Patient-centered healthcare service development: a literature review

Patient centred services and patient experiences have increasingly been related to service quality and efficiency of care. As a way to have patient centred services, healthcare organizations started involving patients in service improvement. Proper service design is another factor that influences service quality. Healthcare services, however, have presented issues in this aspect. Human Centred Design approaches can be a way for healthcare organisations to properly design services and deliver patient centred care. In this paper, we investigate through a literature review, what methods have been used to design or improve healthcare services and how they contributed to patient centred care. With literature analysis, we identified that Service Design, co-design and other design related approaches were used to bring patient participation, and highlighted improvements and barriers involved in their use. Although these processes faced some barriers, they had positive effects to services being patient centred, improving patient satisfaction and care. Despite the effort of using structured approaches to patient participation and service improvement, the organizations might still be (re)designing their services with inadequate processes

How do firms organize for sustainable energy consumption? An investigation of the Maltese hotel sector

The aim of the paper is to investigate the capabilities of firms in a mature service sector to adopt innovative sustainable energy technologies and practices and the processes through which these firms obtain and exploit knowledge about energy management practices. The hotel sector in Malta is used as the empirical setting. Interviews were undertaken with 26 hotel managers and 14 engineering consulting firms in Malta. The interview data from the hotels were clustered to derive patterns of environmental action characterized by particular firm capabilities. The findings distinguish between hotels that adopt a narrow range of energy efficient measures and those with a higher innovative potential that modify routine maintenance activities and make deeper organizational changes to shift towards improved energy efficiency. Accounting for the range of innovative potential are different combinations of capabilities for problem-solving around energy efficiency and for collaborating with external actors (engineering consulting firms in this study). The paper concludes by providing some implications for policy.Bajada New Energy, General Membrane, EcoGroup, Econetique, Energy Investment, JMV Vibro Blocks, Solar Engineering, Solar Solutionspeer-reviewe

Information Systems in the Industrial Service Business: Analyzing Unaddressed Requirements in a Multiple Case Study

The manufacturing industry is subject to structural economic change reflected in the constantly rising fraction of industrial services. Being confronted with the strategic challenge to reduce operating costs while at the same time meeting ever-increasing industrial service demands, manufacturing firms struggle to find the appropriate information technology (IT) solution for planning and execution. Despite the existence of a parsimonious set of standardization efforts addressing product-related services, manufacturing firms have not reached a common understanding of the product-service system and the corresponding business processes and IT systems. This paper addresses this need by exploring key requirements for information systems (IS) support of product-service systems based on a multiple case study approach. For a critical reflection we confronted those requirements with scientific and managerial frameworks which are derived from a structured literature review. We contribute to the theoretical body of knowledge by outlining six highly relevant requirements for the under-researched field of back stage service systems. Based on the explored requirements, managerial practitioners are able to draw a preliminary roadmap that prioritizes their investments according to firm specific needs

Fostering Efficiency in Information Systems Support for Product-Service Systems in the Manufacturing Industry

The ongoing shift towards stronger service orientation is leading to a rising number of industrial services offered in the manufacturing industry. In the attempt to fulfill ever-increasing service demands while at the same time reducing operating costs, manufacturing firms search for appropriate information technology (IT) solution for planning and execution. The industry has not yet reached a common understanding of product-service systems and the corresponding processes and IT systems. In order to holistically support such broad design and transformation tasks, we develop a maturity model capturing the key requirements for the information systems (IS) support of product-service systems based on a multiple case study. For a critical reflection on the extant literature, we compared those requirements with scientifically recognized maturity models and standard specifications. Being an integral part of the design science research approach, the model evaluation is organized in accordance with approved evaluation perspectives

An Integrative Design Framework for New Service Development

Service innovation is focused on customer value creation. At its core, customer-centric service innovation in an increasingly digital world is technology-enabled, human-centered, and process-oriented. This requires a cross-disciplinary, holistic approach to new service design and development (NSD). This paper proposes a new service strategy-aligned integrative design framework for NSD. It correlates the underlying theories and principles of disparate but interrelated aspects of service design thinking: service strategy, concept, design, experience and architecture into a coherent framework for NSD, consistent with the service brand value. Application of the framework to NSD is envisioned to be iterative and holistic, accentuated on continuous organizational and customer learning. The preliminary framework's efficacy is illustrated using a simplified telecom case example. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE-INTENSE, PERSONORIENTED SERVICES – A STATE OF THE ART ANALYSIS

This paper provides a state-of-the-art analysis of service engineering (SE) approaches for knowledgeintense person-oriented (KIPO) services, focussing on IT-enabled provision of such services. Key attributes are derived that distinguish KIPOs from other services. These attributes are integrated in a framework with regard to their applicability on KIPOs development and used for a systematic literature review. KIPOs are of high economic relevance, yet they are laggards in terms of realization of IT potentials. As the most value-creating activities in service provision are bound to persons or personal knowledge, KIPOs design is complicated. The analysis reveals several gaps in SE research. In particular, identified shortcomings of existent approaches are an insufficient level of detail, i.e. no concrete actions or methods for deployment are described, a lack of practical corroboration as well as insufficient IT support. Further, current approaches are not sufficiently equipped to handle the interplay between people-bound activities and technical components. This paper contributes to IS research by clearly identifying these gaps in SE methods. It further provides researchers with ideas for future research activities and guides practitioners in selecting methods that serve as candidates to be integrated into KIPOs development in order to leverage IT potentials more systematically and efficiently

Shades of communitas: a study of soft skills programs

In societies where neoliberal individualism prevails, communal experiences nevertheless remain crucial to human life. Drawing on data from a series of soft skills programs (SSPs) for Higher Education (HE) staff, we investigated SSP social worlds, their role in navigating staff in uncertain times and points of resistance within them. We found SSPs to be distinctly performative platforms, engaging actors in various self-care and entrepreneurial activities. A complex network of relationships was established via SSPs, and group effects akin to communitas, in “lighter” and “darker” forms. Incongruities of SSPs included gender imbalances and emotional management issues, while a mismatch between managerial attempts to create positive communitas and the reality of mounting workloads and job-cuts facing HE staff were noted in this study. SSPs may help counter organizational siloism, but reflect the ambiguities within neoliberal culture and can deter staff from pursuing political modes of collective expression in the workplace

Short-time Work, Redundancies, and Changing Work Environment: The Hospitality Sector During COVID-19

This article focuses on the restructurings that took place within the hospitality sector during the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. The aim of this article is to examine how STW (short-time work) schemes and redundancies affected the psychosocial work environment. The data material consists primarily of 36 interviews with employees and managers from three hotels in Sweden that implemented STW schemes, where some employees were also made redundant. The results show that during the rather long period of government restrictions, radical shifts in hotel occupancy rates, and implemented STW schemes, the work environment changed in terms of employees’ perceptions of job (in)security; workload and work extension; time and financial structures; and workplace relations. Further, the results illustrate how hotel employees’ perceptions of the psychosocial work environment shifted over the course of the pandemic

The Sociomateriality of IT Surveillance: A Dramaturgical Model of IT Adoption

Information technology adoption in organizations is a process where managers and employees attempt to use and adapt information technology to carry out their everyday work. Given the different requirements of managers and employees, these adaptations often generate tensions around IT uses. We outline an alternative model of information technology based on the theatrical idea of performance where people use information systems not to resist but to project an image of compliance. Thus doing, they are able to erect an electronic façade that hides the improvised information systems needed to achieve their goals. We specify this model from a sociomaterial perspective on information systems use to highlight the role that the material properties of IT artifacts have in the adoption of prescribed information systems. Our dramaturgical model of IT adoption contributes to this emerging stream of research by exploring the social dynamics in sociomaterial performances of information systems