Service Innovation Management in Competitive Environments
Summary
Service innovation management in competitive environments refers to the strategic coordination of processes, resources and stakeholders to develop new or improved service offerings that sustain advantage in dynamic markets. Rooted in a service-dominant logic, this field emphasises the orchestration of both tangible and intangible assets through agile organisational routines, digital platforms and collaborative networks. Managers must integrate technological advances, from data analytics to automation, with human-centred design and frontline expertise to accelerate value creation. Central to this endeavour is the cultivation of dynamic capabilities, which enable firms to sense emerging opportunities, seize them by reconfiguring resources and transform operations to embed continuous innovation. In global contexts, service firms navigate regulatory shifts, platform competition and evolving customer expectations by leveraging co-creation with users, partners and ecosystems. Practical examples range from healthcare providers combining clinical and digital interventions to transportation networks harnessing real-time data for adaptive routing. As service boundaries blur and ecosystems proliferate, the ability to manage complex interactions among actors, processes and technologies becomes the cornerstone of resilient growth and differentiation.
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Service Innovation Management in Competitive Environments publication trend
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Technical terms
Service innovation: The introduction of new or substantially improved service offerings, processes or business models that create value for customers and firms.
Co-creation: A collaborative approach in which firms and stakeholders jointly produce and refine services through interactive resource integration.
Dynamic capability: An organisation’s capacity to adapt, reconfigure and deploy internal and external competences in response to changing environments.
Knowledge transfer: The processes by which explicit and tacit knowledge are shared across teams or organisations to support innovation activities.
Resource integration: The orchestrating and combining of diverse assets, capabilities and competencies to generate novel value propositions.
References
- A brief history of service innovation: The evolution of past, present, and future service innovation. Journal of Business Research (2023).
- Service Design Handover to user experience design – a systematic literature review. Information and Software Technology (2023).
- The effects of innovation types and customer participation on organizational performance in complex services. European Journal of Marketing (2023).
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