Narratives as driver for co-creating new stories of service

The aim of the chapter is to discuss the possible use of narrative methodology in service innovation research by giving an empirical example of a service innovation process deeply rooted in narrative methodology. To take a narrative approach is to acknowledge stories as being conditional for human organizing and socializing. Therefore, narrative analysis is seen as a way to explore experiences and to play with future scenarios. As such, narratives have been used both to gain insight about customers and to create new stories of service relationships. The chapter presents the design, process and outcome of an innovation workshop, held in a non-profit housing association in Denmark. The case reveals how creating stories seems intuitive to the participants and how employees and residents, by co-creation of new “service” stories, found a neutral place for development, which is why the process in itself became an outcome. The intention is to present the framework of narrative methodology as a profitable mindset in service innovation processes rather than to present a fixed method. Hopefully, the chapter will be an inspiration for both doing and studying service innovation prospectively.