The genealogy of service innovation: the research field tells its own story

Abstract

This paper examines the development of service innovation as a research field since the publication of Richard Barras’ seminal paper ‘Towards a Theory of Innovation in Services’ in 1986. It presents an exhaustive literature review of 31 years of research on service innovation. It offers some cross-sectorial perspectives on twelve key themes emerging from the literature, and on the broader research landscape and trajectories. Researchers, technologists and policy makers in the field of service innovation face issues arising from theories borrowed from economics since the 1980s and evolving through operationalization of its core themes over the last 20 years. After a description of the field, theoretical underpinnings of the field drawn from organization and management theory are discussed. The field has reached a stage where it can provide theoretical knowledge beyond the scope of the original service innovation theory, such as social innovations. A research agenda is suggested in both theoretical and thematic perspectives.