An Action-Systems Level Examination of Emergent Service Innovation within Multi-unit Service Organisations
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This thesis investigates the adaptive and innovative practices required to solve the management problem of balancing service customisation simultaneously with service standardisation, in a variant of the public house or ‘pub’, comprising a nationally dispersed multi-site chain of community eateries. Due to the characteristics of this inter-organisational form (or multi-site structure) that includes dispersed site-level management with large numbers of front-line employees, each site must balance the routine and repetitive operationalisation of a standardised brand with adaptive practices to tailor the service to meet local needs. The thesis asks: What is the phenomenon of adaptive practice and how does it emerge at site level? Does it lead to innovative outcomes, and if so, how? And what do site-level managers need to do to develop this as an innovative capability to remain competitive in the local market? Existing contributions from the literature are fragmented, not sector specific and fail to reflect the complexity of adaptive and innovative practice leaving a research gap. This thesis establishes and operationalises an activity level perspective to capture emerging adaptive and innovative practice at site level, using a combination of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and grounded analysis of a case study. Two different geographical sites delivering the same brand were investigated generating interview and observation data analysed in NVivo. One site was purpose built whilst the second site was an acquisition with legacy issues. Site level situations were modelled, as the activity system transitioned between calm and chaos, and the data was further interrogated to identify innovative practice adaptations embodied in an Innovation Matrix. \n \nThe research surfaced how an activity system assembles and mobilises routine practices with contingent practices as participants delivered a service experience. Innovative adaptive practice evidenced as both temporary and permanent coping responses to the evolving problem space, focused primarily on balancing productive capacity, supported by agency and social capacity, with customer requirements. The study confirms the role of contingent, situated site level informal practice-based service innovation adaptations in mitigating embedded tensions, contradictions, and inherent systemic failures within the service operation. As such practices appear as simultaneous fluid, flexible and rigid structures encompassing loose-tight activities that recursively either enable or disable innovative adaptive practice to occur. \n \nThis thesis contributes to the development of informal practice-based service innovation theory by defining adaptive capability in practice terms as a routine based dynamic capability impacted by socialisation, staff retention, informal learning and mastery, and leadership. The research makes a further contribution by proposing a framework to support and guide both site and multi-site managers to develop a dynamic adaptive capability to produce innovative outcomes. Finally, this thesis contributes to developing a novel research methodology to investigate activity systems within hospitality service-based contexts.
Author: Morris, Barny
Institution: Birmingham City University
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7016971887