Understanding social innovation in services industries

This paper puts forward a framework for understanding the relationship between service industries and social innovation. These are two, previously disconnected research areas. The paper explores ways in which innovation in services is increasingly becoming one of social innovation (in terms of social goals, social means, social roles and multi-agent provision) and how social innovation can be understood from a service innovation perspective. A taxonomy is proposed based on the mix between innovation nature and the locus of co-production. The paper additionally puts forward a theoretical framework for understanding social innovation in services, where the co-creation of innovation is the result of an interaction of competences and preferences of multiple providers, users/citizens, and policy makers. This provides the basis for a discussion of key avenues for future research in theory, measurement, organisation, appropriation, performance measurement, and public policy

Examining the impact of digital technologies on students’ Higher Education outcomes:The case of the Virtual Learning Environment and social media

Digital natives is a term used to describe current higher education (HE) students, whose lives are proliferated by digital technologies. To cater to the needs of this new generation of students, HE institutions increasingly adopt digital tools such as virtual learning environments (VLE) and social media (SM). Little is known, however, about the impact of these digital technologies on students’ HE outcomes. Drawing from service productivity theories, this study aims to address this gap. Through exploratory sequential mixed research methods, we identify five HE outcomes and reveal that Learning-Oriented Outcomes are the most important in HE even when digital technologies are not used; and these outcomes are further enhanced when students use VLE. Learning-Oriented Outcomes, however, are the least important when SM is used in HE; students tend to prioritise outcomes related to Knowledge Transfer instead. Our research findings derive theoretical and practical contributions and open up avenues for future research

An Integrative Design Framework for New Service Development

Service innovation is focused on customer value creation. At its core, customer-centric service innovation in an increasingly digital world is technology-enabled, human-centered, and process-oriented. This requires a cross-disciplinary, holistic approach to new service design and development (NSD). This paper proposes a new service strategy-aligned integrative design framework for NSD. It correlates the underlying theories and principles of disparate but interrelated aspects of service design thinking: service strategy, concept, design, experience and architecture into a coherent framework for NSD, consistent with the service brand value. Application of the framework to NSD is envisioned to be iterative and holistic, accentuated on continuous organizational and customer learning. The preliminary framework's efficacy is illustrated using a simplified telecom case example. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

The normative implications for labour policies

International audienceChapter 3 permitted validating the behaviour of the labour movement which sought, by way of offensive strikes during the growth phases of the Juglar cycle, to reduce working time in order to increase wages and thus make this cycle more regular. This chapter also allowed interpreting the observation made by historians that during the growth phases of this cycle, the profits of companies increased faster than wages, whereas the contrary occurred during recession phases. We showed that the origin of these facts lies in the asymmetry of power predominating in the labour market between employers and employees. In a context of technical progress, employers can influence the volume of work supplied by employees to such an extent that gains in productivity and the rise in added value generated during growth phases benefit the income gleaned from capital more than that earned from work. After several years, this growth results in a crisis of overinvestment and overproduction

L'émergence d'un modèle de service : enjeux et réalités

Ce livre propose un ensemble d'approches économiques et sociologiques du développement des services et du service dans la société actuelle. La différence entre « services » et « service » ne réside pas dans les thèmes abordés – la définition du produit et de la valeur, l'évaluation des performances, la compétence professionnelle, le rapport aux clients, la relation de l'organisation des entreprises à la mobilité des usages – mais bien dans la manière de les appréhender. En fin de compte, quelles sont les caractéristiques distinctives des entreprises de service et les problèmes qu'elles doivent affronter