Innovation in Service Organizations : The development of a suitable innovation measurement system

Sammanfattning: Innovation in services has arisen to be a hot topic of today and being innovative serve as a key in staying competitive in most business settings, the service sector is no exception.Although important, service innovation is difficult to measure and the service perspective has been noticeably absent in traditional approaches where innovation measurement has tended to focus mainly on products and production related systems. These measurement indicators fail to capture the diversity and intricacy of innovation processes emerging in service firms, where innovation rarely requires R&D. Until now, a coherent instrument or tool for measuring innovation in a service company has not existed resulting in that research studies on service innovation lag behind those of product innovation. The need for an innovation measurement instrument is obvious as it would not only assist companies in understanding their current innovation practices or capabilities, but would also help clarify what the organization need to focus on to maximize its success. With basis in aforementioned, this study sets out to extend the knowledge regarding factors affecting innovation within the service sector. As a result, a developed and tested questionnaire, suitable for measuring innovation within a service firm is provided and a managerial and theoretical contribution has been made.