Variety is the Spice of Innovation: Mediating Factors in the Service Idea Generation Process

Abstract

To create a breakthrough service innovation, firms need to go beyond current customers' needs and tap into the needs of the future market. As marketing theory favours customer-centric approaches, customer-led ideation and co-creation of innovation seem natural candidates for extracting the 'sticky' information nested in some of the most innovative customers' minds. Grounded in the service innovation literature, this paper extracts innovative service ideas from ordinary users (n = 388) in three different service domains and seeks to identify the salient characteristics of the most innovative customers. Past research shows that innovative users are more likely to be service defectors, frequently switching from firm to firm, and motivated by their predisposition to seek variety. Using a structural modelling strategy, variety seeking is tested as a mediating factor between the subjective knowledge level and the presence of high level unmet needs leading to the generation of innovative service ideas. The results show that variety seeking fully mediates the relationship between subjective knowledge and unmet needs. Several interpretations of the role of variety seeking on customers' behaviour are explored within the context of capturing innovative service ideas.

Identification of Lead User Characteristics Driving the Quality of Service Innovation Ideas

“…With regard to lead users facing needs that will become general in the marketplace, lead users also show characteristics of experts in their respective field (e.g., Hienerth & Lettl, 2011). Their expertise is a combination of use experience and consumer knowledge (e.g., Bilgram, Brem & Voigt, 2008;Schreier & Prügl, 2008;Duverger, 2012). Magnusson (2009) emphasized that use experience and consumer knowledge are important to develop successful applications.…”

“…In general, to continually develop successful service innovations is critical for companies' long-term success (Tether, 2003;Duverger, 2012). Research indicates that creative ideas provide the seed for successful service innovations (Magnusson, 2009;Björk, Boccardelli & Magnusson, 2010).…”

User‐Centric Service Map for Identifying New Service Opportunities from Potential Needs: A Case of App Store Applications

“…Service innovation is widely recognized as a fundamental driver for success in long‐term businesses. The role of new service development (NSD) in creating continuous value is becoming an increasingly important concern along with new product development (Menor, Tatikonda & Sampson, ; Duverger, ). Among the various phases of NSD, the initiation or ‘front‐end’ stage – ideation and concept development – has been recognized as the most critical, as its outcome will have significant influence on future company competitiveness and financial performance (Johne & Storey, ; Alam & Perry, ).…”

Product Ideation by Persons with Disabilities

“…By extension, they seem to be dissatisfied with current products. As a result, several authors have proposed that product dissatisfaction can be associated with user innovators [7,17,23,45,54]. Given this, we propose H1:…”

“…As noted by Riemer-Reiss and Wacker [50], one reason for such high rates of abandonment may be limited consumer involvement. Literature on user driven innovation would suggest that such high product dissatisfaction may be associated with users producing their own innovations [7,17,45,54]. Given that consumers are playing an increasingly important role in product innovation [6], it is also important to understand which users may be valuable innovators.…”