Investigating issues and challenges for customer involvement in business services innovation Hanne Westh Nicolajsen Aalborg University Copenhagen, Ballerup, Denmark, and Ada Scupola Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark Abstract Purpose – The paper aims to investigate how customers may contribute to radical innovation in consultancy services and the conditions needed for customers to be involved in such radical service innovations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a qualitative case study approach including rich descriptions based primarily on interviews to investigate an extreme example of successful customer involvement in the development of radical service innovations at Ramboll, a leading Scandinavian engineering consultancy. Findings – The study reveals that customers may be involved in radical innovation processes to different degrees. However, actively involving customers in radical services innovation require a relationship between the customer company and the service provider that might be described as a partnership in which ongoing learning takes place to develop new solutions. The findings reveal that unsolved problems as well as personal trust are key in making customers involved in radical service innovations. Customers involved actively are further characterised by possessing high expertise and extraordinary personal engagement. Research limitations/implications – As in all case studies, the main limitation of the study is the generalisability of the findings. More cases would help to shed light on the generalisability of the findings across other radical innovation projects within the same company or in similar types of company. Originality/value – The study contributes with new and detailed insights into both how to involve customers in radical service innovations and the conditions and challenges found in doing so. Keywords Engineering consulting, Service innovation, Radical innovation, Customer involvement, Case studies, Customer services quality, Quality improvement, Scandinavia Paper type Research paper 1. Introduction For many years innovation has been seen primarily as an internal organisational activity. Lately innovation has been taking place in networks with customers and business partners (Cheesbrough, 2003, 2006). The current literature presents a number of ways to involve customers in the innovation process and the benefits derived from it (e.g. Smedlund, 2008; Lundkvist and Yakhlef, 2004). A growing field of literature also describes and discusses how users can be actively involved in organisational service innovations (e.g. Alam, 2002; Magnusson et al., 2004; Kristensson et al., 2008; Matthing et al., 2003). These contributions emphasise that different relations between customers and companies are at stake, along with new methods supporting active customer involvement (Roberts et al., 2005). Simultaneously they reveal patterns and nuances on user involvement dependent on the phases and types of service innovation as well as the different methods in use (e.g. Alam, 2002). This article aims to contribute to this literature by investigating a specific case of radical service innovation within consultancy services. The research questions investigated here are: . How may customers contribute to radical innovation in consultancy services? . What are the conditions needed for involving customers in such radical service innovations? Engineering consulting services are developed per se or adapted to a specific customer based on customer characteristics, needs or wishes (Drejer, 2004). Consultancy services innovations are often categorised as so-called “ad hoc innovations” within the customer company (Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997). Innovation within the service provider company is only achieved if the knowledge or competences developed can be re-used in future projects (Gallouj and Weinstein, 1997; Baark, 2004). By adopting the radical service innovation definition provided by Johannesen et al. (2001), we argue that radical innovation is a matter of newness, concerning what is new, how much is new, and for whom it is new. This understanding is furthermore supported by Gallouj and Weinstein (1997), who argue that radical service innovations can be understood as innovations that challenge the services provided by questioning the The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0885-8624.htm Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 26/5 (2011) 368–376 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624] [DOI 10.1108/08858621111144424] 368