Innovation in Boutique Hotels in Valletta, Malta: A Multi-level Investigation

Kristina Buhagiar

2022

Abstract

Service innovation has come to reflect a multidimensional and fuzzy construct defined by elusiveness. As such, the terminology ‘service innovation’, while increasingly important in servitized and experience-based economies, has come to denote ‘everything and nothing at the same time’. Further amplifying these issues, scholars remain divided on whether service innovation should be explored from a demarcation, synthesis, or assimilation approach, while service innovation process models provide overly simplified representations of the service innovation process. To counteract these shortfalls, and based on Buhagiar et al.’s (2021) conceptual multi-level model of service innovation, this paper, through the application of a qualitative methodology, explores the service innovation process of boutique hotels located in Valletta, Malta. The results of this study explicate that knowledge resources and the capacity of personnel in boutique hotels to combine and transform knowledge resources, at both the micro-level and firm-level, mirror core capabilities necessitated to develop innovation in boutique hotels. Furthermore, service innovation emerged as a human-centric process, with idea generation inherently contingent on the cognitive capacities of personnel in boutique hotels. Thus, inciting the innovation process in boutique hotels emerged as contingent and path-dependent on the motivations of personnel to identify innovation opportunities, and externalize subjective tacit knowledge.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Buhagiar K. (2022). Innovation in Boutique Hotels in Valletta, Malta: A Multi-level Investigation. In Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2022) - Volume 3: KMIS; ISBN 978-989-758-614-9, SciTePress, pages 95-106. DOI: 10.5220/0011585500003335

in Bibtex Style

@conference{kmis22,
author={Kristina Buhagiar},
title={Innovation in Boutique Hotels in Valletta, Malta: A Multi-level Investigation},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2022) - Volume 3: KMIS},
year={2022},
pages={95-106},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0011585500003335},
isbn={978-989-758-614-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2022) - Volume 3: KMIS
TI - Innovation in Boutique Hotels in Valletta, Malta: A Multi-level Investigation
SN - 978-989-758-614-9
AU - Buhagiar K.
PY - 2022
SP - 95
EP - 106
DO - 10.5220/0011585500003335
PB - SciTePress