Logistics innovation: A customer value-oriented social process

This article deals with the different aspects of logistics innovation. Innovation is critical to the success of many firms, including providers of logistics services. Academic research emphasizes the importance of customer-focused innovation to firm performance. The global marketplace, with ever changing technological and relational options, has driven businesses to look for new ways to innovate. However, without a descriptive understanding of how innovation occurs, it is difficult to suggest examples of successful logistics innovation management, normative models on how it ought to be managed, or indicate how logistics service providers can avoid harmful mistakes. Innovation can occur within services, processes, or any social system. It is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption. As such, by logistics innovation, we mean any logistics related service from the basic to the complex that is seen as new and helpful to a particular focal audience. Innovation is inspired by actors responding to and interpreting a dynamic environment, continuously reflecting on their interpretations, the interpretations of others, and responses by others to their actions.