Re-thinking the title (2) Themes (1)

I have been looking into the field of service innovation recently and reading some papers on this. Here is a definition of Service Innovation from Finland’s research agency, TEKES.

Service innovation is a new or significantly improved service concept that is taken into practice. It can be for example a new customer interaction channel, a distribution system or a technological concept or a combination of them. A service innovation always includes replicable elements that can be identified and systematically reproduced in other cases or environments. The replicable element can be the service outcome or the service process as such or a part of them. A service innovation benefits both the service producer and customers and it improves its developer’s competitive edge. A service innovation is a service product or service process that is based on some technology or systematic method. In services however, the innovation does not necessarily relate to the novelty of the technology itself but the innovation often lies in the non-technological areas. Service innovations can for instance be new solutions in the customer interface, new distribution methods, novel application of technology in the service process, new forms of operation with the supply chain or new ways to organize and manage services.

After reading the paper Innovation, Network Services and the Restructuring of Work Organisation in Customer Services by Matias Ramirez (2004) I have changed the title of my thesis to:

An investigation into the impact of customer support teams on the diffusion of service innovations: An Actor-Network Approach.

The central themes of the thesis being:

The impact of:

  • methods of diffusion of service innovations in an organisation;
  • organizational culture on the adoption of service innovations;
  • job description design (Enforceability Criteria: Task Centered or Function Centered) and service re-organisations on the diffusion of service innovations;
  • communication methods on the how well service innovations are adopted and accepted;
  • management techniques and philosophy on how well service innovations are implemented;

There are also themes around:

  • employee discretion to take decisions, try new work methods and to introduce innovations (Function Centered);
  • re-structuring and the effect on staff, customers, services and service innovation within the organization.

Possible useful resource http://www.service-innovation.org/

 

 

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