams, funnel tools, information technology, internal organization, and training and education have a similar impact on the success of integrated and separated service innovations. Presence of service champion, autonomy of employees, market testing, and market research have a positive effect on separated, but a negative impact on integrated service innovations. The strategic focus, external contacts, availability of resources, and management support are positively associated with both innovation types, but their importance is essentially higher for separated than for integrated product‐related service innovations.
Research limitations/implications
The external validity (generalizability) of the antecedents could not be assessed accurately.
Practical implications
The explanation of antecedents forms a model that can guide managers who wish to develop product‐related services successfully.
Originality/value
The findings imply that managers contemplating a product‐related service innovation project have to consider the innovation type (integrated or separated) and reframe the antecedents accordingly.
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Giuliano Magno de Oliveira Condé and Maria de Fátima Bruno-Faria
This study aims to explore the configuration of a public university service innovation: the phenotypic evaluation of self-declared black and brown applicants for access to college…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the configuration of a public university service innovation: the phenotypic evaluation of self-declared black and brown applicants for access to college undergraduate courses through racial quota in a Brazilian federal higher education institution (HEI).
Design/methodology/approach
By using qualitative methods and collecting data through semistructured interviews, this case study raises new explanatory aspects about service innovation in a noncommercial context.
Findings
Diversity in team composition and users’ sense of belonging emerged as unprecedented aspects of service innovation. The present study also coined another concept not verified in the literature: service cross-coproduction.
Research limitations/implications
Regarding the limitations of the study, the technological dimension, despite having been shown to underlie the political–administrative process of innovations in services, given its importance reinforced by the literature and the current temporal context itself, did not emanate from the data collected. In addition, the fact that the service innovation investigated has occurred recently prevented longitudinal research that could detail the effects of phenotypic evaluation on institutional performance indicators.
Practical implications
The ethical–methodological care used in the interaction and preservation of the psychological integrity of the users in the case study proved to be subject to systematization and has great potential to enhance the service experience of the users through the humanization of the service delivery process. The linkage of the user’s perception to the phenotypic diversity of people working in the new service provision highlights the importance of incorporating themes such as the diversity of teams’ composition and representative bureaucracy to the scientific production of service innovation and their role in coproduction. The findings suggest that the resource allocation supply of basic goods and services needed to provide the new service reduces the individual risk of academic community members involved with innovation. Further studies could explore this relation.
Social implications
Among the internal factors that influenced the configuration of service innovation, the idea of diversity in the team’s composition stood out. It based the phenotypic evaluation commission’s diverse constitution on gender, race, occupation and even nationality. It conferred greater legitimacy on service innovation, increasing the representation of groups that may not feel represented in public service delivery processes.
Originality/value
The results of the phenotypic evaluation case point to a new coproduction form emanating from the constitutive diversity of the phenotypic evaluation board members. This new type of coproduction is directly related to the complex, integrated and interdependent nature of the services that complement each other to enable the achievement of the objectives of a public university.
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