Abstract
Purpose – Innovation in services continues to be recognised as a mean of retaining a competitive advantage whilst the role of service employees in initiating innovation is increasingly signified in terms of enhancing customers’ perceptions of quality and also suggesting ideas that can lead to innovations (Rubalcaba et al., 2012). The input of service employees into the innovation process is perceived inconsistently in the literature, reflecting a lack of theoretical uniformity to determine employee-driven service innovation. An emerging line of research, however, focused on employees’ role in service encounter-based innovation (i.e. Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009; Sundbo and Toivonen, 2011); the service encounter-based innovation conception was originally derived from the user-driven innovation theme in the innovation management literature and emerged as a contemporary research line in the service innovation literature. Service encounter-based innovation denotes service innovation as developing from ideas, knowledge or practices derived from frontline service employees’ meetings with users during the service delivery process (Sørensen and Jensen, 2012).
Respectively, this paper intends to investigate further the role of employees in initiating service encounter-based innovation through the lens of innovative behaviour proposition. By doing so, this paper also aims to compare and contrast the research findings with the theoretical framework of (Sørensen et al., 2013) that determined an integrative relationship between practice-based and management directed innovation.
Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative case-study research strategy, which compared between two case studies of personal-interactive service companies, was applied to achieve the objectives of the study. The application of qualitative case-study research allowed closer assessment and observation while the researcher was directly present within the service delivery environment. The combining of qualitative research methods, such as semi-structured interviews, review of archival records and direct observation, was applied to congregate evidence of employees’ innovative behaviour patterns from multiple perspectives.
Originality/value – This paper adds further insight by verifying the nature of service employees’ innovative behaviour and its contribution in initiating service innovation. The findings also identify the influence of contextual determinants in nurturing or inhibiting service employees’ innovative behaviour.
Practical implications – Practical implications and recommendations for management to nurture service employees’ innovative behaviour are presented based on the study findings. The practical recommendations provide managers working within personal-interactive service companies with sensible measures to nurture innovative behaviour among employees.
Keywords – Service Encounter-Based Innovation, Service Employees’ Innovative Behaviour, Creativity, Formal and Informal Innovative Behaviour.