Operationalizing Co-Production in Public Services Delivery: The contribution of service blueprinting

We have argued for public services to move away from product-dominant logic towards a service approach. By taking a services orientation, the experience, inter-organizational, and systemic nature of public services delivery can be considered along with the role of the service user as a co-producer. In this article, we unpack how co-production can be operationalized through the application of service blueprinting. This article presents an example within higher education where the creation of a blueprint brought together staff and students to focus on the design of student enrolment, resulting in improved student experience and supporting co-production

Moving from a Product-Based Economy to a Service-Based Economy for a More Sustainable Future

Traditionally, economic growth and prosperity have been linked with the availability, production and distribution of tangible goods as well as the ability of consumers to acquire such goods. Early evidence regarding this connection dates back to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776), in which any activity not resulting in the production of a tangible good is characterized as unproductive of any value." Since then, this coupling of economic value and material production has been prevalent in both developed and developing economies throughout the world. One unintended consequence of this coupling has been the exponential increase in the amount of solid waste being generated. The reason is that any production and consumption of material goods eventually generates the equivalent amount of (or even more) waste. Exacerbating this problem is the fact that, with today's manufacturing and supply chain management technologies, it has become cheaper to dispose and replace most products rather than to repair and reuse them. This has given rise to what some call a disposable society." To put things in perspective: In 2012 households in the U.K. generated approximately 22 thousand tons of waste, which amounted to 411 kg of waste generated per person (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2015). During the same time period, households in the U.S. generated 251 million tons of waste, which is equivalent to a person generating approximately 2 kg of waste every day (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2012). Out of these 251 million tons of total waste generated, approximately 20% of the discarded items were categorized as durable goods. The disposal of durable goods is particularly worrisome because they are typically produced using material from non- renewable resources such as iron, minerals, and petroleum-based raw materials

SMEs' purchasing habits : A procurement maturity model for stakeholders

Although micro companies overpower the small and medium enterprise (SME) segment, generalizations are often with medium size companies, and therefore, there are many unknowns, especially when it comes to its buying behavior. Conformist studies and industry practices assume SMEs to be “normative” or “conservative” buyers; however, this hypothesis is untested. This article aims to scrutinize the reality, and proposes a unified model that rejects pre-containerization in buying behavior typologies, as well as selectiveness in terms of audience type, whether it is corporate, SME, or consumer. While replacing researchers’ perceptions with the audience’s, the model yields actual knowledge that can lead to audience’s beliefs in lieu of the opposite, which is used to mislead stakeholders. The study shows that SMEs also buy like individuals and spend in a similar way to consumers’, including not only “normative” and “conservative” but also “negligent” and “impulse” zones. From the research-implications perspective, future studies by behaviorists can explore why SMEs purchase in this way. Marketers may benefit from the finding that SMEs buy like individuals. In addition, SMEs may want to be conscious of their purchasing habits, and—utilizing the newly introduced “risk score” frontier—policymakers should assess the consequences of these habits at the macro level

Service design and participatory design: time to join forces?

We address the theme of “participation(s) otherwise” by bringing forward what we see as an opportunity to combine existing participatory and service design approaches to participation in the way they weave connections between design, IT, digitalization and democracy, focusing on the context of the public sector. This is a context where participatory design, despite interest and projects, has not been widely adopted. However, service design, the ‘new kid on the block’, is establishing itself by very pragmatically addressing the emerging need for people-centered design approaches in organizations, including in the public sector. Service design might at first be easily dismissed by participatory design because of what may seem a superficial take on people-centeredness and its links to business-centered interest in ‘design’. With this exploratory paper, we emphasize what both disciplines can learn from one another and propose that participatory design and service design join forces in expanding notions of participation and addressing the challenges of digitalization in the public sector