0000000000589533
AUTHOR
Karl Joachim Breunig
Towards a framework for New Service Development Practices
Different frameworks for New Service Development (NSD) practices have been suggested by prior conceptual research. We have assessed three frameworks frequently referred to in extant research, and exposed how these three cover different dimensions of NSD practices. By exploring the practices of NSD empirically, this paper continues the ongoing discussion of what the relevant aggregated dimensions of NSD practices are. The detailed practices identified by interviewing 25 employees, all with key roles in relation to NSD in five large Scandinavian service firms, about their NSD practices, are clustered into three aggregated overarching dimensions of NSD practices: 1) identifying needs, 2) assur…
Characteristics of Intrapreneurs in Scale-Intensive Service Firms
This empirical paper explores the work of employees in charge of service innovation when firms develop and launch new scale-intensive services by addressing two research questions: i) How do employees responsible for service innovation work? and ii) what are the related managerial implications when developing and launching new scale-intensive services? To this end, 21 qualitative, in-depth interviews were conducted with employees in five large scale-intensive service firms. The findings suggest that the involvement of internal professionals is an asset when new scale-intensive services are developed, and that internal professionals act as intrapreneurs when they are involved in the developm…
Conceptualizing innovation capabilities: A contingency perspective
Empirical research has confirmed that a positive relationship exists between the implementation of innovation activities and the future performance of organizations. Firms utilize resources and capabilities to develop innovations in the form of new products, services or processes. Some firms prove to be better at reproducing innovation success than others, and the capacity to do so is referred to as innovation capability. However, the term innovation capability is ambiguously treated in extant literature. There are several different definitions of the concept and the distinction between innovation capabilities and other types of capabilities, such as dynamic capabilities, is neither explici…
Innovation Capabilities: Affirming an Oxymoron? From the Editors
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Innovation capabilities: What are their characteristics and how can they be conceptualized?
Purpose – It has been argued that firms may utilize their resources and capabilities through the development of innovations in the form of new products, services or processes, and empirical research has confirmed that there is a positive relationship between the implementation of innovation activities and future performance of firms. Some firms prove to be better at reproducing innovation success than other firms, and the capacity to do so can be framed as an innovation capability. However, the term innovation capability is ambiguously treated in extant literature. There exist several different definitions of the concept and the distinction between innovation capabilities and other types of…
Product-Service Systems in the Digital Era: Deconstructing Servitisation Business Model Typologies
The identification of business model typologies of servitised firms is part of a long research tradition. However, the relevance of many existing typologies in the contemporary context, in which digitalisation is central to business model innovation, may be questioned. Thus, in this chapter, we revisit the existing literature and continue the conceptual discussion about the categorisation of product-service system business models. We propose a conceptual product-service system business model framework with three independent continuums: the degrees of ownership retention, results-orientedness and smartness. Based on this framework, we derive a new product-service system business model typolo…
Open Innovation or Innovation in the Open? An Exploration of the Strategy–Innovation Link in Five Scale-Intensive Services
This chapter explores the strategy–innovation link in open service innovations. The increased attention to the role of the firm's external environment on innovation has important implications for strategy. However, our literature review reveals that the strategy–innovation link is ambiguously treated in extant theory, especially with respect to open- and service-innovations. Therefore, we inductively explore innovation practices in five large scale-intensive service firms to establish the link between their strategy and open innovation practices. To our surprise, we find that explicit innovation strategies lack in all five firms. The findings also suggest that the logic of innovation and st…
Exploring New Service Portfolio Management
Most research on the management of innovation portfolios has focused on new product portfolios, whereas the management of new service portfolios has not been researched correspondingly. This paper addresses this literature gap by exploring portfolio management of New Service Development (NSD) activities empirically. The paper applies a qualitative research design, where data was collected in 52 in-depth interviews with managers and employees involved with NSD. The study finds that the portfolio management activities and processes were carried out in parallel with the NSD process, and that the most important stakeholders in the NSD portfolio management organization were top managers not inv…
SERVICE-ORIENTED BUSINESS MODELS IN MANUFACTURING IN THE DIGITAL ERA: TOWARD A NEW TAXONOMY
A stream of servitisation research has focused on the construction of taxonomies and typologies of product–service system business models (BMs). However, their relevance in the context of increased utilisation of digital technologies may be questioned. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to empirically revisit the existing product–service system BM taxonomies to explore the following research question: How can the BMs of servitised manufacturing firms be categorised in the digital era? The question is addressed through an embedded case study of five servitised firms. We found that the firms’ BMs varied with regard to the degree of the suppliers’ ownership of delivered products, degree of sma…
Innovation Management Practices in Production-Intensive Service Firms
Postprint version of the article. This paper posits that innovation management practices are contingent upon the type of industry, and examines the innovation management practices in a distinctive set of service firms: production-intensive service firms. Production-intensive services are standardised services produced at a large scale. These services have received little attention from prior comprehensive qualitative innovation management practices research. The examination in this paper is based on in-depth interviews with 21 key-employees in five large Scandinavian production-intensive service firms. The results revealed a number of innovation management practices specific to production-i…
Digital Servitization: Strategies for Handling Customization and Customer Interaction
This conceptual chapter utilizes extant servitization and digitalization theorization and discusses the impact of digital servitization on customization/standardization and customer interaction. The study argues that the transformation toward digital servitization is complex and goes far beyond the technological dimension. The study contributes to the digital servitization literature by demonstrating that industrial services shift from customized and co-created to mainly standardized-provided and informating when they are digitalized. These insights can assist managers of servitized manufacturing firms who wish to utilize digital technologies in their service provision.