Course 2023-2024 a.y.

The course is organised around three modules that cover all the relevant aspect of innovation in services:

• The service sectors in the economy - main features of service activities
  • Recognize the economic and social relevance of the service sectors; highlight the specificities of services and the differences across service activities
• Innovation in services – main characteristics and measurement issues
  • Identify the characteristics of innovation in service sectors as compared to manufacturing sectors and the ways of measuring innovations in services
• Innovation and competition in different ICT-based services: KIBS, financial/insurance services, personal services, sharing-economy services

• Recognise the importance of services (as opposed to manufacturing activities) in the economy in terms of employment, value added and innovation.
• Identify the characteristics of service activities and their implications for innovation.
• Discuss the features of innovation processes in services in light of the different approaches developed by the literature.
• Acknowledge the differences across different service sectors in terms of type of competitors, users, knowledge base, modes of innovation.
• Understand the business models and value generation mechanisms of different types of services

• Analyse the process of structural change and the growing role of services within the economy in terms of employment, value added and innovation.
• Apply the methodologies and relevant theoretical approaches to discuss the characteristics of service activities and their implications for innovation.
• Measure and evaluate innovation in services.
• Develop new service ideas.
• Show teamwork abilities and presentation/communication skills.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Online lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Group assignments

The learning experience of the course is articulated around different teaching methods. Besides traditional frontal lectures, the students have the opportunity to discuss case studies and incidents concerning the development of innovation in services, to interact with guest speakers from different service companies, who provide their practical insights and perspectives on the process of innovation in different service sectors (from banking and financial services to consulting and insurance services), to work in a team for the development of a final group project. The group work should aim at the analysis of the development of an innovative service, from the idea to the market introduction and diffusion. There are three possible ways in which students can tackle this issue:

1. Focus on the introduction of an innovative service in the market – e.g. climate change services, peer-to-peer online payment services.
2. Focus on a single company that has introduced an innovation in services in the market and has consequently acquired (more) visibility in the market and increased its profits – e.g. Uber, Satispay, Klarna.
3. Focus on a project of a new service, which does not yet exist on the market. In this case, students should carefully describe the techniques and research adopted to identify the idea and evaluate its technical and economic feasibility.

At the end of the course, all projects are presented and all students actively participate in the discussion, providing their comments and perspectives on the cases developed by other groups. Students are supposed to prepare a report of their case, which is used for the student assessment together with the presentation.

In order to evaluate the acquisition of the above-mentioned learning outcomes, the assessment procedure involves two main parts:

1. 50% group work (written report and final presentation). The report is worth 90% of this partial grade, while the presentation accounts for 10%. With the group work, students will have to apply the knowledge acquired during the course to discuss and examine the empirical evidence related to the evolution of innovation and competition in vanguard services. In particular, students will be able to apply the existing approaches to a specific case, identifying the role of technological and non-technological innovation in services and assessing the importance of service innovation for companies’ success. In doing so, students will have the opportunity to show teamwork abilities, as well as presentation and communication skills.
2. 50% written exam based on course readings and lecture notes, consisting of open questions aimed to assess students’ ability to apply the analytical tools illustrated during the course and to explain the different theoretical approaches to innovation in services. The exam will typically include a set of statements to discuss, aimed to assess the ability of students to articulate their reasoning and to evaluate the potential effects of innovations both within service companies and on the external competition.

Attendance is measured with the "Attendance" procedure available to all students. In order to take the exam as an attending student, an attendance rate equal to or higher than 75% must be reported.

For non attending students, the final grade is completely based on a written exam including 3 compulsory open questions, which cover all the topics of the course and aim at assessing the learning outcomes both in terms of the understanding of theoretical approaches and in terms of the capability to analyse different issues in relation to innovation patterns in different service sectors. To this aim, besides course readings and lecture notes, students have to prepare on a set of additional readings.

Additional cases and readings might be made available on the course BlackBoard at the beginning of the course.

Additional cases and readings might be made available on the course BlackBoard at the beginning of the course.