Service innovation: organizational routines, technology and change processes

Abstract

This dissertation aims at contributing to knowledge and theory about innovation and change processes in service organizations. It contains three essays, one theoretical and two empirical. The field research consists of a longitudinal case study of a major fleet management company and employs inductive analysis of qualitative data. The first essay provides the theoretical foundations for a processual theory of service innovation drawing on the concept of organizational routine and adopting a structuration and practice-based perspective. The second essay uses qualitative data analysis to trace the co-evolutionary changes that relate the traditional service delivery system dimensions with (inter-)organizational routines as they develop during the innovation process and, inductively, contributes to identify mechanisms underlying replicability and discontinuity in service innovation outputs. The third essay examines how path-dependence simultaneously unfolds over time at the level of technology and organizational routines as service innovation is triggered by deliberate interventions established by management. Empirical findings contributes to our understanding about how self-reinforcing mechanisms shape organizational adaptation capability over time. [edited by author]