Service regime and patters of innovation in services

Abstract

This paper develops a concept of service regime that governs patterns of innovation in services. Based on a synthesis approach, a service regime composed of four dimensions and ten elements is proposed. A dataset of 311 service firms in Taiwan was collected through a postal questionnaire survey. Principal component analysis and cluster analysis reveal a new innovation taxonomy of four service clusters: innovation laggards, process-organizational centric innovators, product-business model centric innovators, and customer involvement centric innovators. We conclude that these four service innovation clusters are service regime-specific, but less sector-specific. The service regime provides deeper insights for managing service firms and theoretical implications for managing innovation in services.