Abstract
Today most of the economies around the world are mainly driven by the service sector. This sector accounts for the higher employment of labor force and also is the one that provides a higher value added. In the case of Panama’s economy the situation doesn’t vary. The service sector accounted for the 77% of Panama’s GDP in 2006, being the Panama Canal an essential contributor to it. The major purposes of this research are: 1).To know and explain how innovation is done within a service company, by using Gallouj’s Characteristics-Based Approach model, 2). To know how is the technology adoption in the Panama Canal Authority and 3). To examines the benefits of service innovation to customers by identifying some determinants relevant to service quality. This research used the case study to implement and collect the data. It contains both explanatory and exploratory intention. The explanatory includes an overview of the whole situation in the Panama Canal, while the exploratory was based on structural interviews applied to 7 employees of the Panama Canal Authority and 3 customers of the Canal. The results can be summarized under three main conclusions: - Service Innovation in the Panama Canal is highly technology enabling service. Supported by information system, technologies and modernized equipment - The characteristics based model provides a good framework to analyze the diversities of service innovations according to this study. These innovations has improved direct or indirectly the service quality and has involved different degree of business process innovation. - Radical and ad hoc innovation events implemented business process innovation, while the other service innovations implemented process improvement.