Consumer Perceptions of Service Constellations: Implications for Service Innovation

Abstract

Purpose – Consumers increasingly experience and value services as elements of a larger constellation of mutually facilitating, complementary, and supporting services. A service constellation is a combination of multiple interdependent services – often produced by multiple specialized service providers – that offer consumers complementary value and synergetic benefits. The service innovation literature and service managers have been slow to acknowledge that the value created by a service should be viewed as being interdependent on other services. In this work, we investigate how the service constellation perspective affects innovation strategies and potentially contributes to the innovation literature, proposing a research agenda.

Design/methodology – By analyzing the notion of a service constellation, we provide an overview of major implications for service innovation research and practice. Three illustrative examples serve as anecdotal evidence. By identifying institutional, epistemological, and managerial differences, we contrast the service constellation approach with a traditional approach and describe a paradigm shift in service management. We outline consequences for service innovation.

Findings – Firms and service innovation researchers need to focus on the perceived consumer value of the constellation rather than on individual services. We illustrate how service innovation from the constellation perspective requires coordination and synchronization between projects and different approaches to portfolio management and screening.

Research limitations/implications – Adoption of the service constellation perspective creates new opportunities. New ways of creating value are highlighted that would not surface when focusing on individual services in isolation: new value propositions may result not only from conceptualizing and developing individual new services, but also from developing a new service constellation without altering individual services.

Keywords: service innovation, service constellations, service systems, ecosystems

JEL Classification: M31, O32