Giulia Calabretta

Consumer perceptions of service constellations: implications for service innovation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the service constellation perspective affects innovation strategies and potentially contributes to the innovation literature, proposing a research agenda.Design/methodology/approach – By analyzing the notion of a service constellation, the authors provide an overview of major implications for service innovation research and practice.Findings – Firms and service innovation researchers need to focus on the perceived consumer value of the constellation rather than on individual services. The authors illustrate how service innovation from the constellation perspective requires coordination and synchronization between projects and different approaches to portfolio management and screening.Originality/value – Adoption of the service constellation perspective creates new opportunities.

A multilevel consideration of service design conditions: towards a portfolio of organisational capabilities, interactive practices and individual abilities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance the current understanding of organisational conditions that facilitate service design. Specifically, the focus is on organisational capabilities, interactive practices and individual abilities as units of analysis across service system levels. Grounded in design principles, the paper conceptualises and delineates illustrative service design conditions and introduces a respective service design capability-practice-ability (CPA) portfolio. In doing so, an emerging microfoundations perspective in the context of service design is advanced. Design/methodology/approach Conceptual paper. Findings This paper identifies and delineates a CPA that contributes to service design and ultimately customer experiences. The service design CPA consists of six illustrative constellations of service design capabilities, practices and abilities, which operate on different organisational levels. The service design CPA builds the foundation for in-depth research implications and future research opportunities. Practical implications The CPA framework suggests that if an organisation seeks to optimise service design and subsequent customer experiences, then individual- and organisational-level (cap)abilities and interactive practices should be optimised and synchronised across specific CPA constellations. Originality/value This paper provides the first microfoundations perspective for service design. It advances marketing theory through multilevel theorising around service design capabilities, practices and abilities and overcomes extant limitations of insular theorising in this context.

Trend spotting and service innovation

Purpose – Improving the commercial success rate of innovations requires alternative approaches based on social science methodologies for identifying subtle, emerging changes in consumer needs and behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to address this call by proposing trend spotting to guide innovation researchers and service managers towards innovations that are more in accordance with emerging consumer needs. Design/methodology/approach – The authors develop, describe, and employ a methodology for trend spotting to derive eight consumer trends that will have a strong influence on their choices. To provide further insights into these trends, the authors label and describe three customer segments as a function of life-cycle. The goal is to provide a framework for identifying innovations that are of higher value consumers. Findings – The authors identified eight consumer trends, i.e. Always on the go, Always logged-in, Quality information faster, Nowism, Look at me now, Privacy, Sustainable living, and re...

The Interplay between Intuition and Rationality in Strategic Decision Making: A Paradox Perspective:

Both intuition and rationality can play important roles in strategic decision making. However, a framework that specifically accounts for the interplay between intuition and rationality is still missing. This study addresses this gap by using a paradox lens and conceptualizes the intuition–rationality duality as a paradoxical tension. We draw on seven case studies of innovation projects to empirically derive a three-step process for managing this intuition–rationality tension through paradoxical thinking. Our empirical data suggest that management of the tension starts with preparing the ground for paradoxical thinking by creating managerial acceptance for the contradictory elements of rational and intuitive approaches to decision making. The process then continues by developing decision-making outcomes through the integration of intuitive and rational practices. Finally, the outcomes of paradoxical thinking are embedded into the organizational context. For each step of the model, we indicate a set of practices that, by leveraging intuitive or rational characteristics of decision making, practitioners can use to deal with this cognitive tension in the different steps of our model.

Technology-driven evolution of design practices: envisioning the role of design in the digital era

ABSTRACT The rapid evolution of information and communications technologies (ICT) has changed the way in which companies innovate and generate value for their customers. As a key function within innovation, design has also evolved in order to better support companies in dealing with the pace and complexity of technological, economic and societal change. Particularly, while design core principles of human centredness, collaboration and use of prototypes has remained the same over time, the way in which they are put into practice has adapted to the innovation challenges of the time. In this article, we describe how design practices related to human centredness, collaborativeness and prototyping are (and have been) executed across three eras: the industrial era, the service era and the digital era. Based on such evolution and on the current strengths of design, we explore complementarities and possible synergies with the marketing function to enable companies to succeed in innovating in the digital era.