MODELING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INNOVATION ANTECEDENTS AND SERVICE INNOVATION: A ZIMBABWEAN HOTEL MANAGERS PERSPECTIVES

There seem to be a paucity of studies that have investigated the influence of learning philosophy, strategic direction, and transfunctional acclimation service innovation in the Zimbabwean context in the hospitality sector. This is a new trend that is becoming prevalent in service innovation orientation at the global level. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between innovation antecedents and service innovation in the hospitality sector of Zimbabwe as this provides leeway towards a major contribution of the GDP of most emerging countries and Zimbabwe is no exception. A quantitative approach was utilised and Smart PLS statistical software for structural equation modelling was used to analyse data. The results indicate that there is a positive and a significant relationship between innovation antecedents and service innovation. However, the relationship between trans-functional acclimation and service innovation was insignificant. The empirical study provided interesting implications to academicians by making a significant contribution to service innovation literature knowledge. This study incalculably adds to ground-breaking knowledge to the existing body of service innovation literature in emerging countries

Identifying Service Innovation Patterns From The Service-Oriented Perspective

This study aims to identify service innovation patterns in the service industry and understand the main differences among them. By analyzing service innovation patterns based on four major service innovation dimensions (i.e., service concept, service delivery, client interface, and technology), we attempt to create a new typology of service innovation. Based on data collected from 209 Korean firms, we identify four major clusters that clearly exhibit different mixtures of service innovation dimensions with respect to innovation strategies. The following four clusters can be interpreted as specific service innovation patterns: “service delivery-based high-tech,” “client interface and service delivery-integrated,” “client interface-based high-tech,” and “strongly balanced” innovators. We then investigated whether firms pursuing different service innovation patterns are significantly different in their performances. Our findings indicate the superiority of strongly balanced innovators in explaining firm performance