Analyzing Sustainable New Service Development: An Activity Theory Perspective

Abstract

New service development (NSD) is the process of creating new services to fulfill target customers' needs. The optimal goal of an NSD project is to sustain the developed service. However, from the perspective of project management, how an NSD project team cooperates across organizational boundaries and various disciplines to achieve the sustainability of the new service is essential to the return on investment. This study adopted activity theory to model the actions taken by different entities in a mobile healthcare service project using WiMax technology, in which we identified important factors affecting the sustainability of an NSD project. Based on the findings from the case study, this study suggests several key success factors for developing a sustainable new service.