ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the change literature, links it to the concepts of creativity and innovation, and comments on the relevance of all three to strategic services management. The liberalisation of air transport markets has introduced into the industry intense pressures for change; other pressures include rapidly evolving customer expectations, and the implications that advances in information technology hold for distribution, service design, revenue management, process design, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and better-informed decision-making. An innovation can be a source of competitive advantage, but in most service businesses such advantage is often ephemeral; an ongoing competence in the management of innovation, on the other hand, can lead to more sustainable advantage. Service innovation involves economic and design challenges. The economic challenge is to balance consumers' needs for onboard living space against the fact that cabin floor-space is one of any airline's core revenue-generating resources; the service concept should provide a context for this trade-off.
