Service innovation management practices in the telecommunications industry: what does cross country analysis reveal?

Service innovation management practice is currently being widely scrutinized mainly in the developed countries, where it has been initiated. The current study attempts to propose a framework and empirically validate and explain the service innovation practices for successful performance in the telecommunications industry of two developing countries, Malaysia and Bangladesh. The research framework proposes relationships among organisational culture, operating core (innovation process, cross-functional organisation, and implementation of tools/technology), competition-informed pricing, and performance. A total of 176 usable data from both countries are analysed for the purpose of the research. The findings show that organisational culture tends to be more influential on innovation process and cross-functional organisation in Malaysian telecommunication industry. In contrast, implementation of tools/technology plays a more instrumental role in competition-informed pricing practices in Bangladesh. This study revealed few differences in the innovation management practices between two developing countries. The findings have strategic implications for the service sectors in both the developing countries regarding implementation of innovative enterprises, especially in Bangladesh where innovation is the basis for survival. Testing the innovation management practices in the developing countries perhaps contains uniqueness in the field of innovation management.