An Innovative Design Approach to New Service Development Learning Processes

2. Literature Review

In the complex business world, service is increasingly gaining centre stage in economies across the world. The exponential necessity of innovative service provides excellent opportunities on one hand, and on other hand, poses a number of challenges for firms (Sohel-Uz-Zaman & Anjalin, 2011). NSD is needed worldwide. Ma, Xu & Li (2010) conducted a study in a large bank in China. Their conclusion was that NSD concerns not only the bank’s survival, but also its future development. Therefore, accelerating new services development based on their location is the source of competitive edge. Another study (Meyer, 2011) presented the theoretical and practical background that is necessary to form a classification of NSD process models in order to be able to judge their adequacy for a given development effort. Palma and Dobes (2010) described the challenge of assisting enterprises more effectively within industrial hot spots of the Danube River Basin in order to meet environmental standards while enhancing their competitiveness, which was addressed by the Transfer of Environmentally Sound Technology (TEST) project. The TEST approach has proved to be an effective learning process for addressing complex challenges that the companies had been facing. It helped them to improve their economic and environmental performance by integrating the bottom-up and top-down learning perspectives. Tatikonda & Rosenthal (2000) investigated project management methods used during the execution phase of new product development. The findings showed that companies could indeed balance firmness and flexibility in product development projects. Another result is that companies could manage a variety of projects using broadly similar project execution methods.

NSD is tremendously important within micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are the engine of economies in developed and developing countries.