Investigating service co-innovation practices in a culturally bounded context

Co-innovation is gaining popularity as a strategic innovation model to develop new service offerings and disrupt the market status quo. Unlike goods, services are highly contextual and co-innovation studies to date have not theorised the role of the cultural context in shaping these practices. This study aims to address this gap and present a service co-innovation practice typology. An emerging stream of service innovation research focuses on the significance of distinctive organisational practices that arise within a co-innovation context (Lucarelli, 2019; Marcos-Cuevas, Nätti, Teea & Baumann, 2016). Existing literature, however, lacks a discussion on the impact of cultural context on collaborative innovation, and provides little knowledge of specialised practices that could appear in culturally bounded contexts (Yi, & Gong, 2013). Drawing on institutional and practice theory (Bourdieus, 1977), we argue that the co-innovation process occurs within an institutional context comprising context-specific, rules, norms, and cultural frameworks impacting success/failure. An exploratory case study approach was adopted for this research. Specifically, the cultural context of Islamic banking services, as this setting demands co-innovation practices comply with Islamic banking institutional norms. Three distinct sets of co-innovation practice categories were identified. Firm-related practices (e.g. Envisioning, Reframing, Unravelling), customer-related practices (e.g. Collaborating, Advice Seeking, Disassociating), and context-specific practices (e.g. Sensing, Approving, Consideration of public interest). This research contributes to service innovation literature by conceptualising a typology of co-innovation practices within a culturally bound context and highlights the importance of culture in shaping co-innovation efforts.