An unsettled issue in academia is how institutions form the basis for trust-relations. Based on a summary of studies of institutional-based trust, ISE researcher Lars Fuglsang and Søren Jagd argue that “sensemaking may serve as a bridge between institutional contexts and interpersonal trust processes”. It is further argued that institutions are rather ‘emerging’ than ‘impacting’.

Trust is by cognitive scientist Paul Lewicki defined as “confident positive expectations regarding another’s conduct”, while institutions by sociologist William Richard Scott are defined as “cognitive, normative and regulative structures and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior”. Sensemaking is by organizational theorist Karl Edward Weick defined as “ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing”. Continue reading The actor-dimension of institutional-based trust →

The results in an explorative study by ISE researcher Ada Scupola and Virpi Kristiina Tuunainen, Aalto University, indicate a relationship between the strategic orientation to innovations and the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) as a tool in innovating facility management service processes.

The study investigated and conceptualized the strategic orientation to innovation and the roles of ICT in a specific service sector, facility management services in the empirical setting of Danish facility management organizations.

Different types of organizations, different roles
Based on the findings, the case organizations in the study are categorized as explorative, ambidextrous or exploitative in relation to the innovation in question. It is then empirically investigated which role ICT have in relation to each one of these categories; the roles being “enabler”, “support” or “utility”. Continue reading ICT in strategic orientation to innovation →

Not much knowledge exist about the importance of users for the innovation processes in tourism companies, about how much user-based innovation is used in practice in this area or about how this best can be practically done.

In a new study, this is explored on the basis of a case study in a Northern European safari park. The case study use GPS technology to track the visitors as a part of the foundation for user based innovation. The study then explores how this kind of data more generally can be used for practical tourism innovation. Continue reading GPS tracking in user-based innovation: A Northern safari park →

While cooperation is generally a good thing, it is in many cases not easy. And when it comes to collaboration between museums and ICT design companies, contextual challenges indeed exist. This subject was empirically explored by our PhD fellow Anne Rørbæk who is active in the Danish Research Centre on Education and Advanced Media Materials (DREAM).

Anne Rørbæk attended the Nordic Digital Excellence in Museums (NODEM) Conference in Sweden in December 2013, where she presented a paper on the challenges that meet museums and ICT design companies when they collaborate, called “Too many cooks spoil the broth?” Continue reading NODEM: Collaborative museum design →

“In these days of economic uncertainty, businesses ought to make better use of recent research into the experience economy”

The sentence above opens a new article in ScienceNordic.com by ISE researchers Jon Sundbo and Flemming Sørensen which takes its point of departure in the new Handbook in the Experience Economy.

Read the article at ScienceNordic.com here: Experience economy brimming with potential

One major point seems to be that many have not really realized that we today in the so-called developed world live in an experience economy. And the knowledge that we do has a great potential of leading us to more beneficial ways of doing business. Continue reading Lack of knowledge may affect the economic crisis →

A case study of a Scandinavian insurance company with about 4000 employees suggests that service companies of different kind could benefit from a ‘service laboratory’. In the case study, a physical laboratory office with a manager, a vice-manager and four employees was set up by the top management in the insurance company.

The case study as well as the idea in a little more general terms are considered in a new book chapter called “The Lab is Back: Towards a new model of innovation in services”, written by ISE reserachers Jon Sundbo and Flemming Sørensen for “The Handbook of Management and Creativity”.

Continue reading Can service be created in a laboratory? →

Our ISE researcher Lars Fuglsang has now taken up the task as professor in service innovation here at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. This means a new strengthening of our research group Innovation in Service and Experience (ISE).

Lars Fuglsang has been engaged with innovation and theories of this. He has joined many Danish and international research projects and PhD programs. Especially, he has done research on innovation in service companies and on systems of service innovation – both in the public and in the private sector. Furthermore he has been among the first to do research in experience, and he has been engaged in subjects of tourism. Lars Fuglsang has edited the book “Innovation And The Creative Process – Towards Innovation with Care”, which was published at Edward Elgars publishing company in 2008. Continue reading New professor in service innovation →

The European Union in 2012 supplied a European center for service innovation (ESIC). The center works with service innovation and politics of this on a regional level for two years. The center will also give inputs for the European Union’s innovation programs 2014-2020 (Horizon 2020, COSMA, SF and more).

The contract was won by a consortium of consultancy companies from European countries. Rambøll/Finland is leader of the center. From Denmark, the socioeconomic and policy consultancy Damvad is participating. Continue reading European Service Innovation Center →

While the music industry celebrates growth in the concert and festival business, this very growth creates a new challenge to the “eco system” of the music industry as a whole. This happens at a time when the recording industry has left much of the work in talent development and marketing to the live sector.

The music business has always been a source of juicy behind-the-scenes stories, but it has never attracted more attention than after the crisis in the record business began in the late 1990s. Thousands of articles have been written about the death of the record industry. By contrast, the growth in the live sector is commonly described as a story of success. Yet, one of the biggest challenges to the music industry – and to the ecologies of musical life more generally – is a new and more narrow commercial exploitation of live music. Continue reading The hidden crisis in the music industry →