Study On Effects Of Relational Embeddedness On Service Innovation Performance

With the change of market environment, the focus of competition among enterprises has shifted from physical goods to services, services play increasingly important role in the development of sustainable competitive advantage and service innovation has become an effective way to build, maintain and improve competitive advantage. As service innovation requires plenty of complex knowledge, capability and rare resources, in order to improve their product and service innovation, firms need to integrate resources and capabilities of external partners. Therefore, how to build and manage inter-organizational relationships have become urgent issues in service innovation.This dissertation aims to answer the basic research question of how relational embeddedness has impact on service innovation performance from the perspective of organizational learning. Based on theoretical discussion and empirical analysis, this dissertation explores the aboved research question by three sub-researches. The first sub-research conducts six explorative case studies on Chinese firms, and puts forward 10 initial propositions on the relationship between relational embeddedness and service innovation performance. The second sub-research goes on to put forward a conceptual model of the mediating effects of organizational learning capability. 227 firms in Shanghai are investigated via questionnaires, and Explorative Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) are conducted to establish and verify the measure, and Structural Equation Modeling is applied to testify and modify the concept model. The results show that relational embeddedness promotes service innovation via organizational learning capability. The third sub-research further explores the interaction effects between relational embedded configuration and organizational learning capability. In a survey of 205 Shanghai firms, there are three types of relational embedded configuration including customer-oriented, exchange-oriented and relationship-oriented. After multivariate statistical analysis of the data, this study shows that the interaction between organizational learning capability and relational embedded configuration can impacts internal performance of service innovation.The major contribution of this dissertation is the introduction of network theory into service innovation research and the study of the relationship between relational embeddedness and service innovation performance from the perspective of learning capability. There is little if any research on this issue. Therefore, this dissertation enriches related research in the field of organizational learning, business networking and service innovation. Conclusions and implications of this dissertation are of value to service innovation practitioners as well.