Sustainability transitions are a significant challenge that requires established industries to adopt innovative ways of doing business. Research suggests that while this is possible through business model innovation (BMI), risk avoidance by regime actors and high levels of future uncertainty act as barriers to successful transitions. Specifically, we lack knowledge about how established companies innovate their business model (BM) to reduce uncertainty related to sustainability transitions. We explore the case of a large forest-based manufacturing company in the construction industry, Stora Enso. We find that, by pursuing transformative BMI and combining multiple value creation logics, a company can reduce different types of uncertainty while shaping its business ecosystem towards more sustainable opportunities. We show that the BM can serve as an organizational tool for collectively exploring new knowledge, reducing uncertainty and driving change in a business ecosystem.

Purpose Green innovation can promote both environmental sustainability and economic growth. However, its development and implementation can be complex due to the need to align innovation activities within and across companies. In this study, the authors examined how this complexity can be managed by analyzing how individual companies combine different innovation activities to develop green innovation, and how companies along the value chain align to implement these innovations. Design/methodology/approach The dataset comprises both interviews and a survey of senior executives from the Swedish wood construction industry. These data were first analyzed by using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify innovation activity configurations at the level of the individual company. The interviews were then analyzed to identify alignment mechanisms enabling the implementation of green innovation along the value chain. Findings At the company level, the authors found three innovation activity configurations with varying levels of complexity: (1) systemic innovation by proactive companies, (2) process innovation by reactive companies and (3) inaction by technology-independent companies. On the value chain level, the authors found three alignment mechanisms that facilitate the implementation of green innovation along the value chain. These mechanisms promote cooperation by increasing efficiency, opening up new market opportunities and increasing the level of servitization. Originality/value This paper analyzes the complexity of green innovation and provides novel insights into how complexity is managed at the level of both the individual company and the value chain.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to explore how organizational structure and information processes frame the abilities of organizations to reach their objectives. 

Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses multiple cases to gain a holistic understanding of the role of organizational structure in learning within public organizations. This study comprises 11 semi-structured phone interviews with 11 respondents each representing a Regional public transport authority (RPTA) in Sweden.

Findings –This article argues that the organizational structures and personal or impersonal information processing mechanisms in Swedish public transport influence the search for information and subsequent organizational learning influencing the RPTAs’ ability to reach their objectives.

Originality/value – Unlike previous studies, this article shows how organizational structures in public organization, such as Swedish public transport, are decided based on political compromises rather the needs to solve coordination problems. 

Involving several levels ranging from policy-making to service delivery, the coordination of regional public organizations is a complex matter. This paper explores how relational preconditions affect regional public organizations’ coordination activities and outcomes. A model is developed that links relational preconditions to coordination outcomes. Even though the coordination mechanisms and instruments are used, the coordination outcome might vary based on the individuals and the relationships among individuals. This study suggests that the use of coordination mechanisms and in turn coordination outcome, is affected by the individuals’ personal beliefs and personal relationships as well as trust in the vertical organization.

Med stöd i Förordning (2010:185) med instruktion för Trafikverket 2§ punkt 12 utgår vi ifrån att Trafikverket ska vara ett stöd i arbetet att utveckla ett effektivt och hållbart transportsystem utifrån ett trafikslagsövergripande synsätt i nära dialog med RKM för att skapa en långsiktig infrastrukturplanering, i det att Trafikverket ska stödja arbetet med att ta fram trafikförsörjningsprogrammen (TFP). Föreliggande rapport fokuserar på Trafikverkets roll i samverkan med de Regionala kollektivtrafikmyndigheterna.

För att närmare studera, utveckla och tydliggöra ramarna för trafikverkets stöd och ansvar för kollektivtrafikfrågor, använder vi i denna rapport en förståelseorienterad metod som bygger på att förstå och tolka den kontext som Trafikverket agerar i. Föreliggande text är en inventering av olika utformningar av kollektivtrafikmyndigheter i landet samt Trafikverkets olika Regionkontor. Fokus är i huvudsak riktad mot hur de är organiserade och hur de arbetar för att hantera olika frågor. Syftet är att med denna samlade kunskap se hur samverkansutmaningar har hanterats i olika lösningar och på så sätt öppna upp för ett ömsesidigt lärande och stärka förutsättningarna för samverkan.

Föreliggande studie visar att samverkan mellan kollektivtrafikmyndigheterna och Trafikverket inte är statisk utan en del i en dynamisk process som baseras på kunskap, personliga relationer och förtroende. Genom att få kunskap om den andra organisationen och skapa sig en förståelse om hur man kan samverka för att uppnå bättre effekter av sina satsningar skapas en grund för samarbete. Det är sedan genom personliga relationer som ett förtroende skapas mellan parterna och som fördjupar samarbetet. Ett samarbete likt den mellan Trafikverket och Kollektivtrafikmyndigheterna som varken är bundet till hierarkiska eller beroendemässiga parametrar kräver förtroende och relationella band mellan parterna för att fungera. Den kunskapsintegration som uppstår mellan organisationerna när man klarar av att länka och integrera människors kunskaper och färdigheter genom sina personliga relationer och organisatoriska processer bidrar till ökad organisatorisk kapacitet för respektive organisation. Samspelet mellan organisationerna bidrar till att respektive organisation på ett bättre sätt kan anpassa sig till föränderliga samhällsbehov och skapa interna strukturer som följer de förändrade behov som finns i samhället.

Ett forskningsprojekt om kollektivtrafik får nu sin avslutning i föreliggande forskningsstudie. Projektet har bedrivits inom forskarnätverket Samot (The Service and Market Oriented Transport Research Group) vid Karlstads universitet med Bo Enquist och Mikael Johnson som forskare och huvudförfattare. Svensk kollektivtrafik har under de senaste fem åren varit i kraftig förändring. Med Samot som plattform har det skapats möjligheter för forskare och partnerkollegor att få följa en bransch i förändring, men också att bidra med nya forskningsrön och internationella jämförelser inom Samots multidisciplinära kompetensområden. Utgångpunkten var att med fallstudie som metod följa ett antal utvecklingsinitiativ som hade kommit igång inom branschens partnerskap kring arbetet med att fördubbla den svenska kollektivtrafiken. Fördubblingsarbetet har som idé betytt mycket för svensk kollektivtrafik. Kollektivtrafik finns med på ett annat sätt på den politiska agendan än vad den gjort tidigare. Kollektivtrafik som politik har aktualiserats med ny lagstiftning med start 2012 och införande av en regional kollektivtrafikmyndighet i varje län/region. Det är inom denna dynamiska förändringsperiod på fem år, med konsekvensen av ny lagstiftning som crescendo, som detta forskningsprojekt har vuxit fram. Bokens kontextuella och vetenskapliga hemvist ligger i SAMOTs forskningsområde III: ”Bakomliggande ramar och spelregler inom kollektivtrafik”.

Det är nu som fördubblingsidén har blivit en regional angelägenhet och konkretiseras i handling inom ramen för planeringsprocessen kring de regionala trafikförsörjningsprogrammen. Då kommer också de ekonomiska realiteterna. Fördubblingsmålet finns i någon form med i alla de fyra svenska trafikförsörjningsprogram som studerats. Genom att göra jämförelser utifrån fyra regionala svenska kollektivtrafiknätverk som ligger i framkant i utvecklingen och som också speglar såväl storstadsområden som mer glesbebyggda områden. Som kontrasterande jämförelser har vi också studerat två europeiska regionala nätverk som representerar ”best practice”.

Purpose: This paper aims to contribute to the debate on business excellence by comparing the business excellence models of Malcolm Baldrige, European Foundation for Quality Management and Swedish Institute for Quality. By assessing these in relation to today’s new business landscape, the authors suggest that emphasising issues such as stakeholder co-creation of value, stakeholder dialogue, service innovation, service logic, business ethics and different views on resource integration can alter the view of quality improvement from economic, social and environmental perspectives, in turn, leading to Business Excellence 2.0.

Design/methodology/approach: This study examines three business excellence models and compares their adoption of the concepts of today’s new business landscape. The study focuses on whether the models’ fundamental principles and concepts are aligned with the views on sustainability, stakeholder co-creation and service innovation.

Findings: The examined business excellence models do not fully respond to the requirements of today’s business landscape. To gain relevance in the private sector, the fundamental ideas of the models in terms of concepts, criteria and evaluation processes must be rethought. Such an opportunity enables the quality movement and service logic research to come together to develop new business excellence models that incorporate the challenges of today’s business landscape. Research limitations/implications – This paper illustrates the need to develop business excellence models to address the perspectives of today’s new business landscape.

Practical implications: By incorporating strategies in sustainability, stakeholder co-creation and service innovation in business excellence models, organisations can deliver sustainable business growth.

Originality/value: The paper sheds new light on how business excellence models can incorporate aspects of the new business landscape. It also shows how the quality movement and the ongoing service logic research can come together to develop a new business excellence model that addresses the challenges in the new business landscape.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a deeper understanding of transcendence as business logic and to advance value co-creation and value network thinking. The authors are looking for business logic to have wider understanding of sustainable business. Understanding how value is “networked” and “co-created” by what the authors will call “transcendent business logic” in specific contextual settings is deemed essential in securing sustainable business, which social and environmental perspectives and governance issues are embedded. The authors lay the foundation for enriching the transcendence for business logics for a sustainable business based on sustainability, stakeholder-unifying perspective and value creation network theories. Design/methodology/approach – The study adopts a qualitative approach, using multiple case studies to undertake an analysis of the role of transcendence for business logics. Four case studies of private companies and parallel case studies of retail, health care and public organizations (regional public transport networks) are applied. The paper further asses a methodological approach goes beyond the positivistic paradigm in service research to understand the texts and analyze the research materials. This section presents the methodological approach based on transcendence beyond objectivism and relativism and the transformation process of transcendence business logic. Findings – The paper demonstrates that “different business logics” contributes to securing sustainable business embedded on social and environmental perspectives on governance issues. The authors have shown this based on the idea of transcendence, which can be used from a methodological point of view based on a deeper understanding beyond objectivism and relativism. The authors argued in this paper for a methodological path beyond functionalism. The authors are providing a deeper understanding of the business logic; co-creating value for people and developing sustainability for society. The study has also shown that values form the network, and co-creation is the basis for transcending the business logics. Originality/value – The paper makes original contribution to the exploring transcendence for business logics to be in lieu of guiding open source business models based on the need for understanding of the new logic in the new complex landscape. In service research, the main theoretical challenges of understand and integrating value co-creation and value networks to secure sustainable businesses are founded on the principles of steering and navigation. In this study the authors addressed the need for advancement of value co-creation network thinking and perusal for the business logic to have a wider understanding of sustainable business.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of organisational capabilities (dynamic and operational) in the formation of value networks in the context of public transport services.

Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical argument is substantiated with qualitative data from four narratives on value network formations in the Swiss public transport system. These four narratives cover two types of new value networks: incremental improvements in established value networks; and radical leaps in emerging value networks.

Findings – These two types of new value networks entail the co-evolution of different dynamic and operational capabilities.

Research limitations/implications – The study is limited by the qualitative research approach.

Practical implications – Public transport operators can utilise the findings on organisational capabilities to guide incremental improvements in their existing value network and/or radical leaps into an emerging value network.

Social implications – Governments should not only seek to increase transport capacity, but also aim to develop value networks to enhance public transport service experiences.

Originality/value – The paper applies value-network thinking to public transport services. It offers a comprehensive framework to help organisations manage the formation of value networks. The results provide testable propositions that can be used to guide future research.

Purpose   of this paper

This   paper explores how Prahalad’s five activities of co-creation (customer   engagement, self-service, customer involvement, problem-solving, and   co-design) to public transit service enhance the success of a   public-transport service.

Design/methodology/approach

This   research was based on a single case study of the Swiss federal railway   operator (SBB).

Findings

Our   findings enrich the concept of value co-creation. It is apparent that value   is co-created by one or more of the activities (customer engagement,   self-service, customer experience, problem-solving and co-design). The focus   on only one of the value co-creation activities might be insufficient to   achieve a competitive advantage; rather, organisations should take a   comprehensive view of value co-creation if they are to exploit its full   strategic potential.

Research   limitations/implications

Research   limitations are mainly due to the nature of the qualitative research   approach.

Practical   implications

That   public-transport operators should open up their processes and systems to   include the active participation of customers. Customer relationship   management should base primarily on the knowledge that customers possess,   rather than focusing on knowledge about customers.

Social   implications

Public   transit supports environmental sustainability. However, governments should   not only seek to increase transport capacity. Instead, they should encourage   value co-creation by engaging customers in marketing activities, offering   self-servicing opportunities, creating customer experiences, solving customer   problems, and co-designing services in collaboration with customers.

Originality/value

The study   avoids the current tendency of many studies to explore rather isolated   aspects of value co-creation. We provide a comprehensive framework to help   organisations manage the value co-creation process.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of organisational capabilities (dynamic and operational) in the formation of value networks in the context of public transport services.Design/methodology/approach – The theoretical argument is substantiated with qualitative data from four narratives on value network formations in the Swiss public transport system. These four narratives cover two types of new value networks: incremental improvements in established value networks; and radical leaps in emerging value networks.Findings – These two types of new value networks entail the co‐evolution of different dynamic and operational capabilities.Research limitations/implications – The study is limited by the qualitative research approach.Practical implications – Public transport operators can utilise the findings on organisational capabilities to guide incremental improvements in their existing value network and/or radical leaps into an emerging value network.Social implications – Governments should not only seek to increase transport capacity, but also aim to develop value networks to enhance public transport service experiences.Originality/value – The paper applies value‐network thinking to public transport services. It offers a comprehensive framework to help organisations manage the formation of value networks. The results provide testable propositions that can be used to guide future research.

When public service success is dependent upon creating value that attracts users, public managers can benefit from adopting private sector principles. This article draws on the theory of attractive quality and strategic management research to focus on the theoretical and managerial implications of how organizations' resource allocations affect user experiences. The present study shows how public transit organizations' achievement of twenty-five different service requirements affected their offerings' relevance and preference among 930 users. This article increases the understanding of how strategic choices and prioritization between various service requirements affect both the effectiveness and efficiency of (public) service offerings.

Purpose - Sustainability can be assessed in the dimensions Profit, Planet and People. A problem with the approach is that these dimensions cannot be added. Another problem is that performance seldom is related to global system boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to study the "what" of sustainability by linking this to global boundaries and proposing "how" the authors could manage change toward sustainability. Design/methodology/approach - Sustainability definitions are reviewed to identify main stakeholders. People value defined as utility is compared to Planet harm as carbon emissions and People harm as prices of products. This approach is examined in business studying the global processes of housing, transporting, providing food and cement manufacturing. Findings - The relative indicators with focus on People utility compare to Planet and People harm seem to be relevant for measuring the level of sustainability. The Crippled Bottom Line of People value/Planet harm and People value/Planet harm is proposed as the "what" to measure and the change process of "understanding-defining-measuring-communicating-leading change" is proposed as the "how" to change. Research limitations/implications - The research is based on identifying the main stakeholders based on sustainability definitions and from that point mostly on deductive reasoning. Practical implications - The practical implications are that organizations could define sustainability indicators with objectives that are linked to global limits. Social implications - Advocating the use of price as a social indicator could have social implications. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the discussion of how to link global limits to organizational measurements and targets.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore what options the adult learner has for continued learning and what role universities are playing in providing net-based education. Current options for lifelong learning and improvement opportunities in the educational process are described based on an assessment inspired by principles of lean management. Design/methodology/approach – Sweden is chosen as an example. The current level of net-based university education and the demand for it is assessed using official Swedish data. Lean management principles are used as a starting point to define parameters for interest for the adult learner. These parameters are then converted into a five-level scale for assessing current performance with focus on university courses. The authors also study how Swedish County Councils manage their employee education and carry out a check of courses offered by massive open online course providers. Findings – Lean management principles in combination with customer focus seem to present relevant parameters for assessing distance education. Preliminary results indicate that lean lifelong learning has a considerable improvement potential. The main reasons for this potential seem to be more of a bureaucratic and political nature, whereas technology and resources appear to be less of an issue. Practical implications – The results have implications for both universities and organisations. The pressure on universities to become more customer-focussed, while at the same time, cost-effectiveness is likely to increase. Originality/value – Using the customer perspective for educational services and applying lean principles to education.

Purpose

Global development is not sustainable. Yet, both academia and practitioners are struggling with making sense of what sustainable development is. Sustainability can be assessed in the dimensions Profit, Planet and People. One of the problems with the approach is that these dimensions cannot be added while there are conflicting priorities. Another problem is that performance seldom is related to global system boundaries. The purpose of this paper is to study how sustainability on an organizational level could be operationalized while being linked to global boundaries.

Methodology

Sustainable Development and sustainability definitions are reviewed to identify main stakeholders. Main processes required for sustainability are identified based on People and Planet as stakeholders. People value defined as utility is compared to Planet harm as carbon emissions and People harm as prices of products. The proposed theoretical concept is examined on the business level looking at the process of providing housing and cement manufacturing.

Findings

The relative indicators with focus on People utility compare to Planet and People harm seem to be relevant for measuring the level of sustainability.

Practical implications

The practical implications of the results could be important in that the proposed approach with relative indicators linked to global limits could help companies work with sustainability.

Originality

In spite of the inherent logic of adjusting consumption to existing means there is little written about the practical implications for organizations.

Keywords: Sustainability reporting; Sustainability KPI; Triple Bottom Line; Profit-People-Planet; Eco Efficiency; Relative KPI; Value per harm.

Research paper

The multitude of challenges related to sustainable development require, not only a shift in mind-set but also high competence in most sectors of employment. But how could we know if a university education is going to provide necessary competence in sustainable development? A model being developed to measure university sustainability is the Assessment Instrument of Sustainability in Higher Education (AISHE). Using the logic of self-assessment and based on the Triple Bottom Line this model deals with operations, education, research, interaction with society and core values with a so called identity module. The model makes an operationalization of sustainable development and its structure should be usable for constructing a quick assessment system similar to those of many business excellence models. Finding out the level of university sustainability is clearly not very easy for presumptive students. Furthermore, we can assume that since being sustainable is politically correct there is a risk of "sustainability washing" of information provided. Current university ranking systems do not seem to correspond well with how universities are working with sustainable development. The research question is if the AISHE-model could be converted into a credible quick assessment tool by relying on information provided by the university web-site. For this to work the university needs to have a culture that promotes transparency. With the rapid development of information technology it could be expected that more and more countries will have the conditions for using web-sites for providing the necessary information. Swedish university web-sites are used for testing the model. Sweden has a high level of transparency and is therefore thought to form a suitable example. This paper deals with conceptual development of the assessment model. Further studies will be carried out to validate the model. Results indicate that a structured web-site analysis can be used to quantify information that is organised according to chosen parts of the AISHE-model. The first results indicate that Swedish universities still have a long way to go in becoming sustainable.

Human behavior threatens to ruin irrevocably our long-term existence; the downhill slide is steep and seemingly soon will be incurable. Shifting from unsustainable development would require substantial and far-reaching changes in lifestyles and living standards. As stakeholders (customers, consumers, shareholders, suppliers, distributors, employees, and local communities), through different kinds of dialogue we can influence organizations’ performance by applying pressure on them to change unsustainable behaviors. This doctoral thesis is concerned with the dialogue occurring in the interface between service organizations, under pressure to change their behavior, and their stakeholders, and the link between stakeholder dialogue and organizations’ performance management. The overall aim of the thesis is to describe and understand how stakeholder dialogue can contribute to the value-creation process of a sustainable service. The theoretical frame of reference finds its inspiration in research on management accounting, service management, and sustainable development/corporate social responsibility. In this way, it attempts to bridge the gap between business and ethics. Theoretically, the thesis is a melting pot of ideas on stakeholder value creation. Herein, the customer focus of service research expands to a stakeholder focus, and the management approach of the quality movement, more specifically total responsibility management, develops the thinking of performance management beyond the functionalistic tradition. The thesis also applies a triple bottom line (economic, social, and environmental) approach. The thesis is a compilation of five different studies that follow an interpretative case study approach. The empirical framework stems from the public and private sectors through studies of Swedish public organizations (the Swedish Road Administration and Sveaskog), parts of the Swedish public transport industry, and Swedbank.

The thesis contributes to an understanding of what sustainable service is and the complexity of the transformation process of an organization towards sustainability. Further, it reflects on the role of stakeholder dialogue in a sustainable service. Finally, the thesis contributes to an understanding of how sustainable service matches with performance management by developing a sustainable performance management framework. The framework is a total quality value-creation concept that avoids reducing the complexity of the studied problem by solving it in three parallel, continuous processes or dimensions coupled with each other: the descriptive, instrumental, and normative dimensions. The descriptive dimension involves a social, ethical, and political documentary contextualization through sustainability reports purposed for stakeholder communication. The instrumental dimension contains a traditional set of management controls and techniques supported by triple bottom line performance measurement. The normative dimension is founded in sustainability- and triple bottom line-thinking, values-based leadership, and a feedback and learning process dedicated to genuine stakeholder dialogue.

There is a trend to focus on value creation and to exchange the output between supplier and customer through different activities. The trend ion value creation s describe through various notions such as servicification, service-dominant logic, or prosumption. Understanding value creation is not only beneficial in highly competitive industries, but assists also public sectors. In fact, the term value co- production as a synonym to value creation originated partly from the public service sector. Our intension is to revitalize this concept in the context of value creation in public transit services. The article represents a revitalization of the discussion on value co-production in the context of public services. We continue the research activities started by Christopher Lovelock’s on marketing research on public transit services and combine it with the latest contributions on value creation. Second, by combining value creation opportunities within different activities, we break with the tendency to isolate value creation opportunities from each other. For that reason, our study contributes to argumentation that there is a lack of work directed at providing frameworks to manage the value co-creation process. Third, mapping the value creation opportunities and understanding their impact on public transit services will indicate that value creation opportunities are linked to resource integration within value networks. This guides research on how to bridge the two fundamental premises announced by Vargo and Lusch (2008) on customers are always value co-creators (FP 3) and all social and economic actors are resource integrators (FP 6). The empirical background of the study is based on four case studies in different context of public transit services.

To really fulfill the ambitious goals for a sustainable public transit, innovations should aim on innovating value-configuration spaces through re-inventing the way value is created between service providers and customers. Solving the upcoming traffic challenges in urban regions, research can either focus on advancing single provision of public transit services, or it could use the perspective of value-configuration spaces. Value-configuration spaces consist of value creation and value networks. We applied the perspective of value-configuration spaces to multiple urban regions in industrialized and newly-industrializing countries. Our findings replicate theoretical contributions of elements for conceptualizing value networks and value cocreation. Theoretical extensions refer to the value-configuration spaces for public transit services in urban regions, which seem to evolve through five distinct stages: (1) establishment of reliability of single transportation modes, (2) integration of different transit modes, (3) regional integration, (4) service extension, and (5) individual mobility. Interestingly, whereas these five stages are relatively stable across urban regions in industrialized and newly-industrializing countries, value network and value creations differ according to whether urban regions are located inindustrialized and newly-industrializing countries

Public transportation represents a complex service system, which is based on “value-co-production” configuration. Value-co-production configuration involves “…people, technology, other internal and external service systems, and shared information” (Spohrer et al., 2007, p. 2). To fulfil the goals of a sustainable Public transit, innovations should focus the way value is created. The value configuration space (Gebauer et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2010) is conceptualized consisting of two parties (“customer” and “provider”), who are both resource integrators and beneficiaries in the value configuration space. Both are involved in actor networks (or service systems). Service systems are related to value networks where the value creation relies on resource integration across a value network consisting of firm, network, partners, and customers (Vargo and Lusch, 2008; Edvardsson, et al., 2010). The networks form service systems that survive, adapt, and evolve through exchange and application of resources. Stabell and Fjeldstad (1998) offer another abstraction of value configuration. They have applied the value configuration concept to understand and analyze the firm-level value creation logics across a broad range of industries and firms by exploring the value chain, the value shop, and the value network through mediating technology. The mediating technology delivers value by transforming inputs into products. The value is delivered by resolving unique customer problems by enabling direct and indirect exchanges between customers (ibid).

The aim of this paper is to apply the conceptualization of value-configuration spaces to understand the context of public transit services in a complex service system through different public transit cases. Public transit services in the urban regions of developed countries (Zurich in Switzerland, Hamburg in Germany, and Stockholm in Sweden) and newly-industrialized countries (Cape Town in South Africa, Jakarta in Indonesia and Bogota Guangzhou in China). Despite the importance of sustainable public transit services, existing research does not fully explore how complex service systems drive innovation and value-configuration-spaces; to achieving more sustainable public transit services as a key issue. We are looking for innovative ways to combine service systems and value-configuration spaces; such research in fact substantiates the existing value-configuration-space. The variation in maturity of these different cases allows us to develop a process model of value configuration spaces that assesses social force.

To further embrace these ideas, this paper lays the foundation for enriching the logic of sustainability and value-configuration spaces theories. It extends research on value-configuration spaces. The remainder of the article is organized as follows. The next section presents our conceptual framework. This consists of sub-sections on sustainability and innovation, value creation, value configuration spaces, and the value network. The article continues by applying these four key concepts to our empirical setting based on multiple public transit service networks in Europe. The article concludes with a summary of the main contributions and limitations of the study and directions for future research.

This paper seeks to assess and analyse service innovation in a complex service system, using a theoretical framework that comprises three key concepts: service innovation, complexity, and sustainability. Using two public transit cases, from Zurich and Singapore, this contribution describes the challenges associated with understanding service innovation in the complex public transit service system, according to its basis in social and environmental perspectives on sustainability. The findings affirm theoretical attempts to conceptualize service innovation and value co-creation in the service systems. By delineating the challenges of integrating sustainable thinking in complex service systems for service innovations and understanding the role of public transport services in an international context, this study makes an original contribution to research in services, sustainability, and complexity.

This article conceptualizes the diffusion of user innovations from a service ecosystem perspective. With the focus on sustainable innovations, the service ecosystem is evaluated, along with other systemic innovation concepts, as a possible theoretical basis for explaining the first adoption and diffusion of user innovations. It is proposed that an ecosystem perspective contributes three assumptions that help to better understand the (non)diffusion of sustainability-oriented user innovations: (1) innovation diffusion is a multi-level and -actor phenomenon; (2) an actor-to-actor orientation integrates user innovators into the ecosystem; (3) the service perspective defines innovation diffusion as an evolving co-created process. The assumptions are translated into policy implications and future research requirements for moving towards an innovation infrastructure that considers the role and contribution of users in sustainable innovation.