Service Innovation in Hong Kong: Attitudes and Practice

Abstract

This research explores management's attitudes towards innovation in Hong Kong's service firms and the extent to which service firms are committed to the general practice of managing service innovation. The growth in the scale and importance of the service sector in Hong Kong together with the limited analysis of innovation in the service industries, provide a prime justification for this study. Data were examined from four service groups: retail/wholesale, financial services, hotel/restaurant, and tourism. The findings suggest that although the majority of service organisations in Hong Kong are engaged in some type of innovation, they do not have any established system to control the process. In general, managers seem to confine their development to incremental or distinctive innovations and do not attempt to develop breakthrough innovations.