Continuous innovation is a prerequisite for firms to stay competitive. While innovation in manufacturing or agriculture can build on a considerable body of research, experience and best practices, innovation in services has not reached the same level of maturity.

This course takes a close look at the topic of service innovation. We will lay the foundations with an initial overview of service innovation including the basic concepts, challenges and innovation processes. We will compare product and service innovation and understand how innovation diffusion works.

The second part focuses on applicable methods and tools for service innovation: we will cover possible sources of innovations, ways to identify opportunities for innovations and the potential of service innovations built on data. For example, open and closed innovation approaches will be contrasted, the benefits of leveraging user communities to drive innovation will be explored and the human-centric innovation approach (Service) Design Thinking will be introduced. We will also look into the opportunities that technology offers for service innovation.

The last part of the lecture covers the management of service innovation and insights from practice. You will understand obstacles and enablers, and learn how to manage, incentivize and foster service innovation.

• Cardoso, J., Fromm, H., Nickel, S., Satzger, G., Studer, R., & Weinhardt, C. (Eds.) (2015). Fundamentals of service systems (Vol. 12). Heidelberg: Springer.

• Lusch, R. F., & Nambisan, S. (2015). Service innovation: A service-dominant logic perspective. MIS quarterly, 39(1), 155-175.

• Christensen, C. M. (2013). The Innovator’s Dilemma - when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press.

• Rogers, S. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations. 5. ed. New York: Free Press.

• Vargo, S. L., Akaka, M. A., and Wieland, H. (2020). Rethinking the Process of Diffusion in Innovation: A Service-Ecosystems and Institutional Perspective, Journal of Business Research, 116(1), 526–534.

• Chesbrough, H. (2011). Open services innovation: Rethinking your business to grow and compete in a new era. John Wiley & Sons.

• Uebernickel, F., Brenner, W., Pukall, B., Naef, T., & Schindlholzer, B. (2015). Design Thinking: Das Handbuch. Frankfurt am Main: Frankfurter Allgemeine Buch.

• Runco, M. A. (2014). Creativity: Theories and Themes: Research, Development, and Practice (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Academic Press.

• Stryja, C., Satzger, G. (2018). Digital nudging to overcome cognitive resistance in innovation adoption decisions. Service Industries Journal, 1-17.

• Satzger, G., Benz, C.,  Böhmann, T., Roth, A. (2022). Servitization and Digitalization as Siamese Twins – Concepts and Research Agenda. To appear in: Edvardsson/Tronvoll (eds.): Handbook of Service Management.