ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to present a set of works that share the goal of going beyond technological innovation without neglecting it. Their general purpose is to display the varieties of forms and trajectories of innovation in services. Like specialists in the financial services industry, students of retailing have sought to develop ‘local’ theories of innovation adapted to their particular field. Ad hoc innovation can be denned in general terms as the interactive construction of a solution to a particular problem posed by a given client. Innovation based on the addition of characteristics can be considered as a form of recombinative innovation, particularly when the characteristics added have their origins in pre-existing products. The chapter addresses the question of the variety of innovation forms and trajectories in services by focusing on service oriented approaches and integrative approaches. Putting the service characteristics ‘into order’ frequently involves the transformation of a general function into sub-functions or service characteristics.
