New service development: areas for exploitation and exploration

Abstract The management of new service development (NSD) has become an important competitive concern in many service industries. However, NSD remains among the least studied and understood topics in the service management literature. As a result, our current understanding of the critical resources and activities to develop new services is inadequate given NSD’s importance as a service competitiveness driver. Until recently, the generally accepted principle behind NSD was that “new services happen” rather than occurring through formal development processes. Recent efforts to address this debate have been inconclusive. Thus, additional research is needed to validate or discredit the belief that new services…