Stakeholder Integration for Service Innovation in German Medium-Sized Enterprises

This multiple case study explores stakeholder integration as a multidimensional process in service systems. Applying a service‐dominant (S‐D) logic perspective to service innovation, the empirical study identifies which internal and external stakeholders are being integrated in service innovation, at which stage of the process, and in which mode. It explores the practice of stakeholder integration as a multidimensional process in the context of medium‐sized information technology and manufacturing firms and thereby demonstrates, among others, that stakeholder integration is foremost implemented as reactive integration. Mutual cocreation, the bidirectional exchange between stakeholders, is put into practice only with internal stakeholders. The exploratory approach shows how the indirect integration and interdependencies of stakeholder integration represent challenges for service innovation.