When the recipe is more important than the ingredients
A new study presents a holistic framework to investigate adoption in the context of service innovation. This research provides evidence that adopting a new service does not depend on individual service attributes but, instead, on specific configurations of such attributes.
That's what Andrea Ordanini, Gaia Rubera (both Department of Marketing), and A. Parasuraman (University of Miami) say in When the Recipe is More Important Than the Ingredients: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of Service Innovation Configurations (in Journal of Service Research, 2014,Volume 17, Issue 2, pages 134-149, DOI: 10.1177/1094670513513337).
Service innovation is a relevant issue both for firms and researchers but until now it has been studied mostly with frameworks used in the new product literature. The complexity of this phenomenon has not been fully captured yet, thus leading to a lack of consistent results on the determinants of new service adoption. The authors of the present study decided to understand which configurations of new service attributes lead to new service adoption by proposing a new holistic framework. Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), an analytical technique employed here for the first time in the service domain, they analyzed the theoretical framework in the context of luxury hotel services in Italy.
In this holistic framework, new service adoption does not depend on individual service attributes but on specific configurations of these attributes. The authors explain, in fact, that a new service represents a bundle of interlinked attributes and its value derives from the perceived appeal of the "gestalt" of attribute levels present in the bundle. The results prove what hypothesized. Individual service attributes have a complex trade-off effects, and only certain combinations of attributes act as sufficient conditions for adoption. Moreover, the authors suggest that coproduction requirements influence customers' adoption intentions. As the findings show, this means that the decision to adopt is also influenced by the extent to which the bundle of interconnected attributes fits the coproduction requirements of the context in which the new service is offered. Moreover, it is highlighted how QCA, the selected method, can offer richer insights about new service adoption than do conventional techniques, such as cluster or regression analyses.
This study has practical suggestions for managers operating in the service industries. First of all, it introduces a new approach for improving the service development process in the concept testing phase. By employing QCA, managers can identify early on when an individual service characteristic increases or not consumer appeal. Then, they can also identify the alternative ways in which these characteristics can be combined to increase the likelihood of adoption. Second, this study proves how set-theoretic methods can improve launch strategies as well. Managers using QCA can, in fact, develop an informed typology of potential users by uncovering what makes a new service attractive and to whom. To conclude, this study not only provides a new useful framework for understanding new service adoption, but it has also important implications for practitioners and researchers in the service field.