Examining how context change foster service innovation

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service innovation by developing a conceptual framework that illuminates the key elements and trends in context change. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a service ecosystem lens for understanding how elements and trends in context foster service innovation. A conceptual framework identifying the role of context change in fostering service innovation is developed and justified through illustrations across industry settings of health, retailing, banking and education. Findings Context change is conceptualized by three trends – speed, granularity and liquification – that provide an analytical foundation for understanding how changes in the elements of context – space, resources and institutional arrangements – can foster service innovation. The analysis indicates emerging patterns across industries that allow exploring scenarios, grounded in emerging trends and developments in service innovation toward 2050. Practical implications Managers are offered a framework to guide service innovation and help them prepare for the future. The paper also suggests areas for further research. Originality/value The paper contributes with a new conceptualization of context change to identify and explain service innovation opportunities. Managers are offered a framework to guide service innovation and help them prepare for 2050. The paper also suggests areas for further service innovation research, zooming in on contextual changes to prepare for 2050.

Explaining how Platforms Foster Innovation in Service Ecosystems

“…This includes attracting and retaining new actors, absorbing context dynamics and exploiting new ideas technologies, brands and other resources over time. This is close to Edvardsson, Frow [41] use of a service ecosystem lens to explain how contextual elements and trends foster service innovation in terms of three characteristics: speed, granularity, and liquefaction. These facilitate the analysis of changes in the contextual elements of space, resources and institutional arrangements and how these can foster service innovation.…”

“…To fulfill their vision of creating something novel and useful, the key actors orchestrate collaboration between multiple actors to access necessary resources. The innovation platform is designed to exploit and respond to changes in context [41] and grounded in (1) new ways of integrating and assembling resources, (2) new constellations of brands or (3) a platform for enabling technologies. We turn now to some examples from our studied firms.…”

Brave new world: service robots in the frontline

“…in data and knowledge bases and training of AIs), and related network and platform effects, are likely to become important sources of competitive advantage with the risk of "winners taking it all" markets. In addition, the remaining factors for potential competitive advantage should also increase in importance and are likely to include brand equity, owning the customer relationship, owning the point-of-sale, an organization-wide service culture, its customer centricity and innovation capabilities (Wirtz and Ehret, 2018) and require significant business model innovation (c.f., Andreassen et al, 2018;Edvardsson et al, 2018).…”

Impacts of service robots on service quality

“…For example, some customers desire speed and accuracy of services while others care more about friendly and personal attention. With service robots, consumers’ expectations for both the kind of services and their quality change (Edvardsson et al 2018 ; Lee and Lee 2019 ). Therefore, service quality provided by robots and their importance to the customer are affected by both technical capability of robots as well as customer expectations (Fig.…”