13 January 2022 | Münster
As part of the Erasmus+ Strategic Alliances Project "Digital Innovation in the Service Sector", Jun.-Prof. Dr. Sue Rossano-Rivero, Judith Helmer and Thuong Huynh of the S2BMRC team published a scientific audit and a whitepaper on the digital innovation process for services. The publication appears in two versions: a full digital innovation audit which thoroughly maps and analyzes digital innovation processes, and a whitepaper which summarizes and highlights the most important aspects of the audit in 20 easy-to-digest pages. The audit is available in English, while the whitepaper is available in 4 languages: English, German, Dutch and Polish.
The audit consists of an in-depth literature review on theories and approaches of the digital innovation process and a detailed analysis of expert interviews which provide deep insights on innovation processes, digital and service innovation as well as teaching practices and challenges concerning innovation teaching. The scientific work results in a digital innovation process model which was used to map available digital tools to the innovation process steps. This is further brought to practice in form of a digital tools platform. By doing so, it shall be outlined which digital tools facilitate specific innovation activities and therefore, support the innovation process.
This study makes several contributions to theory and practice. Firstly, by reviewing existing literature from a process perspective, the audit highlights the discussion around linear and non-linear process models and contributes to teaching practice by providing a scientifically grounded process model. Secondly, by including practical expert knowledge, this audit fills the gap of providing an innovation process which emphasizes digital and service specifics and is easy to apply due to its practical nature. Lastly, the mapping of digitals tools and the construction of a user-friendly digital platform serve a long-term impact of the project.
The Digital Innovation Audit is one of three intellectual outputs of this project. The created output shall act as a basis for the following outputs of this project, contributing to the main goal:
- to gain a better understanding of how small service companies currently undertake new product development
- to improve how innovation in services is taught in Higher Education Institutions.