A Service Science Perspective on the Role of ICT in Service Innovation

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is often considered the main enabler of service innovation. The unique role of ICT in service innovation, however, is not fully understood and advancing knowledge in this area emerged as the top research priority in the fields of service science and information systems research. To date, substantial insights regarding the role of ICT in service innovation are not available, and new theoretical lenses and perspectives are needed to develop these. In this conceptual paper, we define service innovation as service system reconfiguration, which allows us to classify the role of ICT in this process more succinctly and ultimately overcome the shortcomings in the existing body of literature. Specifically, we deconstruct and extend previous views of ICT as a “black box” in service innovation research, and focus on the actual innovation process and its mechanisms. We define and delineate these as resource shifting and resource access, explain the role of ICTs in each, and outline further research opportunities that result from these new insights

Introduction to Service Science Minitrack

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Perspective: Technology Management in the Service Sector

This paper reports out of the symposium on \u27Technology Management in the Service Sector\u27 which was held as a part of Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology in 2007. The objectives of the symposium were: to explore how technology management research and education can contribute to the evolving field of services science, management and engineering; to define a research agenda for the field of engineering and technology management that addresses the critical needs of the evolving service economy and to discuss needed funding structures and programs to foster service oriented research. We tackled these issues in two ways. First, the key leaders from academia, industry and government presented the critical issues and challenges that presently exist. Then, small groups analysed the selected topics in depth. We identified three main components of service science: value, people and technology, and explored how researchers in the field of technology management would tackle this new phenomenon

Customer process management A framework for using customer-related data to create customer value

Purpose The proliferation of customer-related data provides companies with numerous service opportunities to create customer value. The purpose of this study is to develop a framework to use this data to provide services. Design/methodology/approach This study conducted four action research projects on the use of customer-related data for service design with industry and government. Based on these projects, a practical framework was designed, applied, and validated, and was further refined by analyzing relevant service cases and incorporating the service and operations management literature. Findings The proposed customer process management (CPM) framework suggests steps a service provider can take when providing information to its customers to improve their processes and create more value-in-use by using data related to their processes. The applicability of this framework is illustrated using real examples from the action research projects and relevant literature. Originality/value "Using data to advance service" is a critical and timely research topic in the service literature. This study develops an original, specific framework for a company's use of customer-related data to advance its services and create customer value. Moreover, the four projects with industry and government are early CPM case studies with real data

Emerging Digital Frontiers for Service Innovation

This paper examines emerging digital frontiers for service innovation that a panel discussed at a workshop on this topic held at the 48th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). The speakers and participants agreed that that service systems are fundamental for service innovation and value creation. In this context, service systems are related to cognitive systems, smart service systems, and cyber-physical systems and depend on the interconnectedness among system components. The speakers and participants regarded humans as the central entity in all service systems. In addition, data, they saw personal data in particular as key to service systems. They also identified several challenges in the areas of cognitive systems, smart service systems, cyber-physical systems, and human-centered service systems. We hope this workshop report helps in some small way to cultivate the emerging service science discipline and to nurture fruitful discussions on service innovation

Employing a novel bioelastomer to toughen polylactide

Biodegradable, biocompatible polylactide (PLA) synthesized from renewable resources has attracted extensive interests over the past decades and holds great potential to replace many petroleum-derived plastics. With no loss of biodegradability and biocompatibility, we highly toughened PLA using a novel bioelastomer (BE)–synthesized from biomass diols and diacids. Although PLA and BE are immiscible, BE particles of ∼1 μm in diameter are uniformly dispersed in the matrix, and this indicates some compatibility between PLA and BE. BE significantly increased the cold crystallization ability of PLA, which was valuable for practical processing and performance. SEM micrographs of fracture surface showed a brittle-to-ductile transition owing to addition of BE. At 11.5 vol%, notched Izod impact strength improved from 2.4 to 10.3 kJ/m2, 330% increment; the increase is superior to previous toughening effect by using petroleum-based tougheners

From data to value: A nine-factor framework for data-based value creation in information-intensive services

Service is a key context for the application of IT, as IT digitizes information interactions in service and facilitates value creation, thereby contributing to service innovation. The recent proliferation of big data provides numerous opportunities for information-intensive services (IISs), in which information interactions exert the greatest effect on value creation. In the modern data-rich economy, understanding mechanisms and related factors of data-based value creation in IISs is essential for using IT to improve such services. This study identified nine key factors that characterize this data-based value creation: (1) data source, (2) data collection, (3) data, (4) data analysis, (5) information on the data source, (6) information delivery, (7) customer (information user), (8) value in information use, and (9) provider network. These factors were identified and defined through six action research projects with industry and government that used specific datasets to design new IISs and by analyzing data usage in 149 IIS cases. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of these factors for describing, analyzing, and designing the entire value creation chain, from data collection to value creation, in IISs. The main contribution of this study is to provide a simple yet comprehensive and empirically tested basis for the use and management of data to facilitate service value creation