Purpose Technology has been central and has made service innovations technically feasible and economically viable. Top management support, however, plays an important role in shaping a firm’s service innovation-related strategies and decisions. This study aims to propose a theoretical framework that delineates the relationships among openness of technology adoption, top management support and service innovation within social innovation context. Design/methodology/approach This study obtained the data through a survey of 176 information technology (IT) firms in Taiwan; IT managers were selected as the data collection sources. A partial least squares analysis was used to address sophisticated data analysis issues. Findings The empirical evidence indicates that openness of technology adoption enhances service innovation within social innovation context. Furthermore, top management support facilitates the relationship between openness of technology adoption and service innovation. Research limitations/implications The openness of technology adoption captures the interactions among top management support in shaping service innovation. Researchers should examine the nature of open technology infrastructure that will foster such service innovation from social innovation perspective. Practical implications The detailed findings offer practical suggestions for firms that are compelling to invest in advanced open technologies, giving opportunities for service innovation, solving social problems and meeting the new societal challenges. Additionally, firms may foster their top management’s positive intention to support service innovation by pre-planned support activities, such as allocating sufficient new service resources and qualified support technicians. Originality/value This study contributes to the evolving literature on the social innovation, service-dominant logic, and contingency theory. This analysis suggests that these perspectives offer a potentially useful view for integrating insights from different literature streams (e.g. openness, social innovation, service innovation, top management support and technology management) by examining them through a different conceptual lens, thus reinforcing existing findings.