Innovation researchers increasingly pay attention to service industries, resulting in a large amount of literature on success factors in new service development. However, the role of individual co-workers in innovation is still underexposed. This paper investigated the drivers of innovative behaviour of individual co-workers, which is considered to be a major determinant of incremental innovation. From the literature seven constructs were derived that are often discussed as drivers of innovation, but have not been tested as determinants of individual co-workers' innovative behaviour. Survey data were collected from 360 persons working in knowledge-intensive service firms. Based on a regression analysis, it appeared that perceptions of job challenge, autonomy, strategic attention and external contacts are positively related to innovative behaviour of individual co-workers. Also, operating in a market where firms compete on differentiation had a positive impact. On the other hand, a firm climate supportive to innovation and a high variation in demand did not affect innovative behaviour in a direct manner.

Determinants of Co-workers' Innovative Behaviour: An Investigation into Knowledge-intensive Services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between innovative culture, innovation efforts, and their performance among knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Innovation intensity is evaluated in the technical and administrative domains. Performance indicators include customer-related outcomes and market and financial results relative to competition. To provide insight into how innovativeness contributes to sustaining a KIBS' competitiveness, the mediating role of its predisposition to involve customers and front-line employees in new service development is also considered. Design/methodology/approach – In accordance with the objectives of the research, and from an extensive review of the literature, the authors develop a conceptual model and test it on a sample of 154 Spanish KIBS using structural equation modelling. Findings – The results show that KIBS' appraisal of customers' and front-line employees' participation in new service co-creation is strongly determined by ...

An assessment of innovativeness in KIBS: implications on KIBS' co-creation culture, innovation capability, and performance

From a Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) perspective, employees constitute operant resources that firms can draw to enhance the outcomes of innovation efforts. While research acknowledges that frontline employees (FLEs) constitute, through service encounters, a key interface for the transfer of valuable external knowledge into the firm, the range of potential benefits derived from FLE-driven innovation deserves more investigation. Using a sample of knowledge intensive business services firms (KIBS), this study examines how the collaboration with FLEs along the new service development (NSD) process, namely FLE co-creation, impacts on service innovation performance following two routes of different effects. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) results indicate that FLE co-creation benefits the NS success among FLEs and firm’s customers, the constituents of the resources route. FLE co-creation also has a positive effect on the NSD speed, which in turn enhances the NS quality. NSD speed and NS quality integrate the operational route, which proves to be the most effective path to impact the NS market performance. Accordingly, KIBS managers must value their FLEs as essential partners to achieve successful innovation from an internal and external perspective, and develop the appropriate mechanisms to guarantee their effective involvement along the NSD process.

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Frontline employees’ collaboration in industrial service innovation: routes of co-creation’s effects on new service performance

During product recovery, firms rely on their customer service agents to recover customers’ product failures and deliver superior customer service. However, customers who contact the firm about a product failure often are dissatisfied, which makes customer service agents’ jobs challenging. Therefore, firms continuously try to improve their internal customer service operations to increase benefits for customer service agents and, by extension, their customers. The authors hypothesize that the way firms design (agent codesign and design acceleration) and implement (agent enablement) an internal customer service innovation has direct and joint effects on the magnitude of benefits of the innovation to customer service agents, termed internal innovation magnitude. The authors test the conceptual model using data on 38 internal customer service innovations at a Fortune 500 high-technology firm. The findings extend the internal marketing literature by demonstrating that service employees represent a critical sour...

Developing Customer Service Innovations for Service Employees: The Effects of NSD Characteristics on Internal Innovation Magnitude:

New service concepts are at the heart of success, and the process can be optimized by implementing new service development (NSD) models. NSD models are rarely used in practice, however. Many companies use historically successful new product development (NPD) models to develop services, and ultimately ignore the challenges and opportunities specific to services. The objective of this research paper is to determine the key success variables of an NSD model. Several NSD models are reviewed to mine the key traits of a successful NSD model. After a comprehensive literature review, three hypotheses proposed in the paper are: a well-structured NSD model is necessary for the success of a new service; resources should be given equal attention to the processes involved in a NSD model, and customer involvement is a vital component of the NSD model. Finally, an extended NSD model is proposed, one which is based on Froehle and Roth's work. This extended model integrates the resource and process oriented practices of NSD with a new “customer” dimension. We show how this model can be applied, using the airline industry as an example.

New service development: Linking resources, processes, and the customer

Organizations worldwide are adopting software as a service (SaaS) applications, where they pay a subscription fee to gain access rather than buying the software. The extant models on software acquisition processes, several of which are based on organizational buying behavior, do not sufficiently explain how SaaS application acquisition decisions are made. This study aims to investigate the acquisition process organizations follow for SaaS software, the changes to the roles of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the business user and also looks at the impact of SaaS on the proliferation of unauthorized software systems.,The authors used exploratory research using the grounded theory approach based on 18 in-depth interviews conducted with respondents who have studied with enterprise software delivered on-premise and as SaaS in different roles such as sales, consulting, CIO, information technology (IT) management and product development.,The authors identified a need to classify the SaaS software and developed a framework that uses software specificity and its strategic importance to the organization to classify SaaS applications. The aforementioned framework is used to explain how software evaluation processes have changed for different kinds of SaaS applications. The authors also found that the CIO’s and the business users’ have changed substantially in SaaS application evaluations and found evidence to show that shadow IT will be restricted to some classes of SaaS applications.,By focusing on the changes to the roles and responsibilities of the members of the buying center, this paper provides unique insights into how the acquisition process of SaaS is different from the extant models used to explain enterprise software acquisitions. An understanding of how information search is conducted by the business users will help software vendors to target business users better.

Impact of software as a service (SaaS) on software acquisition process

The need for developing new services organically is well recognized. Extant review of literature reveals that various issues pertaining to NSD (New Service Development)/Service innovation like NSD initiation strategies, internal functional integration, need for simultaneous involvement of employees, evaluation of NSD and measuring the performance of new service, leadership role, role of customers, communication, factors influencing innovative co-worker behavior, etc., have been investigated.However, in comparison to New Product Development (NPD), New Service Development (NSD) has received significantly less attention. Innovations that are initiated and implemented by individuals have been largely bypassed as most of the studies have investigated NSD at firm level or project level. This lack of attention is in-spite of the recognition that employees (customer contact employees in case of service firms) can be major contributors of blockbuster new ideas.Notwithstanding the benefits, the role of customer con...

K. R. Jayasimha

Papers

Impact of software as a service (SaaS) on software acquisition process

New Service Development (NSD): Role of Customer Contact Executives