Much of the strategic innovation in service industries can be understood in the context of the shifting boundaries between companies and between firms and their customers. We identify three phases of innovation in modern service industries. All three enabled and triggered by advancements in information technology. The current phase of Service Innovation 3.0 is characterized by open networks between firms and between firms and customers. The paper ends by highlighting a number of dilemmas linked to the challenges of managing service innovation successfully in a world of shifting boundaries and exploding service systems.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.