Service Sector Innovation

Focus and Themes of Special Interest Group

Innovation is the key to developing new opportunities for a more dynamic, creative and productive services sector. However, there has been very limited reference to service sector innovation until relatively recently (Hall 2008, Carlsen, Liburd, Edwards and Forde 2008). Furthermore, there is currently no conceptual framework or agreed methodology for investigating the process of innovation in the service sector. Policy context is particularly important for innovation, yet there are only a few places where the nexus between innovation policy and practice has been investigated. The proposed SSI SIG will bring together a diverse group of international and Australian researchers and position CAUTHE as an organisation that actively supports service sector innovation research and education.

Key Outcomes for Members

• Contributing to national and international service sector innovation research and education.
• Developing an agreed framework for understanding the nature of SSI which would strengthen future research.
• Ongoing discourse at future CAUTHE conferences and other fora such as the BEST Education Network Thinks Tanks and CHME conferences
• Contribution to future journal and book publications on the topic of Service Sector Innovation.
• Building and sharing knowledge and insights into service sector innovation with international colleagues for improved understanding
• Opportunities for collaboration and transfer of expertise between industry and academe.

Key Activities for 2009/2010

• The SIG held its first meeting at the CAUTHE conference in Fremantle in 2009 to discuss activities, meeting dates and opportunities for collaboration. 13 members, including 5 international delegates, attended this meeting and outlined their expertise/interest, current work, possible contribution to the SIG and ideas for operating the SIG.
• The SIG coordinators are currently developing a research model framework to help direct theory development and applied research conducted by the SIG in the future. They plan to have an SIG meeting at the CAUTHE conference in Hobart to present this model.
• The co-ordinators propose to communicate with members via web based collaborative tools (such as social networking tools such as Facebook or Sakai).

Other ideas include:

• The O'Kane review of the national CRC program may produce opportunities to apply for a SSI CRC grant. O'Kane states that "service industries have not made significant use of the CRC Program and they too need to be encouraged to collaborate with others to develop innovative solutions to pressing problems and challenges".
• Participation in university-based proposals such as the Tourism Futures Program (a Priority Research and Innovation Project at VU and the Curtin Internal and Linkage grants program at Curtin).
• Staff and student exchanges between member universities.
• Collaboration with partner organisations including CHME and BEST EN during their annual conferences.

SIG Co-ordinators

Prof. Jack Carlsen Jack.Carlsen@cbs.curtin.edu.au
Dr Sue Bergin-Seers hedge.farm1@bigpond.com