The Service Innovation Model of Aromatherapy Industry-dyadic perspective

Li-Min Chuang *, and Tsung-Shih Kuo *
Chang Jung Christian University *

Abstract: This study aimed to explore the service innovation model of the aromatherapy industry in Taiwan. The different dimensions of innovation in the process of development constituted the foundation of our classification scheme. The four dimensions of service innovation proposed by Avlonitis, Papastathopoulou, and Gounaris (2001, p.324-342) were adopted to develop the main norms for selection of this study. Then, the researcher’s practical experience was combined with the dyadic perspective of different backgrounds of peer businesses and customers to delve into the industry and its future development. This study first analyzed the talks in the form of expert interviews and then established a theoretical framework and designed a questionnaire. The questionnaires were distributed among businesses and customers, and the weights of the dimensions were analyzed according to the research results based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

The research subjects included 12 businesses in the aromatherapy industry and 12 aromatherapy customers. The AHP expert questionnaire was employed to discuss the relative weights of the dimensions so as to understand businesses’ and customers’ interpretations of and in-depth views on service innovation in the aromatherapy industry.

Keywords: Aromatherapy, Innovation, Service innovation, Dyadic perspective.