Pierre-Jean Barlatier and Eleni Giannopoulou

1. IESS 1.1
Second International Conference on Exploring Services Sciences
Geneva, 16-18 February 2011
The Dual Perspective of Sustainable Development in
Service Innovation: a Conceptual Model Proposition
for Research and Technology Organizations (RTOs)
Pierre-Jean Barlatier and Eleni Giannopoulou

2. Background-Introduction
➤ Our purpose and theoretical contribution
➤ Propose a model of the complete image of sustainability in service innovation
➤ Why is this important?
➤ Innovation in Services
● rising topic of discussion among researchers and practitioners
● raises issues of sustainability
➤ Sustainable Innovation in Services has two aspects:
● Sustainable/responsible innovation (environmental, economical
and social constraints)
● Sustainable/continuous innovation
➤ BUT what about the current Research Frontier?
● Literature has been concentrated on one or the other aspect
● The combination is a more complete illustration of the concept
➤ Our Research Context: RTOs (higher responsibility and sensitivity
towards both aspects of sustainability)
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3. A sneak-peak into the rest of the
presentation
➤ Theoretical Elements
➤ The New Service Development (NSD) process
➤ Service Innovation through the Resource Based View (RBV) lens
● Resources Combination and Resulting Capabilities
➤ The RTO’s assets
● The Resource Base
● The Experience Base
● The Service Portfolio
➤ The two aspects of sustainability in Service Innovation (Strategy concern)
● Sustainable/Continuous Innovation: Issues of Governance
● Sustainable/Responsible Innovation: Environemental, Economical and
Social Responsibility
➤ The Model
➤ By Way of Discussion: A glance into existing models
➤ Conclusions
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4. The New Service Development
(NSD) Process
Defining the NSD process is essential
➤ Various models:
➤ NPD models (Booz, Allen and Hamilton (BAH) model (1982),
Kline and Rosenberg (1986))
➤ NSD models
● Linear (Shostack (1984), Scheuing and Johnson (1989), Edgett and
Jones (1991))
● Iterative (Tax and Stuart (1997), De Jong et al. (2003), Johnson et
al., Zhou and Wei (2010))
➤ Iterative models illustrate better the NSD (control and
flexibility)
➤ Including customers in NSD process (benefits and
challenges)
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5. The NSD through the Resource
Based View (RBV) Lens
Resource Based View (Penrose, 1959): Competitive
advantage comes from a bundle of resources which are rare,
valuable, imitable and without equivalent substitute
➤ Resources need to be managed effectively in order to create
organizational capabilities that support the NSD process
➤ The capability to combine and deploy organizational resources is
essential
➤ For innovative organizations (like RTOs) the aim is to develop
innovation capabilities by deploying all their available resources
➤ Challenges arise: core capabilities should not become core
rigidities (« dynamization » practices)
➤ The RTO needs to be aware of its assets in order to fully
deploy and leverage them
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6. The RTO’s Assets for Service
Innovation
Three interconnected assets:
➤ Resource Base
➤ The Importance of Human Skills
➤ The Role of Organizational Structure
➤ Information Technologies (IT) as NSD Enabler
➤ Relational Competencies
➤ The Experience Base
➤ Repository of experiences and practices in Service Development
➤ Tacit (Know-how), Explicit (Knowledge Management Systems)
➤ The Service Portfolio
➤ Capitalization of previous experiences
Resource Base
Capitalization
Human Skills Experience Base
Organizational Structures Service
Repository of
Information Technologies Experiences and Practices in Portfolio
Relational Competencies Service Development
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7. The Sustainable Development of
Innovation in Services
Reminding the two aspects:
➤ Sustainable/Continuous Innovation
Governance of Resources and Capabilities for the Sustainability of
the Innovation Process
➤ Sustainable/Responsible Innovation
Environmental, Economical and Social Responsibility in Service
Innovation
It is a strategic concern to take care of both aspects
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8. Sustainable/Continuous Innovation:
Issues of Governance (1)
Structuring service innovation
The Diamond Model
by Hallenga-Brink and Brezet (2005)
➤ The Sustainable Service Innovation
Framework
by Absil, Dubois, Grein, Michel and Rousseau (2008)
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9. Sustainable/Continuous Innovation:
Issues of Governance (2)
➤ Merely structuring the innovation process is not enough
Need for an overall governance of resources and
capabilities towards sustainability
➤ Lack of such effective practices, however:
➤ Two monitoring systems (Leitner, 2005)
● Benefit: RTO learn about their knowledge production systems
➤ Managerial guidance rather than monitoring
➤ Innovation and creativity culture
➤ Leadership
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10. Sustainable/Responsible Innovation:
Environmental, Economical and
Social Responsibility
Sustainable innovation constitutes a challenge
➤ RTOs due to their interrelation with academia,
industry and government:
➤ Have increased responsibility towards society
BUT also
➤ Can influence and shape innovation systems
➤ Can assist in the development of a sustainable innovation
policy
➤ Can bridge the sustainability incentives gap between industry
and government
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11. The Model
Customers
Customers
collaboration
New Service Development Process
Combination
Capabilities
Monitoring and leveraging
Resource Base
Human Skills Organizational Assets for
Experience Base
Capitalization
Org. Processes & Structures
Information Technologies
Service Repository of in Service
Innovation
Experiences and Practices
Service
Portfolio
Relational Competencies Development
Resources and Practices Governance
Sustainable Development of Innovation in
Services
co-evolution
External Environment
Government, Industry, Academia
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12. A Glance at Existing Models
➤ Implications for the traditional sustainability in the innovation
process (integrated strategy towards sustainability)
➤ Local references to sustainability (NSD process or culture)
➤ Noteworthy models:
➤ Brezet et al. (2001): a development process taking into account
environmental issues at every step
➤ Flores et al. (2010): Four enablers to sustainable innovation;
mass customization, value network, sustainable development
and the complete product or service lifecycle
➤ Sustainable adaptation of the Diamond Model (Brezet et al.).
➤ However none of these models captures both
internal and external aspects of sustainability
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13. Conclusions – Further Research
➤ Theoretical Contribution on the sustainable
development of service innovation
➤ Two aspects of sustainability:
● Sustainable/Continuous Service Innovation
● Sustainable/Responsible Service Innovation
➤ Internal and External factors for service innovation
➤ Practical contributions
➤ From the qualitative, multiple case studies of European RTOs
➤ Expected benefits
➤ Validate and refine the model
➤ Valuable insights of sustainable service innovation current practices
within RTOs
➤ Results maybe a source of inspiration for RTOs and other knowledge
intensive organizations
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14. Thank you
Comments and Questions?
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