On the Prospective Value of ICTs to New Service Conception

To stay competitive over time, many service providers develop new services continuously through a process comprised of three primary stages: strategic planning, in which a new service objective is articulated; new service conception (i.e., new service development’s ‘front end’); and service system design, development and testing (i.e., its ‘back end’). Of these stages, new service conception has received the least attention from new service development (NSD) and information systems (IS) researchers, particularly with respect to the computer-mediated tools that are used to support it. After reviewing the NSD literature, this paper draws from two reference domains (new product development (NPD) and computerized creativity support (CCS) studies) to demonstrate the prospective value of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to the new service conception process. The paper concludes by introducing a sensitizing model that can be used in an exploratory, foundational study of ICT use in the new service conception process

ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE-INTENSE, PERSONORIENTED SERVICES – A STATE OF THE ART ANALYSIS

This paper provides a state-of-the-art analysis of service engineering (SE) approaches for knowledgeintense person-oriented (KIPO) services, focussing on IT-enabled provision of such services. Key attributes are derived that distinguish KIPOs from other services. These attributes are integrated in a framework with regard to their applicability on KIPOs development and used for a systematic literature review. KIPOs are of high economic relevance, yet they are laggards in terms of realization of IT potentials. As the most value-creating activities in service provision are bound to persons or personal knowledge, KIPOs design is complicated. The analysis reveals several gaps in SE research. In particular, identified shortcomings of existent approaches are an insufficient level of detail, i.e. no concrete actions or methods for deployment are described, a lack of practical corroboration as well as insufficient IT support. Further, current approaches are not sufficiently equipped to handle the interplay between people-bound activities and technical components. This paper contributes to IS research by clearly identifying these gaps in SE methods. It further provides researchers with ideas for future research activities and guides practitioners in selecting methods that serve as candidates to be integrated into KIPOs development in order to leverage IT potentials more systematically and efficiently

A Temporal Model of Mindful Interactions Around New Service Conception

The organizational ability to innovate is widely acknowledged as crucial to sustained success. For libraries and other service providers, innovation entails the continuous development of new services that propose value to customers. This new service development process can be understood as comprising a front end, in which new service ideas are conceived and developed, and a back end, in which selected ideas are implemented. Our understanding of the former - that is, of new service conception in libraries - is particularly underdeveloped. To build a conceptual foundation for research in this area I used qualitative data collection techniques and constant-comparison analysis within the framework of a comparative, embedded case study. Fourteen new service ideas conceived by three case organizations - two public library systems and one library consortium - served as the units of analysis. The model that emerged from the data - a Temporal Model of Mindful Interactions Around New Service Conception - depicts library administrators as active producers of new service concepts. More specifically, the model posits that the innovative library administrator continuously identifies new customer needs and new external solutions through seven types of mindful interactions. At the same time, she tries to match unmet customer needs with potential external solutions in order to produce a new service concept that is ready for implementation. The model extends the concept of individual mindfulness as developed by Weick and Sutcliffe (2006) and Weick and Putnam (2006). In short, it proposes that an individual can concurrently maintain two modes of mindfulness - cognitive-flow mindfulness and content mindfulness - in order to facilitate knowledge creation in the form of a new service concept. More specifically, one can be mindful during an interaction of its potential for engendering novel content (cognitive-flow mindfulness) while keeping in mind certain organizationally-influenced content (content mindfulness). The individual who can concurrently maintain both modes of mindfulness is better able to make novel associations between new information and the content about which she is mindful (e.g., the library\u27s mission and major goals, unmet customer needs, potential external solutions). While the data behind the model suggest that mindfulness can be maintained by admini-strators in smaller, more resource-challenged libraries, and in libraries with non-consolidated organizational structures, the data also reveal that the new service concepts produced by these administrators were yielded only after an external funding source was obtained. For these libraries, developing and delivering new services without grant monies, or without a mechanism within the service for generating revenue, may not be feasible. This does not mean that the administrators of these libraries should stop trying to innovate, or should stop being mindful of new service possibilities, but rather that (1) they must be mindful, perhaps to a greater degree than their counterparts at better-funded libraries, of an interaction\u27s potential for engendering an external funding source, and (2) they may not be able to devote as much time to identifying new customer needs and potential external solutions. Instead, they may need to devote much of their time to addressing ongoing financial challenges

Innovation industrienaher Dienstleistungen : eine fallstudienbasierte Analyse dynamischer Fähigkeiten und des unterstützenden IT-Einsatzes

The thesis deals with the innovation of industrial services. Starting from the dynamic capability view, the innovation of services is understood as a dynamic capability, which enables companies to sense opportunities and threats in the market, seize them and finally transform their resource base accordingly. The aim of this research is the empirical description of the innovation of industrial services, from which the contextualized characteristics, the roots of dynamic capabilities as well as the role of IT are derived. For this purpose, the dynamic capabilities are investigated in comparative case studies at the level of microfoundations. The focus is particularly on structures, processes, procedures and systems as well as on individuals underlying the dynamic capabilities. This research provides an overview of concrete innovation practices, causal factors for different characteristics of dynamic capabilities, and insights into the role and function of IT in service innovation

Innovation industrienaher Dienstleistungen : eine fallstudienbasierte Analyse dynamischer Fähigkeiten und des unterstützenden IT-Einsatzes

The thesis deals with the innovation of industrial services. Starting from the dynamic capability view, the innovation of services is understood as a dynamic capability, which enables companies to sense opportunities and threats in the market, seize them and finally transform their resource base accordingly. The aim of this research is the empirical description of the innovation of industrial services, from which the contextualized characteristics, the roots of dynamic capabilities as well as the role of IT are derived. For this purpose, the dynamic capabilities are investigated in comparative case studies at the level of microfoundations. The focus is particularly on structures, processes, procedures and systems as well as on individuals underlying the dynamic capabilities. This research provides an overview of concrete innovation practices, causal factors for different characteristics of dynamic capabilities, and insights into the role and function of IT in service innovation