The influence of social innovation on employee performance in the service sector

This thesis delivers useful insights on how the performances of employees in the service sector are influenced by the appliances of social innovation. Social innovation refers to different ways of organizing actual work and focuses more on the aspects of people within an organization. The research is divided in two main parts. The first section provides a thorough literature analyses which will contribute to developing a broad understanding of social innovation, the service sector and employee performance. Then, quantitative data of Dutch employees working in the service sector is analyzed to test assumptions from the literature. Hereby, the results of the regression analyses and mediation test provide answers to our main research question: ‘How do aspects of social innovation influence the employee performance in the service sector?’ Outcomes show that aspects of social innovation have a positive influence on the performance of employees. This relationship is also mediated by job satisfaction, loyalty and commitment. Separate sub-sectors of the general service sector are prone to different aspects of social innovation, this thesis provides an overview of this in more detail. To firms in the service sector it is recommended to apply aspects of social innovation in order to boost performances of employees, which will in return boost firm performances.