People and Social Interaction: Drivers of Service Innovation

Building an understanding of service innovation and how to foster it continues to be an important topic to academics and practitioners alike. This chapter examines service innovation from the vantage point of the service team. We introduce a research framework utilizing digital trace data from service team interaction and activity system analysis. An example research scenario illustrates the application of the research framework using email, meeting transcripts, and system application logs to work towards a broad and more real-time perspective of team interaction to identify innovation. We note that changes in the ebb-and-flow of service team activity and the appearance of unique signals may be a starting point. The challenge is to determine which metrics in the analyses are representative of innovation and how to automate the aggregated view to create a timeline of activity that will identify the emergence and impact of innovation. Future research opportunities include automated activity system analysis, the development and validation of metrics to measure service innovation, and the incorporation of an economic perspective.