Identifying Service Innovation Patterns From The Service-Oriented Perspective

This study aims to identify service innovation patterns in the service industry and understand the main differences among them. By analyzing service innovation patterns based on four major service innovation dimensions (i.e., service concept, service delivery, client interface, and technology), we attempt to create a new typology of service innovation. Based on data collected from 209 Korean firms, we identify four major clusters that clearly exhibit different mixtures of service innovation dimensions with respect to innovation strategies. The following four clusters can be interpreted as specific service innovation patterns: “service delivery-based high-tech,” “client interface and service delivery-integrated,” “client interface-based high-tech,” and “strongly balanced” innovators. We then investigated whether firms pursuing different service innovation patterns are significantly different in their performances. Our findings indicate the superiority of strongly balanced innovators in explaining firm performance.