THE ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE-INTEGRATION PRACTICES IN SERVICE INNOVATION PROJECTS

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (01) ◽  
pp. 1650007 ◽  
Author(s):  
SALLA HURNONEN ◽  
PAAVO RITALA ◽  
HANNA-KAISA ELLONEN
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Group Problem Solving ◽  
Innovation Projects ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Knowledge Intensive ◽  
Knowledge Intensive Business Service

Services comprise an increasingly bigger proportion of contemporary economies, making service innovation more relevant than ever. However, the practices and processes related to the utilisation of knowledge for service development are not very well understood in this context. To narrow this gap, this study focuses on how Knowledge-Intensive Business Service (KIBS) firms utilise knowledge-integration practices in different phases of the service-innovation projects they carry out for their customers. A multiple-case study with in-depth qualitative data is conducted, focusing on four case firms in the Finnish KIBS sector. Case-by-case and cross-case analyses are reflected against four categories of knowledge-integration practices: Rules and directives, sequencing, decision-making, and group problem-solving and routines. The results show the detailed evidence on how these practices are utilised in different types of service-innovation projects. Furthermore, two generic types of service-innovation projects are identified with different implications for knowledge-integration and problem-solving.

scholarly journals The impact of ethical leadership on service innovation behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fahri Özsungur
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Leadership ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Psychological Capital ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Innovation Behavior

Purpose Ethical leadership is at the forefront of what matters in today’s business life and current issues, with a view to making strong moral decisions through bilateral communication. Service innovation behavior is important in terms of individual and institutional actions in the process of producing and implementing new ideas. Investigating the mediating role of psychological capital which consists of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and psychological endurance dimensions, between ethical leadership and service innovation behavior, is a matter to be investigated. This study aims to assess the impact of ethical leadership on service innovation behavior by means of a comprehensive literature review. In this framework, psychological capital forms the scope of researching the mediating role. Design/methodology/approach This study was conducted with 376 blue-collar workers randomly selected from 140 company which were selected from 1,294 joint stock companies among 76,882 companies operating in the province of Adana in Turkey and registered in the Adana Chamber of Commerce, by applying a questionnaire of 40 items. Findings As a result of the factor analysis, 6 items which could not provide reliability were extracted from the scale and the remaining 34 items were distributed in three factors and the validity of the construct validity was measured by the convergence and divergence methods. Construct reliability (CR) values were found to be statistically significant (SRMR: 0.50, RMSEA = 0.058, IFI: 0.955, CFI = 0.97, GFI = 0.96, AGFI = 0.86, TLI = 0.97, χ2/s.d. = 2.264) when it was above 0.7, and the structural equation model determined that the research data and the initially determined model are compatible. Ethical leadership has a significant effect on psychological capital (ß = 0.224, p < 0.001), ethical leadership has a significant effect on innovation (ß = 0.113, p < 0.001), psychological capital was found to have a significant influence on service innovation (ß = 0.965, p < 0.001), and ethical leadership was mediated by psychological capital on service innovation behavior (SIE = 0.235). Research limitations/implications Further research is needed to assess conducting research in enterprises with different cultural characteristics. This paper provides the effectiveness of ethical leadership and psychological capital factors, which are effective in improving employee service innovation behavior and enabling managers to develop human resources strategies in this respect. Practical implications The results provide the impact of ethical leadership on the productivity of employees in the workplace and provide practical benefits in terms of developing innovation-oriented service development behaviors. Social implications The innovative behaviors of the employees enable the development of innovative ideas in social life by contributing to consumer satisfaction and economy. Ethical leadership ensures positive behaviors in the society by ensuring that employees in the workplace develop justice sentiments. Originality/value The mediating role of psychological capital between ethical leadership and service innovation behavior has not been investigated before. In this study, the effects of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience factors were investigated in providing ethical leaders and employees, creating value in the enterprise, and in providing innovation-focused services for employees.

Service Design as an Approach to Implement the Value Cocreation Perspective in New Service Development

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eun Yu ◽  
Daniela Sangiorgi
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Service Design ◽  
Service Development ◽  
New Service Development ◽  
Managerial Practices ◽  
A Value ◽  
Value Propositions ◽  
Value Cocreation ◽  
Multiple Case

Although new service development (NSD) studies have contributed to developing systematic approaches to service innovation, their product-oriented and provider-centric perspectives are limited in embracing a value cocreation concept. We investigate how Service Design, as a human-centered and creative approach to service innovation, can reframe NSD processes to implement value cocreation. Multiple case studies on Service Design projects indicate that design-centric approaches can contribute to the whole NSD process in a way that connects organizations’ managerial practices to value cocreation, in that (1) contextual and holistic understandings of user experiences can inform value propositions that better fit users’ value-in-use, (2) codesign with creative supporting tools can facilitate value cocreation by helping users better apply their own resources, (3) prototyping can optimize firms’ resource and process configuration to facilitate users’ engagement with the service, (4) aligning system actors to the user experience can organize and mobilize them to better support users’ value creation, and (5) user-centered approaches and methods can help organizational staff build long-term capability for supporting users’ value creation. Based on the link between Service Design, NSD, and value cocreation, we propose a conceptual NSD model, geared toward value cocreation.

Productization of knowledge-intensive services

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aku Valtakoski ◽  
Katriina Järvi
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Sharing ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Group Behavior ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Business Services ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Frontline Employee ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the antecedents of service innovation success in the knowledge-intensive business services context, especially why the participation of frontline employees and multiple organizational units is not enough for succeeding in knowledge-intensive service productization. Design/methodology/approach – A multiple-case study of two polar cases with longitudinal data, participant observation, and key personnel interviews. Findings – Case evidence indicates that frontline employee participation and cross-unit collaboration are not sufficient antecedents for successful service productization. Instead, to facilitate employee knowledge sharing, managers need to align the project goals with the goals of participating employees, and promote trust among the project workgroup. Moreover, to enable effective cross-unit collaboration, managers need to facilitate the establishment of common vocabulary for productization work and services, and to resolve any emerging conflicts between participating organizational units. Practical implications – The findings indicate the importance of enabling knowledge sharing and cross-unit collaboration for service productization. The identified antecedents translate to practical strategies for achieving these. The results also highlight the importance of bottom-up service innovation, and the management of service innovation on the group level. Originality/value – The study indicates that common antecedents for successful service innovation may not be sufficient in the knowledge-intensive context, calling into question the assumptions about individual and group behavior in service innovation, and suggesting the importance of multi-level perspective on service innovation.

How to interact with knowledge-intensive business services: A multiple case study of small and medium manufacturing enterprises in China

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Zhou ◽  
Mika Kautonen ◽  
Hecheng Wang ◽  
Lin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Integration ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Knowledge Utilization ◽  
Research Knowledge ◽  
Business Services ◽  
Knowledge Intensive Business Services ◽  
Manufacturing Enterprises ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Knowledge Identification ◽  
Knowledge Intensive

AbstractEmpirical support for the process and mechanism of interactions with knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) is scarce, particularly with regard to small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs). Our study investigated how four SMMEs in China’s electrical appliance industry cluster attained high performance through interactions with KIBS. For our research, knowledge integration can be understood as knowledge identification, knowledge accession, and knowledge utilization. We investigated the mechanism involved in interactions between SMMEs and KIBS by tentative multiple case studies, and found that interactions with technology-based KIBS improved the performance of SMMEs by influencing their knowledge accession and knowledge utilization. Interactions with traditional professional KIBS, however, mainly influence SMMEs’ knowledge identification and knowledge accession. technology-based KIBS generally acts as a knowledge source and professional KIBS as a knowledge bridge for SMMEs. Interaction with technology-based KIBS is a kind of complementary interaction, while interaction with professional KIBS is a kind of supplementary interaction.

The Role of User Involvement in the Framing Stage of Service Innovation Projects

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 11061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lita Astuti Napitupulu ◽  
Allard C.R. Van Riel ◽  
Zuzana Sasovova
Keyword(s):  
Service Innovation ◽  
User Involvement ◽  
Innovation Projects
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