Open Service Innovation: The Case of Tourism Firms in Scandinavia

Most empirical research investgatng open innovaton has focused on the development of new physical products in manufacturing industries, whereas open service innovaton has not been researched correspondingly. Services have some characteristcs that distnguish them from physical products, which may affect the types of open innovaton practce utlised during service innovaton processes. Tourism services comprise a subset of services that is partcularly distant from tangible products. Therefore, the exploraton of how tourism frms utlise different types of open innovaton practce offers a valuable opportunity to learn about the nature of open service innovaton practces. Thus, this paper addresses the following research queston: what types of open innovaton practce are utlised during the development of new tourism services? A qualitatve case study approach was used to answer the research queston. The fndings suggest that pecuniary and non-pecuniary inflows of knowledge are utlised during service innovaton processes in tourism. However, the stage of the innovaton process at which inflows of knowledge are utlised varies systematcally with respect to whether the innovaton is perceived to be incremental or more radical. The fndings also indicate that tourism frms reveal knowledge to other tourism frms in non-pecuniary outbound open innovaton processes. However, no example of a pecuniary outbound open innovaton practce was identfed in this study. Implicatons for management and further research are discussed in the paper.