Prototyping as a translational practice within cross-organizational B2B service innovation

This paper focuses on service prototyping in a global B2B technology company experimenting with the B2C market. We first establish the research framework with existing literature on service prototyping and then report a case in which service prototypes and prototyping approaches were used to contribute to different phases of a new service development project: a) discover and define, b) develop and deliver and c) implementation and rollout. We then reflect on the role of prototyping as a translational practice in facilitating cross-organizational collaboration and aligning and enhancing the commitment of various stakeholders. The first author, with a dual role of designer and researcher, was engaged in planning, documenting, re-constructing and examining the case project's process, activities, actors, outputs and outcomes. The results illustrate that prototypes and prototyping are translational practices in which knowledge from research and design practice becomes entangled.