Service Innovation Strategies: Universalistic, Contingency, And Configurational Explanations Of Firm Performance

The field of service innovation strategy has been criticized for its lack of a solid theoretical foundation. To address this issue, we investigate a configuration approach with the prevailing universalistic or contingency perspectives in exploring the effects of service innovation strategies on firm performance. Based on a service-oriented view, we begin by identifying three service innovation strategies: service creation-focused, service delivery-focused, and client interface-focused strategies. This study first aims to identify the relationship between different service innovation strategies and firm performance from a universalistic perspective. We then develop a contingency model of service innovation strategies, indicating that the effectiveness of service innovation strategies is dependent on internal and external contextual conditions, such as environmental innovation intensity and organizational information technology capabilities. Finally, we explore the synergistic effect among service innovation strategies. Based on data from 209 service firms in South Korea, we plan to test each perspective to explore the relationship between service innovation strategies and firm performance. We will also compare the configurational approach with the universalistic and contingency perspectives in explaining the effects of service innovation strategies on different firm performances. Our expectation from the analysis is that each perspective can be used to create theoretical arguments that explain significantly different firm performances.