Integrated Framework of Growth Management for Identification of Service Innovation Levels and Priorities

Abstract

Growth management depends on an accurate understanding of an organizations’ current situation within the market in which it operates. Literature indicates that there is still inefficiency in quantitatively diagnosing the driving factors of service innovation and growth management. The purpose of this research is to identify the levels and priorities of sustainable growth management strategies with detailed measurements for industrial service innovation. The research focuses on the construction industry as the case context to scrutinize and compare various indexes and policy platforms for the evaluation of service innovation and the development of a diagnostic framework. The paper further identified the developmental obstacles of service innovation from 585 survey responses from construction enterprise representatives from Shanghai, Beijing and Xi’an in China, using average score method and entropy weight method. The data analysis identified the service innovation level and development priorities for the enterprises can assist in determining sustainable service innovation paths. The research then combined the competitive advantage characteristics method using a cluster analysis to develop a growth management framework of service innovation in the construction industry. The research results indicated that the majority of analyzed enterprises were in the second phase of their development, with clear policy opportunities for increasing levels of service innovation. However, the results also indicate the majority of sample enterprises were not encouraging the efforts of employees to strive for innovation and were lacking appropriate investment funding towards service-related innovation. These two weaker aspects offer a starting point for firm-level managers to consider when aiming to improving service innovation. The paper contributes by advancing the quantitative evaluation of growth management policies for service innovation. Furthermore, it provides possible measures for improving service innovation with particular emphasis on service innovation in project-based construction enterprises. Finally, it offers a practical diagnostic tool to improve industry level growth via increased service innovation.