Andrea Malsbender

SERVICE INNOVATION PERFORMANCE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS FROM THE DYNAMIC CAPABILITY PERSPECTIVE

Service firms need to continuously innovate their service offerings in order to remain competitive in constantly changing market conditions. Successful innovators utilise current information technology (IT) to access service innovation capacity and knowledge which can be located internal or external to their organisation. In this paper, we develop and test a theoretical framework that explains how IT can contribute to service innovation performance, and finally, to service provision performance. Drawing on dynamic capability theory, we differentiate between sensing (SN), seizing (SZ), and transformation (TF) as the key abilities in service innovation. With our theoretical model, we can explain almost 40% of the variance in service innovation performance (SIP) (R2 = 0.3955) and provide evidence for the multi-faceted and significant effects of IT. In particular, we are able to show a significant influence of inter-organisational IT support on SN and SZ abilities while organisational IT support has a significant impact on TF abilities.

Using Enterprise Social Networks as Innovation Platforms

Do enterprise social network platforms in an organization make the company more innovative? In theory, through communication, collaboration, and knowledge exchange, innovation ideas can easily be expressed, shared, and discussed with many partners in the organization. Yet, whether this guarantees innovation success remains to be seen. The authors studied how innovation ideas moved- or not- from an enterprise social network platform to regular innovation processes at a large Australian retailer. They found that the success of innovation ideas depends on how easily understandable the idea is on the platform, how long it has been discussed, and how powerful the social network participants are in the organization. These findings inform management strategies for the governance of enterprise social network use and the organizational innovation process.

Fallbeispiele zum Service Design

Verschiedene Unternehmen haben die Quadromo-Methode bereits erfolgreich eingesetzt. Dieses Kapitel gibt drei reale Anwendungsbeispiele und erlautert so spezifische Herausforderungen, Erkenntnisse und Varianten in der Methodenanwendung.

Die vier Perspektiven des Service Design

Die Quadromo-Methode vereint vier Perspektiven auf das Service Design: Nutzen, Prozesse, Ressourcen und Finanzen. In diesem Kapitel werden die vier Perspektiven vorgestellt und somit Grundlagen fur die Anwendung der Quadromo-Methode gelegt.

Die Quadromo-Methode

Die Quadromo-Methode bietet ein systematisches Vorgehen fur das Service Design. Sie folgt einer Philosophie, die eine grundlegende Struktur, eine Arbeitsrichtung, verschiedene Ebenen sowie die Zeilenorientierung und die Prozessorientierung als Leitlinien vorgibt. In diesem Kapitel werden diese Leitlinien dargestellt und am Beispiel einer konkreten Dienstleistung illustriert. Auserdem werden wertvolle Tipps zur Planung und Durchfuhrung eines Quadromo-Workshops beschrieben.

Erfolgsfaktoren für das Service Design

Das Service Design wird Sie vor neue Herausforderungen stellen. In diesem Kapitel werden sieben Erfolgsfaktoren vorgestellt, die Ihnen dabei helfen, diese Herausforderungen zu meistern.

Service Design mit der Quadromo-Methode

Das Service Design bezeichnet einen bewusst durchgefuhrten Dienstleistungsinnovationsprozess mit dem Ziel, bislang ungenutzte Wertschopfungspotenziale zu erschliesen. Hierbei unterstutzt die Quadromo-Methode. Das Kapitel leitet in das Thema mit einer kurzen Darstellung von Dienstleistungen ein, beschreibt dann die Besonderheiten von Dienstleistungen und Dienstleistungsinnovationsprozessen und endet mit einem Ausblick auf die Quadromo-Methode.

Which Boundary Objects Are Applicable to Service Innovation? A Dynamic Capability Perspective

Service Innovation has become a focal point of attention for managers. Hence, organizations need to implement a convenient innovation strategy to remain competitive in constantly changing market environments. To identify, design and implement possible service innovation, organizations already successfully cooperate with external partners, suppliers, customers or internally through different functional departments. In so doing, organizational boundaries occur with respect to unequally distributed knowledge. This disparity needs to be overcome by spanning different groups through technology. In this article, we analyze what kind of IT artifact, so called boundary object, can be used within a service innovation. To this end, we conduct an empirical investigation in 500 German SMEs with the aim of identifying suitable boundary objects for each stage of a service innovation process. Drawing from the dynamic capability and boundary spanning theory we identify four boundary object types and reveal an insufficient utilization of them.