Innovations in Service Companies

Abstract Service innovation has until recently been a relatively neglected area of research, despite the importance of the service sector‐to‐developed economies. Alternative perspectives of innovation within the service sector argue that it is: (i) driven largely by technology from outside the sector; (ii) distinct from product innovation; (iii) increasingly intertwined with product innovation; or (iv) highly varied across the sector. The new service development (NSD) process within service organizations has long been shown to be less formalised, more dynamic, and more adhoc, than that for new products, with innovation often emerging out of service practice. However, ‘service engineering’ or ‘service design’ within operations management are emerging attempts to formalize this process.