Covid-19 and Instagram: Digital Service Innovation in Top Restaurants

Governments across the world have imposed strict rules on social distancing to curb the spread of Covid-19. In particular, restaurants have been impacted by government-mandated lockdowns. This study adopts a mixed methods approach to explore how Finnish high-profile restaurants used Instagram as a means for service innovation and diffusion during nine weeks of government-mandated lockdown. Comparatively analysing 1,119 Instagram posts across two time-stamps (2019 and 2020) and across 45 restaurants, as well as conducting five semi-structured interviews with restaurant managers, it is found that while the overall number of Instagram posts and likes on posts stayed relatively similar to the year prior, the number of comments increased significantly, suggesting a move towards a more didactic and dyadic form of Instagram communication. In addition, four digital service innovation strategies are identified: launching new service offerings and introducing new elements to existing service offerings, fostering social relationship with customers, exploring novel streams of revenue, and reinvigorating the brand’s image. Implications to service innovation theory and practice are discussed, along with suggestions for future research

Decision conferencing for science prioritisation in the UK public sector: a dual case study

Decision Conferencing, a decision analytic approach, was introduced for science project prioritisation in two organisations of the UK public sector: the National Measurement System Programmes, Unit of the Department of Trade and Industry (now part of the National Measurement Office, an Executive Agency of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) and the Science Department of the Environment Agency of England and Wales. Despite some similarities between the organisations, they responded in quite different ways. We describe the organisational contexts in the two organisations, the process by which Decision Conferencing was introduced, and explore possible reasons for the differing experiences