– The purpose of this paper is to explore how two Islamic banks have involved employees in developing service product innovations.
– The case studies describe the roles of employees during specific stages of development process of service product innovations. The data were collected through face-to-face oral interviews with senior product development managers and marketing managers.
– The results suggest that employees' involvement is encouraged in the selected banks through the presence of a product champion, involvement of front-line employees, support from the management, multifunctional team structure and employee external contacts. A Sharia board was at the heart of the development process of service product innovations in Islamic banks. It was also revealed that employees are more involved in developing service product innovation for retail customers in comparison to the corporate customers.
– Given the focus of current literature on conventional banks, the present study attempts to widen the service innovation discussion to include Islamic banking services. The two cases have practical implications for managers and add to the academic knowledge via the extension of a concurrent staged model.
