FINLAND : HELSINKI

Saara Brax, PhD Student
Professor: Paul Lillrank, the Laboratory of Industrial Management at Helsinki
University of Technology's Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management
Topic: Viewing service offerings as systems
Beginning of the thesis: 9/2002
End of the thesis: 12/2008
E-mail: saara.brax (at) hut.fi

Catharina Gylling-Bärlund, PhD Student
Professor: Richard Elliot, University of Bath, School of Management
Object of the thesis: Strategy-as-practice
Beginning of the thesis 2006
End of the thesis: 2009
E-mail: [catharina.gylling (at) tkk.fi]mail:catharina.gylling@ tkk.fi



Anssi Smedlund, PhD

Title of the thesis: Dynamics of production, development and innovation in professional services – a network approach

Anssi.Smedlund (at) tkk.fi



Katriina Valminen, PhD Student
Professor: Jan Holmström, the Laboratory of Industrial Management at Helsinki
University of Technology's Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management
Title of the thesis: Productization of Services in Manufacturing Companies
Beginning date of the thesis: 2008
End of the thesis: 2012
E-mail: katriina.valminen (at) tkk.fi

The Innovation Management Institute (IMI) has 13 years of research experience in the field of innovation management in industrial companies, service companies, and public organisations. IMI is a part of the BIT Research Centre (Business Innovation Technology), which belongs to Helsinki University of Technology (TKK). IMI's focus of research includes the innovation management practices and processes of organisations at both strategic and operative levels. In recent years, IMI has had a strong focus on service innovation research of which two projects are presented below.

ISO- Innovation Integrated in Service Operations (10/2007 - 09/2010)

The ISO project (Innovation Integrated in Service Operations) examines and compares innovation activities in three types of services: customer services (retail and insurance sectors), industrial services and knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The project is funded by Tekes (Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation) and nine partner companies. Seven full-time researchers work for the project. The project examines the topic of service innovation at two levels: at the level of service offerings and at the company level. At the offering level, the project aims to produce new knowledge regarding both innovative outcomes and innovation processes. At the company level, the project focuses on the role of strategy in the management of innovativeness - from the viewpoint of both stimulation and control. The starting point in this part of the study is that companies should focus not only on “having an innovative strategy”, but on “living an innovative strategy”. The theories of the practice turn of strategy are applied here.

IPSI - An Integrative Perspective to Service Innovation (10/2006 - 09/2008)

An Integrative Perspective to Service Innovation (IPSI) is a theoretically oriented research project, focusing on service innovation. It extends the research conducted empirically in the Knowledge-Intensive Business Service Innovation and Innovation Networks (KIBSINET) project into the area of theoretical issues. The purpose of IPSI is to create grounds for such an approach that would take into consideration both the central role of the customer and the perspective of the service provider when modelling service innovation. First and foremost the project tries to reconcile the views of the theories of service marketing and service engineering, which usually have been developed apart from each other within different schools. This integrative view is supplemented with ideas from other relevant service theories. The project is divided into three parts: the first step is to explore the existing service models and develop them further into a model suitable for innovation analysis, the second step is to define service innovations as outcomes, and examine their dimensions and classifications and the third step is to analyse the different processes which can lead to innovations in services.

Brax, S. 2005. A Manufacturer Becoming Service Provider – Challenges and a Paradox. Managing Service Quality 15 (2), pp. 142-155. Online

Gylling, C. & Lindberg-Repo, K. 2006. Investigating the links between a corporate brand and a customer brand. Journal of Brand Management: Volume 13 (4), Palgrave journals, England.

Holopainen M. 2007. Perspectives in Understanding Weak Signals. COST A22 Conference, July 9-11 2007, Athens.

Smedlund A., Toivonen M. 2007. The role of KIBS in the IC development of regional clusters. Journal of Intellectual Capital, 2007.

Toivonen M. 2008. Industrial innovations in relation to service sectors. (forthcoming), in Jacobson D. and Hirsch-Kreinsen H. (eds.): /Low-Technology: Innovation and Development in the Knowledge Economy/, Edward Elgar.

Toivonen M., Brax S., Tuominen T. 2008. Client-oriented multicompetence - the core asset in KIBS. (forthcoming), /International Journal of Services Technology and Management - Special Issue on KIBS/.

Toivonen M., Tuominen T. 2007. Emergence of innovations in Services. 2007/2009 (internet/printed versions). Service Industries Journal, Vol. 29, No.1.

Toivonen M., Tuominen T., Brax S. 2007. Innovation process interlinked with the process of service delivery - a management challenge in KIBS. Economies et Sociétés, No. 3/2007, pages 355-384.

Toivonen M. 2007. Innovation policy in services - the development of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in Finland. /INNOVATION: Management, Policy and Practice/, Vol. 9, No. 3-4, pp. 249-261.

Toivonen M., Smedlund A., Tuominen T. 2006. Development of Knowledge Intensive Business Service Innovations and Innovation Networks. International Journal MANAGEMENT, Journal for Management Theory and Practice, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Belgrade, Vol. 40, pp.4-11. [abstract]

Toivonen M. 2006. Future Prospects of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) and Implications to Regional Economies. ICFAI Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 4, No 3.

Valminen K., Toivonen M. 2007. Improving competitiveness and performance through service productization? A case study of small KIBS companies participating in a productization project. The XVIIth International Conference of RESER, 12 - 15 September 2007, Tampere, Finland.

Anssi.Smedlund (at) tkk.fi