A Service Science Perspective on the Role of ICT in Service Innovation

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is often considered the main enabler of service innovation. The unique role of ICT in service innovation, however, is not fully understood and advancing knowledge in this area emerged as the top research priority in the fields of service science and information systems research. To date, substantial insights regarding the role of ICT in service innovation are not available, and new theoretical lenses and perspectives are needed to develop these. In this conceptual paper, we define service innovation as service system reconfiguration, which allows us to classify the role of ICT in this process more succinctly and ultimately overcome the shortcomings in the existing body of literature. Specifically, we deconstruct and extend previous views of ICT as a “black box” in service innovation research, and focus on the actual innovation process and its mechanisms. We define and delineate these as resource shifting and resource access, explain the role of ICTs in each, and outline further research opportunities that result from these new insights.