Research on service innovation appears in several research disciplines, with important contributions in marketing, management, and operations research. Although the concept is widely used, few research papers have explicitly defined service innovation. This dearth of research is the motivation for the present study. Through a systematic review of 1301 articles on service innovation appearing in academic journals between 1979 and 2014, this article examines research defining service innovation. The study identifies the key characteristics within 84 definitions of service innovation in different perspectives (assimilation, demarcation and synthesis) and shows how the meaning of the concept is changing. The review suggests that the large variety in definitions limits and hinders knowledge development of service innovation.
When we visit a retail outlet, we go there to complete some type of shopping goal. These goals may be very specific and precisely planned prior to entering the store, or more abstract, and something we think of on the spur of the moment. The stores may display tens of thousands of different products, making it difficult to achieve the shopping goal in a rational manner. As a result, we use different types of heuristics to meet our shopping goals. In this study, we investigate how a customer’s visual attention is influenced by their shopping goal, based on the results of three field experiments in three different contexts—a gas station, a sports store, and a grocery store. Firstly we establish that differences do exist in viewing behavior based on whether shopping goals are planned or unplanned. A more complex and unplanned shopping goal leads to increased observations of in-store stimulus. We then study whether or not the complexity of the first shopping goal also influences the viewing behavior of the next shopping goal, independently of the characteristics of the second goal. The findings confirm that complex decision heuristics deplete cognitive recourse. This finding results in diminished visual attention during subsequent choices. In turn, this has implications for a customer’s shopping behavior.
In today’s retail environment, consumer products are increasingly competing for customers’ attention. Research has shown that 60–80% of purchasing decisions are influenced in-store. Thus, packaging that stands out from competitors gains a competitive advantage. This study investigates the use of eye-tracking as a method to evaluate and design packaging with better Point-of-Purchase qualities. An eye-tracking laboratory was used and shoppers were recruited for three rounds of experiments. In total, 128 participants were recruited in order to assess the potential of eye-tracking. Results show that, when taking some methodological constraints into account, eye-tracking complements traditional methodologies with further insights when investigating the Point-of-Purchase qualities of packaging.