Patterns and practices of innovation in Norwegian service firms

Abstract

This report documents the studies conducted in workpackages 2 and 4 in the SNF-project “MISSING: Measuring innovation in service systems – indicators on new grounds”. It first presents the resource-process-system framework applied in the studies and also summarizes some of the relevant findings and gaps in the innovation studies and innovation management literatures on service innovation. Two empirical studies are reported. The first is founded in the innovation studies literature on innovation patterns but extends this tradition into the investigation of the performance effects of innovation patterns with particular focus on service sectors/systems. The study finds several unique innovation patterns of individual service sectors/systems and reveals the relationship between these patterns and three types of firm performance effects. The second study is founded in the innovation management literature on innovation practices and extends this literature by linking its selection of individual firms to service classification schemes offered in the innovation studies literature. The study finds more similarities between the innovation practices of service firms in different sectors/systems than differences. The report ends with summarizing the findings across the two studies and suggests managerial and policy implications of the findings.