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This study aims to investigate the relationship between strategy intent (product-service innovation intention) and outcome (product-service innovation outcome), and the role that external sources of innovation play in influencing this relationship.

Using data obtained from the community innovation survey, we apply a logit regression to a sample of 1,419 Portuguese firms. By examining the moderating effect of open innovation breadth, we assess how the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome is contingent upon the involvement of external stakeholders.

Our findings reveal that the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome is contingent upon the moderating effect of open innovation breadth. Our analysis suggests that the negative influence of different sources of innovation can be addressed by adopting a paradox lens.

This research provides valuable insights for managers. By simultaneously pursuing a differentiation strategy and engaging in collaboration with external sources, firms may compromise their ability to effectively differentiate their offer. Managers should consider the potential tensions arising from internal and external stakeholder relationships to optimize their innovation strategies.

This study contributes to the existing literature by shedding light on the role of external innovation sources in influencing the relationship between differentiation intent and outcome and the importance that information systems may have in this relationship. By exploring the moderating effect of open innovation breadth, we provide a nuanced understanding of how firms can navigate organizational tensions and leverage innovation for competitive advantage.

Absorptive capacity, technological collaboration and servitization are analyzed to establish ways to overcome the balance between products and services in manufacturing companies. A fresh perspective is introduced by presenting a framework for innovation strategy, moving beyond product-based R&D.

The hypotheses are tested using data on Spanish firms in the high-tech chemical and pharmaceutical industries through ordinary least squares regression analysis. The sample consists of 112 manufacturing firms included in the Spanish Survey of Business Strategies.

The results show that absorptive capacity facilitates servitization and that technological collaboration moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and servitization. The synergies between absorptive capacity and technological collaboration for servitization are recognized from the perspective of open innovation as a way of resolving the trade-off between products and services.

Future research should introduce more sources of collaboration by broadening the value chain perspective. Other approaches to innovation may also be considered, including relationships to process innovation.

The results can provide meaningful guidance for companies to determine the key opportunities of servitization driven by absorptive capacity, and the best ways to leverage open innovation and collaboration strategies to exploit such approaches.

This research enriches theories on servitization, open innovation and innovative behavior. Open innovation strategy should be linked to greater servitization activity and should support an open service strategy. This approach is crucial for building innovation capabilities through technological collaboration.

Technology-enabled business-to-business (B2B) services contribute the largest share to GDP growth and are fundamental for an economy’s value creation. This article aims to identify key service- and digital technology-driven B2B innovation modes and proposes a research agenda for further exploration.

This conceptual paper adopts a techno-demarcation view on service innovation, encompassing three core dimensions: service offering (the service product, or the “what”), service process (the “how”) and service ecosystem (the “who/for whom”). It delineates the implications of three digital technologies – the internet-of-things (IoT), intelligent automation (IA) and digital platforms – for service innovation across these core dimensions in B2B markets.

Digital technology has immense potential ramifications for value creation by reshaping all three core dimensions of service innovation. Specifically, IoT can transform physical resources into reconfigurable service products, IA can augment and automate a rapidly expanding array of service processes, while digital platforms provide the technical and organizational infrastructure for the integration of resources and stakeholders within service ecosystems.

This study suggests an agenda with six themes for further research, each linked to one or more of the three service innovation dimensions. They are (1) new recurring revenue models, (2) service innovation in the metaverse, (3) scaling up service innovations, (4) ecosystem innovations, (5) power dependency and lock-in effects and (6) security and responsibility in digital domains.

This paper addresses the growing fragmentation between traditional and digital service innovation (DSI) research and offers a unifying metatheoretical framework.

Grounded in service-dominant (S-D) logic's service ecosystems perspective, this study builds on an institutional and systemic, rather than product-centric and linear, conceptualization of value creation to offer a unifying framework for (digital) service innovation that applies to both physical and digital service provisions.

This paper questions the commonly perpetuated idea that DSI fundamentally changes the nature of innovation. Instead, it highlights resource liquification—the decoupling of information from the technologies that store, transmit, or process this information—as a distinguishing characteristic of DSI. Liquification, however, does not affect the relational and institutional nature of service innovation, which is always characterized by (1) the emergence of novel outcomes, (2) distributed governance and (3) symbiotic design. Instead, liquification makes these three characteristics more salient.

In presenting a cohesive service innovation framework, this study underscores that all innovation processes are rooted in combinatorial evolution. Here, service-providing actors (re)combine technologies (or more generally, institutions) to adapt their value cocreation practices. This research demonstrates that such (re)combinations exhibit emergence, distributed governance and symbiotic design. While these characteristics may initially seem novel and unique to DSI, it reveals that their fundamental mechanisms are not limited to digital service ecosystems. They are, in fact, integral to service innovation across virtual, physical and blended contexts. The study highlights the importance of exercising caution in assuming that the emergence of novel technologies, including digital technologies, necessitates a concurrent rethinking of the fundamental processes of service innovation.

Digital service innovation (DSI) is a type of technological innovation that is recognized in practice in the innovation structure of companies. Given the breadth of digital technologies that enable digital services and the variety of these services, analysis is needed to discern the nature of these services, as well as the process that culminates in co-innovation. The literature on DSI is fragmented and spread across multiple research areas. This fragmentation impedes conceptualization of the elements that constitute DSI. This paper describes the nature of DSI through the process and elements of initiation, adoption and routinization of DSI in the context of digital service platforms (DSPs).

This paper presents a single exploratory case study of a provider of a leading digital solution in customer relations. The data analysis is based on abductive reasoning.

The paper conceptualizes the nature of DSI and describes the process and elements of DSI (phases, actors, functions and interactions). It contributes to building a common language for DSI research in service management. The analysis shows that DSI in DSPs is synonymous with co-innovation. This paper offers insight into how co-innovation occurs, using hybrid agile methodologies with the coordination of multiple actors and multilateral interactions.

The originality and value of the study reside in its conceptualization and analysis of what is meant by DSI. The components of the service and the technological requirements for not only provision but also ideation and development appear to be inseparable. The study unveils the mechanisms that turn a digital service solution into a co-innovative proposal. This knowledge can facilitate scalability in digital services.

This paper studies the Digital Service Innovation (DSI) concept by systematically reviewing earlier studies from various scholarly communities. This study aims to recognize how recent advances in DSI literature from different research streams complement and can be incorporated into the growing digital servitization literature to define better and understand DSI.

After systematically identifying 123 relevant articles, this study employed complementary methods, such as author bibliographic coupling, linguistic text mining/textual analysis and qualitative content analyses.

This paper first maps the intellectual structure and boundaries of the DSI-related communities and qualitatively assesses their characteristics. These communities are (1) Innovation for digital servitization, (2) Service innovation in the digital age and (3) Adoption of novel e-services enabled by information system development. Next, the composition of the DSI concept is examined and depicted to comprehend the notion's critical dimensions. The findings discuss the range of theories and methods in the existing research, including antecedents, processes and outcomes of DSI.

This study reviews, extends the understanding of origins and critically evaluates DSI-related research. Moreover, the paper redefines and clarifies the structure and boundaries of the DSI-concept. In doing so, it elaborates on the substance of DSI and identifies the essential themes for its understanding and conceptualization. Thus, the study helps the future development of the concept and allows knowledge accumulation by bridging adjacent research communities. It helps researchers and managers navigate the foggy emerging research landscape.

Developing green innovative services is critical to the restaurant industry to achieve significant benefits as well as environmental sustainability. This study aims to explore the mechanisms through which employees’ green involvement can foster green service innovation behavior.

The data set garnered from employees who worked in restaurants was used to test these mechanisms. A partial least square technique was conducted on this data set.

The results revealed the employees’ green involvement significantly influences their green service innovation intention, which subsequently influences their green service innovation behavior. Furthermore, information technology (IT) adoption was found to fortify the linkage of employee green involvement with green service innovation intention.

The results suggest to the restaurant industry that awareness of green service innovation and IT adoption practices can help restaurants to develop effective sustainability work practices and meet societal expectations.

This study extends the restaurant management literature by linking the green involvement of restaurant employees to green service innovation intention as well as identifying the moderating role of IT adoption underlying this link.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected service small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), increasing the importance of understanding how these businesses can become more resilient and how service innovation can be an effective strategy to increase their adaptive capacity and survival. This study aims to examine the role of dynamic capabilities in service innovation as a factor explaining the resilience of SMEs in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic during the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on service innovation. Additionally, the authors assess whether service innovation has a significant impact on value cocreation in these businesses.

This study used a quantitative method by surveying 118 SME owners in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. The data were analyzed using partial least-squares structural equation modeling.

The results reflect important theoretical contributions by analyzing resilience from an innovation perspective instead of a retrospective approach, which is an area that has not been analyzed in the literature. Additionally, theoretical contributions to marketing services in SMEs are discussed, which is an underresearched topic. The results advance by discussing the role of service innovation through the reconfiguration of resources and how this can be an effective strategy to increase value cocreation with customers during crises.

This study is original in that it analyzes resilience from the perspective of innovation, and not from a retrospective approach. It offers a vision in response to the need for studies that provide a clearer conceptualization of resilience in small businesses. This highlights the importance of considering regional differences and service innovation as effective strategies to enhance resilience and value cocreation with customers.

This study aims to explore how not-for-profit organisations (NFPs) adopt service innovation and improve their employee resilience capabilities as a response to environmental changes arising from marketisation of public services.

Using a multiple case-study research design, this study involved 32 interviews with frontline employees working in a not-for-profit care-providing organisation.

This study finds that the development of absorptive capacity can facilitate service innovation adoption in NFPs and improve employee resilience in times of transition.

This study offers theoretical insights on service innovation, absorptive capacity and employee resilience in NFPs. It makes practical recommendations that will enable NFPs to help frontline employees better adopt service innovation practices in business models endorsed by the private sector.

This study aims to investigate the effects of entrepreneurial leadership on service innovation in the hospitality industry and examine the mediating effects of market-sensing capability and knowledge acquisition. Additionally, the study explores the moderating role of competitive intensity in the relationships between market-sensing capability, knowledge acquisition and service innovation, drawing on the dynamic capability theory and resource dependence theory.

The data for this study were obtained from 322 employees and 137 leaders working in 103 hotels in Vietnam, using a time-lagged approach. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling in SPSS Amos 28.

The results of this study reveal a significant positive association between entrepreneurial leadership and service innovation, with mediation effects observed through both knowledge acquisition and market-sensing capability. Moreover, the findings demonstrate that competitive intensity moderates the association between knowledge acquisition and service innovation.

The results of this study provide implications for hospitality firms to cultivate entrepreneurial leadership through leadership training and development programs and enhance their dynamic capabilities (i.e. market-sensing capability and knowledge acquisition) to allow them to survive and develop in a competitive market.

This study advances entrepreneurial leadership research in the hospitality context by identifying mediating and moderating mechanisms that translate entrepreneurial leadership into hospitality firms’ service innovation.