Resumo

The service industry has an impact on the economy and on business management. It seems that “innovation in services” is still not attracting the attention of researchers and has not the same content of works published in comparison with product and manufacturing innovation. This work discusses, through a systematic literature review, what has happened in the field of service innovation and which themes in service innovation have been an object of study and published on the most important journals in the innovation area.

Several journals can give space to texts about service innovation, such as for example, journals about the economy, management, services, operations, marketing and for sure, innovation too. But, what is the discussion in recent years about service innovation, especially in high-quality journals with a focus on innovation? Would journals with a focus on innovation like Research Policy, Technovation, and R & D Management continue not paying attention to researches about service innovation?

Based on the multi-dimensional framework of organizational innovation, a conceptual consolidation proposed by Crossan & Apaydin (2010), the determinants of innovation are divided into three distinct meta-theoretical constructs: innovation leadership, managerial levers, and business processes, and into ten dimensions of innovation. These dimensions were identified and classified by the authors among “innovation as a process” and “innovation as an outcome”.

On our review, we used the keywords “service innovation” in the titles and found 41 articles that were analyzed, and its themes, concepts, and methods currently utilized were discussed. Besides the concern in trying to differentiate innovation in services from product innovation, the themes with broader interest for innovation journals about service innovation are Service Innovation Process, Innovation Capacity, Innovation Strategy, Service Business Model, Innovation in Public Services and New Service Performance. The methods more applied are case study and survey.

The study of service innovation is being structured as a field apart from being a complement of product innovation and that the definitions of characteristics, drivers, and processes in services are still undergoing. The determinants of innovation are the most studied, representing 80% of the total of themes in numbers of articles found in our research. We conclude that besides continuing the deep understanding of the Determinants of Innovation in service, there is a considerable opportunity for developing research focused on the Dimensions of Innovation with a result-oriented view.

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