Abstract
This article advances a conceptualization of service innovation as socially constructed through resource integration and sensemaking. By developing this view, the current study goes beyond an outcome perspective, to include the collective nature of service innovation and the role of the social context in affecting the service innovation process. Actors enact and perform service innovation through two approaches, one that is more concerted and another that emerges in some way. Each approach is characterized by distinct resource integration processes, in which the boundary objects (artifacts, discourses, and places) play specific roles. They act as bridge-makers that connect actors, thereby fostering resource integration and shared meanings.
Introduction
Despite a vastly expanded stream of research focused on service innovation (Carlborg et al., 2014; Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011; Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009), the very conceptualization of this phenomenon remains vague, marked by various definitions, such that “no common understanding exists regarding its meaning” (Witell et al., 2016: 2863). Theory remains nascent, especially with regard to how service innovation develops. In efforts to build this theory, some scholars frame service innovation as a value-enabling process (Lusch and Vargo, 2014; Mele et al., 2014), in which actors pursue more effective value propositions in association with beneficiaries’ resource-integrating and value-creating practices. In this view, innovation is not a linear sequence of planned stages (Cooper, 2008) but rather proceeds through the efforts of diverse stakeholders around a shared goal with opportunities for wider value co-creation (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014). The collective focus thus shifts from the attributes of new products/services toward the application of competences, through resource integration, as a fundamental way to innovate (Lusch and Vargo, 2014; Mele et al., 2014).
Framing service innovation as a process of resource integration and value co-creation within a multi-stakeholder system (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014) in turn requires integrating the views and coordinating activities of various participants (Edvardsson et al., 2014; Lusch and Vargo, 2014). The heterogeneity of the actors and contexts involved in service innovation implies the importance of the social dimension; however, it has not been analyzed sufficiently (McPhee et al., 2014), leaving open the need “to understand the role of social context in which service innovation takes place, in terms of the social structures and actors’ abilities to acquire, integrate, and use the available structures” (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013: 22).
Regarding innovation as a collective, social endeavor also implies widening analytical perspectives to include sociological and anthropological theories that might offer a more comprehensive sense of service innovation (Rubalcaba et al., 2012). For example, social construction theory issues an “invitation to engage in reflexive inquiry about the lived world” (Gergen, 1999: 115), which might help clarify social reality and thus service systems. In particular, a social construction approach sheds light on how actors collectively create and reproduce social situations and structures, as well as the process by which they subjectively and intersubjectively explain the world in which they live (Berger and Luckmann, 1967; Giddens, 1984; Löbler, 2013). We therefore adopt a social construction lens to investigate the social processes, discourses, and artifacts that lead to service innovation; we focus on resource integration processes and their coordination. To pursue this aim, we adopt a narrative approach and investigate nine case studies pertaining to food domains in dynamic settings characterized by key transformations (Ashley et al., 2004; Counihan and Van Esterik, 2012). In particular, food functions as a social discourse and a social practice (Domaneschi, 2012; Halkier and Jensen, 2011), consistent with our social construction lens.
With this approach, this article advances a conceptualization of service innovation as socially constructed through resource integration and sensemaking. We delineate the process of integrating resources, enabled by the process of interpretation and meaning construction. In these construction processes, boundary objects (i.e. discourses, artifacts, and places) emerge as bridge-makers that connect actors, thereby fostering integration and sensemaking. We start by reviewing literature on innovation, according to a service perspective, then consider how to apply a social construction perspective to innovation. After detailing our research method and the resulting findings, we conclude by outlining our theoretical contributions and the implications for research and practice.
Literature review
Service innovation and resource integration
Recent studies seek to frame service innovation, according to its development, the outcome of its process, its implementation in practice, or its use (Kindström et al., 2013; Sebastiani and Paiola, 2010; Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009). This process view is critical because “knowledge of the ‘crafting of innovations’ is essential, both for theory building and practitioners” (Witell et al., 2016: 2865). According to a process-based approach, service innovation is not an outcome but rather reflects the means by which multiple actors interact and collaborate (Lusch and Nambisan, 2015). Single actors lack the full set of competencies required to innovate (Lusch and Vargo, 2014), so collaboration is key.
Replacing a traditional understanding of innovation, in which the supplier is the innovator and the customer is the recipient of innovation, in the process view, actors become real co-innovators who exchange and integrate resources to co-create value (Colurcio et al., 2017; Mele et al., 2014). Resource integration is not a unidirectional process from customer to company but rather is multidirectional; that is, a linear and sequential model gets replaced by an open model of collaboration, in which each innovation phase constitutes a process for discovering new ways to co-create value through more effective resource integration, with a many-to-many perspective (Lusch and Nambisan, 2015; Mele et al., 2010). The value co-creating potential of an actor resides in its capability to match its resources and competencies with those of other actors, to position itself in a broader context, and to contribute to the evolution of the service ecosystem (Gummesson and Mele, 2010).
Peters (2016) cites the dual nature of resource integration, based on either emergent (i.e. heteropathic) or summative (i.e. homopathic) relations. In the former, emergent properties are new, novel (i.e. have not occurred before), and unpredictable. In the latter, the summative effects are predictable and reducible to their components. These resources differ in quality or quantity and thus require complementarities or redundancy (Gummesson and Mele, 2010). Yet, it remains unclear how and why actors interact in a systemic context (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013; Mele et al., 2017), as well as how resources become integrated (Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2012; Peters et al., 2014).
By moving beyond a strict process view, a practice-based approach offers several advantages (Gherardi, 2015; Russo-Spena and Mele, 2012). It acknowledges that service innovation takes place within a service ecosystem, in which actors develop new practices that in turn enable new benefits to emerge (Russo-Spena et al., 2017). Service innovation thus entails “the creation of new value propositions by means of developing existing or creating new practices and/or resources, or by means of integrating practices and resources in new ways.” (Skålén et al., 2015: 137). By applying practical accomplishment as a criterion, scholars also advocate studying innovation in the making (Mele et al., 2017). This conceptualization is not limited to an economic stance but rather emphasizes the social–contextual nature of innovating, such that resources are activated by establishing relationships and giving them specific form within a situated practice. These theoretical advances require an interdisciplinary perspective and new vocabulary to describe the social, contextual, and cultural contexts that surround resource integration and service innovation (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013; Mele et al., 2017; Rubalcaba et al., 2012).
Social constructionist view of service innovation
The notion of a social construction stems from an epistemological, theoretical approach that analyzes phenomena in social contexts (Burr, 2003). Instead of seeing reality as a given, external object to be discovered, social construction understands the ways in which individuals and groups participate in the creation of a perceived social reality, by engaging in interactions and social practices. The emphasis is on processes rather than outcomes (Burr, 2003). People construct a common, shared reality (Luckmann and Berger, 1991), and their sense-giving and sensemaking generate understanding of how social actors shape a meaningful social world (Giddens, 1984).
Marketing scholars increasingly present resource integration and innovation as socially constructed phenomena (Colurcio et al., 2012; Mele et al., 2017; Peters et al., 2014). With their socio-cognitive perspective, Rosa et al. (1999: 64) describe market offerings as “socially constructed knowledge structures that are shared among producers and consumers.” Jamison et al. (2011: 22) also highlight that innovation can be framed as a storyline, emphasizing the social rather than the economic process, in which “story tellers employ a language or vocabulary of sociology, anthropology and social philosophy to recount their tale of networking.” The expertise of innovators thus is not purely technical or scientific but instead involves various forms of social competence and consensus building.
By adopting an intersubjective orientation, Peters et al. (2014) further describe resource integration as socially constructed, neither existent for any single actor (i.e. nonsubjective) nor real in an objective sense (i.e. nonobjective). In this view, resource integration either emerges or is the outcome of interactions in which actors mobilize and activate resources with others or other objects. Schemas (i.e. rules and norms) have a key role in this dynamic process and can produce consensus building; schemas are grounded in values embedded in society, shared among multiple actors, and present in many situations, beyond any particular practice (Edvardsson et al., 2011). These schemas can be institutionalized through signification, domination, and legitimation, which in turn shape actors’ understanding of meaning, control, and what constitutes value. Service innovation derives from changes in or combinations of resources or schemas (norms and rules) (Edvardsson et al., 2011), which in turn are affected by a process of shared meaning, in which actors function as active constructors but also are shaped by the context. The focus then shifts to the role of sensemaking in constructing meaning for new value propositions (Möller, 2010).
Conversation, knowledge, and boundary objects
From a social constructionist perspective, the focus is not the content of an innovation but rather how actors make sense of reality and shape meanings (Weick, 1985). As Colton (1987: 346) observes, “the meanings of various social and non-social objects or symbols are derived through the interaction process.” Interacting implies a conversational process. Discourses therefore are means to exchange information but also a process for developing social knowledge practices and sensemaking (Mengis and Eppler, 2008), through which “new configurations of meaning are constructed” (Steyaert et al., 1996: 67). As a result of conversations, actors learn and act by elaborating multiple perspectives and experiences that arise through their comparison and collaboration. These discourses enact the sharing of new knowledge and meanings that shape social reality, as a common experience. The socialization process emerges from their participation in shared activities, based on common understandings of the rules that guide behaviors and support coordination (Gherardi, 2015; Russo-Spena et al., 2017).
In such a process, it is crucial to understand coordinating mechanisms and grasp their dynamic nature, “as they are constructed within the activities of interdependent actors” (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013: 907). Such mechanisms are not stable entities but are enacted in practice and shaped by novelty, uncertainty, and change, as new practices emerge (Jarzabkowski, 2004; Okhuysen and Bechky, 2009). Moreover, different coordinating mechanisms influence multiple-actor interactions—such as routines (Nelson and Winter, 1982), teamwork, systemic learning (Verganti, 1997), norms, experiences (Rowley and Moldoveanu, 2003), symbols (Akaka et al., 2014), and shared intentions (Taillard et al., 2016)—because they support coordination among interactions, communication among groups, and the integration of resources.
Achieving coordination thus may require a boundary object that “lives in multiple social worlds and…has different identities in each” (Star and Griesemer, 1989: 409). Boundary objects consist of devices, artifacts, and images that support the construction of meaning by different actors (Carlile, 2002, 2004). By acting and interacting, people even transform subjective meanings into artifacts, assigning meaning to reality, and thereby constructing it. Boundary objects translate, coordinate, and align the perspectives of different parties (Klimbe et al., 2010), but with their plasticity, they remain both adaptable to local needs and robust enough to maintain a common identity across different uses. They “are a means of translation,” able to maintain “coherence across intersecting communities” (Bowker and Star, 1999: 297). Boundary objects thus have different meanings in diverse social contexts, but their structure is common enough to recognize and use them for translation purposes, achieving coherence across intersecting social contexts (Storbacka and Nenonen, 2015). They are weakly structured in common use but become strongly structured in individual site use. They also allow actors to develop stable, collaborative working interactions and relationships (Carlile, 2002). Furthermore, boundary objects constitute resources for actors (Klimbe et al., 2010), whether abstract or concrete. Wenger (2000) identifies three types of boundary objects: artifacts, discourses, and processes. Artifacts correspond to standardized forms, methods, objects, models, and maps; discourses represent a common language that allows people to communicate and negotiate meanings across boundaries; and processes include explicit routines and procedures in an organization. Boundary objects are entities that link communities together, by allowing different groups to collaborate on a common task. These objects satisfy the informational needs of a community of practice and facilitate coordination without consensus; they allow an actor’s local understanding to be reframed in the context of some wider collective activity (Carlile, 2002; Wenger, 2000).
Levina and Vaast (2005) also consider the emergent nature of boundary objects in use, which acquires a shared symbolic role through joint practice. When identified by multiple actors, boundary objects provide a common point of reference that can facilitate conversation and knowledge sharing around certain contexts and issues (Koskinen, 2005). They have an array of meanings, each of which is useful for situated practices (Gherardi and Nicolini, 2002; Orlikowski, 2002).
Research method
Research design
This research is part of a wider project on service innovation and value creation carried out by CFMT (Training Center for Service Management) in Italy, for which the aim is to address processes and factors beyond an economic stance. Accordingly, we adopt an epistemological perspective on social construction that emphasizes people as sense-makers or active constructors, rather than passive receptors, of knowledge (Refai et al., 2015). This perspective acknowledges interactions among actors and how they use language to construct their reality (Foster and Bochner, 2008). The resulting intersubjective reality is “comprised of concepts that can be shared with others” (Andrews and Withey, 2012: 41). With a relativist ontology, it is possible to recognize realities that exist as multiple mental constructions, which are socially and experientially based, local and specific, and dependent for their form and content on the actors who hold them.
We study service innovation as contextually, socially, and experientially based, in an effort to deepen understanding of the role of the social context and social structures that affect and are affected by innovation (Mele et al., 2014, 2017). Our focus is on the practices by which people engage to negotiate understanding and create meaning. We gather nine information-rich case studies (Piekkari et al., 2010), stopping when no new materials emerged (i.e. informational redundancy, theoretical saturation; Marshall, 1996) (Table 1). In line with guidelines for interpretative research (Gummesson, 2017), we selected the cases on the basis of three main criteria. First, all cases experience a transformation process in terms of service innovation. Second, they involve a multiple-actor context that offers rich observations. Third, the cases refer to a food ecosystem, reflecting recent conceptualizations of food as a social discourse and social practice (Domaneschi, 2012; Halkier and Jensen, 2011).
Case studies.
GAS: Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale.
Data collection and analysis
Consistent with a social construction approach, we consider social facts and actions linked to the context and influential factors, which are complex, interconnected, and difficult to collect and evaluate. To do so, we adopt a narrative approach (Frank, 2002; Gummesson, 2017); narratives are a rich source of information and a powerful tool for scholars to examine sociocultural aspects within organizations (Czarniawska, 2004). With a narrative analysis, we can link context to cognition and learning and thereby go beyond outcomes toward “a focus on meanings, symbols and values,…exemplified in narratives, and how people construct a meaningful world through stories” (Reissner, 2005: 482). However, we started this investigation with documentary research (industry data, company publications, previous case studies, and newspaper articles) in a preparatory stage, to gain familiarity with the specific companies and the food context. We also acquired necessary background knowledge as a basis for our interviews (Reissner, 2005).
Over a period of 18 months, we carried out 45 qualitative, open-ended interviews with key informants who could provide relevant stories about service innovation (Gummesson, 2017). For each case, we let the interviewees tell stories about what each new value proposition consisted of, the service innovation activities conducted, and the relevant economic and social context. By listening and reporting on actors’ stories, we discern social contexts and address multiple issues associated with innovative practices, including the relevant actors, resources, interactions, languages, rules, norms, and values. We also observed daily activities and meetings, which we audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Field notes taken during the observations were expanded and detailed as soon as possible. The observations lasted between 1 hour and 4 hours. In addition, we collected a broad range of internal documents for analysis, including meeting agendas and minutes, actors’ presentations, project plans and reports, service development schemes, financial reports, and customer survey analyses. The data collection ended when no new themes emerged and no new data associated with the existing themes could be generated (Marshall, 1996).
We integrated the multiple sources to write the cases and achieve a consistent story for each case study. Analyzing the narratives allows us to understand and construct meaning (Rosenthal, 1993); by putting the narratives into a specific context, we also get thick descriptions (Geertz, 1973). The narrative analysis then proceeds in two stages. First, with intra-case studies, we evaluate each firm’s approach to the investigated phenomena. Second, with a cross-case analysis, we identify similarities and differences across cases. Thus, we can establish consistent findings and uncover pertinent theoretical and managerial implications (Gummesson, 2017). To ensure reliability, we use a consistent protocol for each case (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998). In addition, the interviewees checked all narratives, so that we ensure we provide a clear interpretation of the investigated phenomena. We also discussed the results with managers from different industries and other researchers over the course of two workshops to gather external feedback (Creswell and Clark, 2007).
Findings
In the investigated cases, the key actors realized that society’s ability to identify good, authentic food was decreasing, as was the pleasure of taste. They decided to create new formulas to help people appreciate quality food, through a holistic experience that they contributed to generating. This innovative way of doing involved culture and meaning, as well as tasting and experiencing a new, more conscious way of purchasing authentic food products. Actors enact and perform service innovation through two approaches, one that is more concerted and another that emerges in some way. Each approach is characterized by distinct resource integration processes and actors’ practices, in which the boundary objects have specific roles.
Concerted approach to service innovation
The deliberate, recognized will of the actors to cooperate, sustain, and increase their resource integration around a common goal is a distinctive feature of the concerted approach to innovating. Noting their social, cultural, and business contexts, actors project and develop service innovation with close partners, by rebundling practices. An innovative value proposition results from their idiosyncratic resource integration, which occurs through concerted construction by actors. Boundary objects coordinate the various actors.
Concerted resource integration
Actors interact specifically to identify new bearers of the resources they deem necessary to develop service innovations. The resource integration process is concerted because it entails a progressive definition of values and rules that gradually become formalized, in an effort to outline and facilitate resource integration mechanisms. Actors’ values shape the new value proposition, as manifested by the example of Eccellenze Campane, a consortium of small businesses operating in various sectors of the food and wine industry: Our aim is to spread the worldwide traditions and culture of the Campania region on food excellence by joining local partners who believe in our values and share our philosophy. They are not only part of the innovative formula but actively support us in continuously improving this new endeavor. Companies involved in the Eccellenze Campane initiative manage autonomously their presence in the store, the product range, the corner layout, and price-fixing, and adjust them through a continuous dialogue with the other parties and the feedback of the customers, to align their activities. (Eccellenze Campane’s manager)
Resource integration follows the recognition of the distinguishing competencies of each actor, and this recognition assists in the qualification of single actors in the service ecosystem. That is, the actors engage in service-for-service exchanges of specialized competences, which strengthens the integration of their distinctive resources through coordinated efforts. For example, Niko Romito, which promotes a unique training formula with a specialized, higher-education school dedicated to haute cuisine, cooperates with Reale Restaurant (three Michelin stars) and the University of Food Sciences (Pollenzo). The resource integration among these actors revolves around recombinations and rebundling of existing resources in the social context to create a new value proposition. From this partnership, the Spazio network of restaurants and laboratories resulted, designed to bridge the gap between school and work for students and recent graduates.
Concerted resource integration also may be supported by higher-order actors, such as Slow Food, which establish the underlying institutional setting. This global, grassroots organization was founded to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the increasing speed of modern life, and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, and how their food choices affect the world around them. Its approach is based on a three-part, interconnected concept of food: good (the food we eat should taste good), clean (the food we eat should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare, or our health), and fair (food producers should receive fair compensation for their work).(Slow Food documents) The team promoted an assortment that resulted from their collection of suggestions from numerous Slow Food members from various local branches all over the world. Moreover, actors co-developed the codes of conduct to select the main Eataly suppliers to share the same philosophy and values, which characterize the core of the project. (Eataly’s manager)
By experimenting with the advantages of mutuality, actors also jointly contribute to mutual exchanges of information, open discussion, and knowledge sharing. The reciprocally beneficial relationships range from diffuse, indirect interactions to highly integrated, coevolved associations, as in the case of Diet-to-Go, a healthy meal home delivery service: At the beginning the coordination of the resource integration process among these heterogeneous players has not been easy as characterized by different goals. Nutritionists were mainly interested in the nutritional components of meals, combining low calories with appropriate nutrients; chefs looked more at the taste and aesthetic aspects of meals; the franchisees were very careful to cost in order to gain their margins; partners like wellness centers wanted to understand how to integrate Diet-to-Go service in their value propositions; business customers wanted to adapt the service to make it adequate for business lunches, and so on. (Diet-to-Go’s Founder).
Boundary objects in concerted service innovation
We detected some boundary objects that function as physical or symbolic artifacts that guide actors’ collaborative behaviors. The store is a typical example. In Eccellenze Campane, customers can taste and buy products, but they also encounter eight production areas—bakery, brewery, pasta factory, dairy farm, roasting, confectionery, chocolate factory, and ice cream—that display every important stage of the production process, performed, and explained directly by the producers. In other cases, as in Eat’s, the store provides the context that ensures that the authenticity and quality of food are preserved, through the professional rigor and passion of the food artisans involved in the project. Actors provide authentic food but also share and integrate their traditions, competencies, and knowledge with professional chefs, passionate cooks, specialist and nonspecialist journalists, and customers, through specific events such as classes, meetings, and dinners: We wanted to create not just a conventional store but a space between the shelves that represents a new agora, made of comfort, convenience, and quality where all the actors, customers, producers, food experts, and chefs may interact. Thanks to the accuracy in the store design, shopping is transformed [into] an appointment, which becomes a pause, a stop, a new ritual. (Eat’s founder)
For Niko Romito, recipes act as guidelines, used in multiple contexts, including the Reale restaurant, the school, training courses, and the Unforkettable project. The recipes remain the same across contexts, but they can be adapted according to the chef, the context, or customers. In a school classroom or the restaurant kitchen, a recipe provides the reference that enables people to interact, communicate, and integrate their resources.
Emergent approach to service innovation
In the second approach, service innovation is an unforeseen result of a process of interaction and resource integration among actors embedded in social contexts. Social structures and existing practices get progressively questioned in a process that occurs not as a series of linear events but as a continuous, fluid process of adaptation to changing business conditions and social contexts. This emergent approach reflects the unpredictable nature of socially constructed innovation, as a set of new practices. Boundary objects enable such emergence.
Emergent resource integration
In the emergent approach, service innovation is not intentionally pursued; resource integration occurs in an unplanned matter. Actors progressively gain connections in an ongoing process by which they question existing practices and value different perspectives. New practices emerge as actors find new opportunities to integrate their resources with those of other actors. For example, in the BioExpress case, the new venture gradually integrated a heterogeneous mix of farmers and thus gained an ability to transform mainstream markets. The value proposition also evolved gradually from promoting a new form of disintermediation in the agri-food industry to coping with downturn to promoting a customizable variety of organic, local, and seasonal products, which challenged the mass market approach adopted by big retailers: We have launched the new My Bioexpress; thanks to this handy innovation, consumers can create personalized baskets by choosing online which types of seasonal fruit and vegetables to receive every week. With My BioExpress, now it is possible to add various types of organic products from our associates, such as bread, chocolate, muesli, honey, jam, various fruit juices, etc. (BioExpress manager)
Emergent service innovation is characterized by ongoing social interactions that shape the market activities that actors develop; the related market institutions thus are shaped by ongoing social interactions, as in the case of Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (GAS) or Solidarity Purchasing Groups. This network is the most widespread, consumer-organized movement in Italy; it seeks to shape the market by establishing direct relationships with producers, in accordance with strong ethical concerns. Although not totally aloof from mass retailing, GAS regards it critically, resulting in new sets of practices and schemas related to food selection and purchasing that signal alternatives to traditional retailing: Participation in a GAS meets several requirements: it provides the opportunity to obtain organic and local products and to gather and discuss ethical concerns, but also enables communication among GAS’s members and other actors in the service ecosystem, such as agricultural associations, logistics partners, local institutions, and other social movements. (GAS partner) I think we are naïve.…We should think about this aptitude which seems to be a bit uncritical, as if being part of a GAS and moving from production to consumption should be in itself a warrant. (GAS partner)
By sharing common values about local food, these actors experiment with new forms of socialization and personal involvement for procuring agricultural products. In the case of Cortilia, an online agricultural market, the service innovation emerged from continuous interactions within local markets: Cortilia works as a buying group: by taking advantage of the short food supply chain, the user has the opportunity to buy directly from individual farmers, which are selected on a geographical basis. The farmers associated with Cortilia offer tasty products, which are handmade and derived from sustainable farming techniques. (Cortilia’s manager)
Boundary objects in emergent service innovation
Boundary objects may assume different forms but mainly entail discourses and storytelling, functioning as facilitators of transformative meanings. A key feature of Cortilia’s innovative online farmers’ market also offers storytelling about each producer, its method of cultivation, and its relationship with the land through texts and videos. Cortilia is a place where stories are narrated and shared by farmers, a place where interaction and collaboration occur among producers, consumers, and other stakeholders around the meaning of sustainable and authentic food. (Cortilia’s manager) Gambero Rosso promotes a social and cultural process of building quality, authenticity, legitimacy, and value, by widening the roles and the meanings of food in everyday practices. (Gambero Rosso’s partner) Three glasses for wine, three forks for restaurants and three cups for bars convey recognition of the operators, serve as a reference for customers, and are a point of acknowledgment for the media. (Gambero Rosso’s manager)
Discussion
We have framed service innovation as socially constructed through resource integration, sensemaking, and boundary objects. By developing this view, the current study goes beyond an outcome perspective, to include the collective nature of service innovation (Jaakkola and Alexander, 2014; Mele et al., 2014), the intersubjectivity of actors in their social interactions and relationships (Löbler, 2013; Russo-Spena et al., 2017), and the role of the social context in affecting the service innovation process (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013; Edvardsson et al., 2011). In our analysis, innovation entails new value propositions about food provision so that actors integrate resources in different ways; the process of serving food changes, as do the actors’ practices. Furthermore, our investigation reveals two main innovation approaches: concerted and emergent. These approaches are characterized by different processes for resource integration and sensemaking as well as distinct boundary objects that function as unique mediators of the social construction process (Table 2).
Approaches to service innovation.
The first approach refers to service innovation as a collective effort by actors to achieve a common aim, such as offering new food experiences to customers. A deliberate, recognized will to cooperate guides idiosyncratic resource integration. Recognizing the distinguishing competencies of each actor assists in the qualification of single partners within the food ecosystem. That is, the actors engage in service-for-service exchanges of specialized competences, which strengthens the integration of their distinctive resources through their coordinated efforts. Such resource integration entails a recombination and rebundling of existing practices in the social context, with the aim of creating a new value proposition.
With this concerted approach, individual actors also rely on their values to evaluate the legitimacy of others’ behavior, thus reproducing a “legitimate” structure (Giddens, 1984). In such a view, the process of meaning sharing through sensemaking results from continuous interactions and conversations, which allow actors to give sense to the social context and structures in which they are embedded and eases their resource integration.
In concerted service innovation, boundary objects such as the store, the kitchen, or the recipe trigger the process of sensemaking, contributing to shape social structures and practices. The store (e.g. Eat’s case) is a physical, cultural, and social place in which actors enjoy their food experiences. The kitchen (e.g. Diet-to-Go case) also offers a physical boundary object for the new idea of diet, progressively shared by an increasing number of actors, which ultimately led to changes in the main dietetic program developed by the founder and the nutritionist.
The boundary objects are thus physical or symbolic artifacts and places that facilitate conversations, through which actors elaborate multiple perspectives, integrate resources, and align practices. This process supports cooperation through consensus. A shared understanding of resource integration generally results; each actor knows what to do and understands the goal of the project. The boundary objects are clearly identified and strategically used by the actors, and their functions relate mainly to coordinating activities, rather than abstract ideas. They perform a role, namely, as sense-makers for the idiosyncratic resources possessed by the actors involved in the innovation process. By bridging the different actors’ resources, boundary objects perform a legitimation role that regulates the actors’ practices, whether in a formal or informal way.
In the emergent approach, service innovation instead is unplanned and emerges from actors’ interactions, through a dynamic process. The sprouting of new practices conveys new value propositions, affecting structural changes in that context. The process of sensemaking arises alongside service innovation provision. Actors offer new outputs and participate in new meaning construction, a process that is fundamentally conversational and narrative, involving a variety of communication forms that are embedded in social structures and practices. Actors converse during social interaction by drawing on interpretive schemes and semantic rules to understand the meaning of the communication; in doing so, they also reproduce the structure of signification (Giddens, 1984). The process of signification is driven by some boundary objects functioning as facilitators of transformative meanings, such as BioExpress wooden boxes that contain the fruit and vegetables delivered to customers or the GAS warehouse that reifies values of authenticity.
In emergent service innovation, the goals are not clear from the beginning, so boundary objects have a different function: Rather than just physical artifacts, they mainly provide discourses and storytelling, shaped by the actors in their continuous process of questioning social structures, places, and practices. That is, they are representations in the making. With this signification role, boundary objects encourage actors to rethink the discursive, symbolic order, in terms of the integration of social values shared by diverse actors. By intervening in schemas and narratives, boundary objects become bridge-makers with social value.
In both approaches, a new idea becomes a successful innovation if it promotes a shared sense of higher meaning among actors. Actors’ abilities to acquire, integrate, and use resources depend on the rules, norms, and values within the social context. By offering a new value proposition, actors also contribute to shape the social structure and practices. In line with Edvardsson et al.’s (2011) idea about the role of shared social values and schemas in influencing service exchange, we argue that with a concerted approach, actors refer to social norms and values to evaluate the legitimacy of others’ behaviors, thus reproducing a “legitimate” structure (Giddens, 1984). In the emergent approach, they instead communicate through social interaction, drawing on interpretive schemes and semantic rules to understand the meaning of the communication. In so doing, they reproduce the structure of signification (Giddens, 1984). Legitimation and signification make the new value proposition acceptable to the actors and thereby create changing structures of domination (Giddens, 1984).
This study extends the customer-based view in previous studies (Edvardsson et al., 2011) by showing that different actors, not just customers, have a capability to attract and link with other actors, around a shared process of sensemaking through value propositions. These actors might be producers, who offer raw materials and describe production processes; managers, who have the opportunity to spread their food philosophy through appropriate product selection, an original store layout, and appealing in-store communication; store staff members, who can leverage a “sociable” store design to provide additional information about food origins and production processes, as well as advice about specific products; customers, who might increase their knowledge of authentic food by tasting it, learning how to identify and cook it, and buying it in a unique space, such that they provide indirect information about their food habits, which can improve their shopping experience; and experts, chefs, sommeliers, journalists, and bloggers, who might meet in the store, during both formal and informal events, to share suggestions, ideas, and meanings about food production and consumption. In other words, different actors actively focus on service innovation as a process of co-construction and sensemaking that involves the company itself, customers, and other partners as intersubjective actors in a social, economic, and cultural context, thereby influencing the value co-creation processes. Service innovation is framed not simply as a business and economic process but as a social and cultural one, which is affected by and affects the norms, rules, and tenets of food production and consumption (Gherardi and Nicolini, 2002). Values of authenticity, sustainability, and quality thus shape business practices. Actors encourage social and cultural processes that focus on quality, authenticity, legitimacy, and value, thereby expanding the roles and meanings of food in daily practices; these new practices have been enacted by people to make sense of others’ actions (Russo-Spena et al., 2017). Actors perform practices to share values surrounding food, namely, pleasure, authenticity, responsibility, and sustainability. This point is particularly evident with respect to the changed meaning of food, which no longer centers solely on nutritional benefits but increasingly entails social and cultural values too. The sensemaking process of building meaning arises through boundary objects, which assume central roles in representing and constructing common knowledge; they become social mediators to service innovation.
This study accordingly contributes by extending previous conceptualizations of boundary objects in prior literature. Boundary objects are not only artifacts, discourses, and processes (Wenger, 2000) but also are spaces and places that define actors’ interactions and sensemaking. The store, kitchen, and warehouse are not just physical or abstract spaces (Parsons et al., 2017; Tuan, 1977), because actors assign certain values and meanings to them (Chatzidakis et al., 2018; Gustafson, 2001). These socially constructed spaces become meaningful places, created through human experiences (Parsons et al., 2017; Tuan, 1977). That is, a place results from a space through narratives, as it gets filled with symbols, values, and meanings created by actors’ interactions and experiences related to the service innovation. Such places have material (i.e. the Eataly’s store), symbolic (i.e. the Cortilia’s online market), and sociospatial (i.e. the Gambero Rosso’s Città del Gusto) dimensions (Chatzidakis, 2017). It is the social construction and sensemaking process that transforms spaces and creates a “sense of place” (Parsons et al., 2017: 143) to be experienced as a bridge-maker that connects actors and fosters service innovation.
Scholarly implications and further research
Service innovation is not a linear development by a single company; it reflects the collective efforts of a plurality of actors in the network, which enables access to and the use of multiple resources in a social and cultural context. In this process, the role of actors is highly relevant, in that they actively participate to generate new meanings. Service innovation thus emerges as socially constructed sensemaking. Seeing service innovation as socially constructed implies that it does not exist for any single actor. It arises only in multiple, embedded contexts. In line with Peters et al. (2014: 262), resource integration is intersubjective, “as it is the ‘inter’ which creates resource integration not simply actors in isolation.” In this view, boundary objects are crucial resources, whose dispositional properties can be used and appraised as potentially useful. Specifically, they can gain new dispositional properties through particular resource-integrative processes.
Continued research should address the role of the social context to understand resource integration and sensemaking as key processes. It would be interesting to understand how actors participate in a process of innovation that can arise in surprising ways, around a new idea. Specific questions might relate to how (1) the construction of meaning enables an innovation process in which shared experiences among different actors (e.g. customers and suppliers) activate exchanges of knowledge, language, and meaning and thereby shape the new value creation process; (2) actors find new roles in networks that facilitate a collective sense of innovation; (3) symbols and representations support innovation processes; (4) places get constructed through meanings and practices; and (5) the combination of pluralism (i.e. multiple actors, meanings, and values) and complexity (from technology and consumer demand sides) supports the propagation of multiple opportunities for innovation.
Our study also reveals that boundary objects have different natures. Some are more physical, such as the kitchen for Diet-to-Go, the store for Eat’s and Eataly, or the box for BioExpress. Others are more symbolic, as in the case of Gambero Rosso, or textual, such as the recipes in the Niko Romito case. Narratives in the Cortilia and GAS cases are good examples of how discourse can become a boundary object. This heterogeneity suggests the need for further research that explores whether the physical or abstract nature of a boundary object implies different coordination mechanisms for resource integration that leads to service innovation. In addition, more research should focus on places as the context of service innovation and specify the role of spaces/places as boundary objects, including how (1) people become aware of certain segments of space, (2) actors transform spaces into meaningful places, and (3) precisely the transition from spaces to places occurs (e.g. antecedents and mediators).
Managerial implications
This study has some important implications for managerial practice. Practitioners should frame service innovation as resource integration processes and look at how coordination for resource integration occurs. In this view, they can enable shared intentionality (Taillard et al., 2016) or shape conditions and contexts that let innovations merge. The two approaches addressed in this study offer a frame to detect opportunities for innovation, not simply as new outcomes but as a process of interpretation and meaning construction. Managers must assign new meanings and directions to innovation. They also should devote specific attention to sensemaking, which is crucial for developing and sustaining a socially constructed service innovation. The process of meaning sharing that results from continuous interactions and conversations helps actors make sense of the social context and the structures in which they are embedded; it also eases resource integration and mutual value co-creation among different actors. The sensemaking process shapes actors’ representations of reality, so it can be understood in terms of its influences on the resources available to actors in service systems.
In particular, boundary objects (i.e. discourses, artifacts, and places) emerge as bridge-makers that connect actors, fostering resource integration and shared meanings. There is great potential for applying the concept of boundary objects, because they are useful for emphasizing heterogeneous, flexible interpretations that can contribute to further innovation and development. Boundary objects might be regarded as emergent and thus uncontrollable, but also as strategic tools on which managers can act to facilitate service innovation. Because knowledge is not created or communicated through boundary objects themselves, but rather through interactions around these objects, companies should try to influence the interactions in such a way that new knowledge gets created and modified across different contexts.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the CFMT (Training Center for Service Management) in Italy.