cube_s.gif Innovation capability

Our research on innovation capability deals with product, process, market and resource innovation in businesses and public institutions. We examine how the knowledge and skills required for innovation can be attained, distributed and applied within and beyond the organization. One central issue thereby is which basic conditions are especially conducive to maximizing innovation capability. We investigate how innovations can originate from knowledge, skills and resources available within the organization itself or from customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

Selection of current projects

Socialnomics of Online Idea and Design Contests
(Johann Füller, Julia Hautz, Katja Hutter, Kurt Matzler)

Through the advent of ICT, novel ways of interaction and collaboration emerged. Based on this technology, organizations use online ideas and design contests to build innovation contest communities through which people with highly diverse skills and professional backgrounds become contributors in the innovation process. These innovation contest communities only add value to a company’s innovation process if talented people are willing to share their ideas and submit innovative solutions of high quality. The ability to better understand different types of community members and their contributions has become critical for organizations. Therefore in this project, we explore participants’ roles in idea contest communities and how their how participants’ network positions affect their innovative abilities and kind of contributions.


The Relevance of Customer Co-Creation of Value for Service Companies: Does Co-Creation Enhance Revenues and Satisfaction?
(U. Grissemann & N. Stokburger-Sauer)

Research on customer engagement behavior such as co-creation activities has recently been one of the top research priorities in marketing and customer behavior. Various studies call for a deeper understanding of the concept of co-creation within the services context. Thus, the objective of this study is threefold: First, the effects of co-creation on customer satisfaction and service expenditures are assessed. Second, the effects of company support for the customer to co-create are highlighted. Third, the consequences of customers’ satisfaction with their co-creation performance are analyzed. Testing these objectives using cross-sectional design, we found that service expenditures increase, the more the customers are integrated into the service development process. Likewise, co-creation was found to positively affect customer satisfaction with the service company. Important implications for marketing research and practice can be derived.

 

Business Performance of Alpine Hotels: The Interplay of Innovativeness and Customer Orientation
(U. Grissemann, A. Brunner-Sperdin & A. Plank).

Innovation and customer orientation have been recognized as key factors to enhance business performance of hotels. We investigate the interplay between customer orientation, innovation behavior and business performance. Therefore, we propose and tests two alternative conceptual models in the Alpine hospitality context. We indicate that innovation behavior positively affects financial performance and customer retention but has no effect on reputation. Moreover customer orientation affects financial performance to an extent similar to innovation behavior while it has strong direct effects on customer retention and reputation. Mediation analysis shows that innovation behavior partially mediates the effect of customer orientation on financial performance and customer retention.

 

The Impact of Environmental Stimuli on Consumers’ Emotions - A Holistic Approach to the Service Industry
(B. Reitsamer & N. Stokburger-Sauer)

Creating influential service atmospheres is widely regarded as a precondition for successful service provision. However, contrary to leading investigations in sensory marketing, human beings do not solely respond to one individual environmental cue in a given setting. Instead, the are exposed to a multitude of stimuli, influencing each other and contributing to a rich picture of cues. The study thus demonstrates that consumers perceive servicescapes holistically. Being based on an experimental study design, the investigation is intended to shed new light on intersensory ties, cross-functional sensory perception and suggests new perspectives regarding servicescape design in practice. Ultimately, this might lead to a re-visited debate on servicescape design, a re-configuration of existing servicescapes and, even more important, to the development of new methodological toolsets and instruments for capturing the orchestration of a multitude of stimuli in their full extent.

 

Measuring Emotions in Hotel Settings
(A. Brunner-Sperdin, M. Peters & A. Strobl)

When consuming tourism and leisure services tourists do not only expect professional services but also desire satisfying emotional experiences. To measure satisfaction including emotional experiences traditional service quality and satisfaction research is outdated because those models are based on cognitive components and neglect emotional aspects of customer satisfaction. This project investigates factors determining the service setting that enhance customers’ emotional reactions and lead to psychological states and behaviours. Referring to existing theories and empirical evidence in environmental psychology, we develop a study model and explain the relationship between different components of service settings influencing emotional states and satisfaction. Guests’ emotions are assessed during service consumption in hotel settings in order to investigate the importance of emotional states. We indicate that three main factors (leisure experience, hardware and human-ware) significantly influence emotional states of customers in high-quality hotels.

 

Consumption as an Aesthetic Experience, Consumer Goods as Aesthetic Objects: Some Insights from Philosophical Aesthetics
(B. Schnurr & N. Stokburger-Sauer)

In the field of philosophical aesthetics, what differentiates aesthetic experiences from other, more daily experiences, and what constitutes aesthetic objects, have been widely discussed topics. In consumer behavior research, marketing and management practice, visual product and service aesthetics are gaining more and more attention and have successfully been shown to influence consumers’ affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Through an intensive literature review, the author finds that current research is lacking conceptual consistency and coherence in terms of consumers’ aesthetic responses and in terms of what constitutes products and services as aesthetic. Following research in philosophy, a framework for classifying aesthetic experiences and aesthetic objects is developed and suggestions for conceptualizing consumption as an aesthetic experience and consumer goods and services as aesthetic objects are made.

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