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Service Innovation in the IT Service Industry: Social Influence and Relationship Exchange Perspectives

innovation performance within the IT service industry. We then draw from social influence
theory to describe how informational influence and normative influence from team
members and leaders play dual mediating roles in terms of relationships between the
antecedents and innovation performance. From the perspective of external influences, the
meditational mechanisms may complement prior research, which uses a relatively narrow
view of the self (e.g., job involvement, engagement, and intrinsic motivation) to explain
individual innovation. We also identify individual characteristics (i.e., other-orientation)

to describe how individual innovation can be strengthened and explained by individual
differences. Finally, we outline the practical significance of our findings and discuss the
research implications.

5.1 Theoretical Implications
Following past literature on service innovation and organization, this study extends
the understanding of IT service innovation by building and testing a conceptual model

to explore the causality of individual-level innovation performance more deeply.
Although most prior researchers agree that innovation plays a critical role in improving
enterprises’ performance and growth, specifically by supporting work-related systems and
technology intense knowledge to service delivery (e.g., Carlo, Lyytinen, and Rose, 2012;
Trantopoulos, von Krogh, Wallin, and Woerter, 2017), relatively few studies on service
innovation have delved into the importance of individual contributions to organizational
performance. Previous literature on organizational performance indicates that novel
thoughts and behavioral flexibility of individual employees can positively impact a
company’s ability to take advantage of opportunities and fundamentally contribute to an

organization’s innovation, effectiveness, and survival (Amabile et al., 2005; Oldham and
Cummings, 1996; Scott and Bruce, 1994). Kör et al. (2021) and Scott and Bruce (1994)
also highlight the importance of individual actors within a company (e.g., employees and
leaders) during the service process. Our theoretical model indicates that internal factors of
an organization and critical psychological mechanisms associated with engineers can both
influence the fundamentals underlying innovative outcomes.
Through multi-period and multi-source data collection and research model

examination, the current study makes following theoretical contributions: First, this study
deepens the theory and literature on individual innovation performance by incorporating
social influence theory (i.e., informational and normative influence) to highlight the
mediating mechanism in our research model. Of the studies listed in Appendix Table

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