Service Innovation: Sensing with Information Systems

Dynamic capabilities (DC) Theory highlights the need for organizations to constantly innovate their service offerings. With growing digitalization, service innovation processes (SIP) are particularly reliant on sensing capabilities of the organization, as they allow a firm to derive and disseminate the necessary insights for the development of more compelling value propositions. In this respect, contemporary research often highlights the role of information systems (IS) for innovation success. However, so far little effort has been made to understand this role more precisely. Drawing on the results of a systematic literature review, we investigate the relationship between IS and the SIP and present seven application areas for IS that support sensing capabilities. In this way, we bridge the prevailing gap between DC theory and IS research. Our results shine the light at potential application areas for the use of IS, thus allowing practitioners to improve the sensing capabilities of their organizations.