Innovation and Co-Creation Process within a Service Context: A Matter of Choice or Necessity?

The notion of service ought to be embedded in the psyche of those responsi-ble for the design and delivery of service provision. Within an ever changing landscape, meeting customer expectations is a major priority for firms en-gaged in service provision. Enhancing the service experience lies in the con-text of innovation and entrepreneurship. The focus of innovation within business should take into consideration the unexpected, the nature of incon-gruities, process need and changes to structure. Innovation within service industries is widely recognised among researchers and practitioners as a key to gaining and sustaining competitive advantage. Increasingly, firms within service industries are placing new knowledge at the core of their strategies, especially knowledge about co-creation processes, knowledge of innovation and service design. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to explore the linkages between service development and co-creation processes to better understand the complexity of service innovation. The paper will first outline the notion of service and the context of service innovation. It will present a summarised view for management of service innovation. The paper will then move to illustrating how the creation and use of co-creation processes can be used to provide a shared understanding of what constitutes best practice.