Advances in the Human Side of Service Engineering

As advanced Information Technology (IT) drives changes in digital service and service systems across industries, what are the implications for the Human-Side of Service Engineering (HSSE)? This work updates previous HSSE frameworks and extends the boundaries of Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Design (SSMED). Newly included are HSSE areas related to determinants of trust: standards, skills, public sector, privacy, and ethics. All of these are types of shared information resources that influence trust between actors. These updates are needed, as the impact of IT on service systems continues to expand, and AI technologies successfully emulate more human capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to consider possible future directions of HSSE using observations and examples. The paper also presents a discussion of challenges to society and its fundamental values coming from recent advances in AI.

This article introduces a practical approach of managing a public- and a business- market network of two B2B organisations and creates an independent empirical overview in a newly drawn ecosystem for “digital impact” measures. The results enabled the management to take solid data science based decisions. Starting with an unstructured database, containing 14 years of customer relations and 5 years of digital online interactions, various technological and statistical methods like in a “popular census” are applied to draw an innovative ecosystem of B2B customers which are actively interested in improving their own “digital impact”. The results of the study allowed the stakeholders and the management to fully restructure their B2B approach and to learn new priorities on how to rethink their own contact activities. It has revealed that on the commercial business level all kinds of Agencies, followed by food and nonfood, insurances and banks are the most impact oriented industries. On the institutional level there are Federal Governments, Universities and all sorts of Media among the most actively interested bodies, followed by various Consultants. Based on these results and having visualized the data of the empirical research, the organizations call their ecosystem now the “digital impact ecosystem”.

On 24 September 2020, the European Commission presented its Digital Finance Strategy for the EU, a programmatic roadmap accompanied by a package of legislative proposals. This initiative forms part of the Commission’s broader strategy for ‘Shaping Europe’s Digital Future’, as announced by President von der Leyen in her speech on 19 February 2020, and aims at creating a legal framework for the adoption of recent technologies, such as online platforms, distributed ledger technology (DLT), cloud computing, in the field of financial services. In conjunction with other relevant regulatory initiatives, most notably the Digital Services and Digital Markets Acts (DSA and DMA), it also seeks to address the impact of digital technologies on the structure and competitive dynamics of a variety of markets including, but not limited to financial services, and to provide safeguards against potential risks to financial stability and the welfare of citizens and retail customers. This contribution looks at the regulatory approach that informs the proposed legislation, in particular from an international perspective, and examines its potential impact on the development of digital financial services in the EU.

The paper presents and discusses the results of a European project ‘Empowerment of mobile youth in the EU’. It studied the information and communication needs of European mobile youth (EMYs) living in Austria and Estonia to help them better participate in social and political life in their new host countries. These results have been used to develop an emyConnect chatbot as a tool to facilitate such participation and eventually help realize the European citizenship with the help of modern technology. The project outcomes suggest that the chatbot technologies suit well meeting the personalized public service in the domain of life events. From that perspective, chatbot technology demonstrates potential to effectively bridge the information deficit and communication gaps that mobile young people face on a daily basis when living away from home.

Employee engagement is often highlighted as a critical factor to achieve innovation, responsiveness to customers, and numerous other desirable business outcomes. Less clear in the literature, and in today’s business enterprises, are approaches to reliably and sustainably drive increases in employee engagement. We share our perspective that a successful approach to positively impact employee engagement is one that is a hybrid mix of top-down and bottom-up initiatives, with diverse stakeholders who share execution responsibility. We detail our approach, the operational principles and work cycles, the resulting projects and interventions, our study findings, and the resulting outcomes in our organization. Finally, we describe future research so that our work will continue to activate an enhanced culture of engagement in our organization.

Digital age challenges are intertwined and STEEP (Social-Technical-Economic-Environmental-Political). The hallmark of the digital age is the platform society. Platforms provide connected individuals personalized service (news, communications, transportation, lodging, health, education, gig jobs). Platforms cut costs, bypassing cumbersome institutions in exchange for personal data. Data feeds algorithms at scale to improve AI-based service, hence platforms compete for more users and collaborators (ecosystems). The four digital age challenges explored in this paper are: (1) technological over dependency, (2) marginalization of unconnected, (3) trust of platforms, and (4) competing for collaborators. We explore these four challenges from an integrated Service Science (SS) and Viable Systems Approach (vSa) perspective.

The global business environment has grown increasing complex due to economic, cultural, demographic, legal, trade, and political (to name a few) changes, differences, and disparity among nations and geographical regions. This complexity is exacerbated by rapid advances in technology which could be employed appropriately as accelerators or inappropriately as barriers to beneficial change to society. One of the ways industries seek to reduce complexity is through the development and use of standards that cover many areas of manufacturing, hardware, software, telecommunication, consumer products, business processes, construction, etc. In the last few decades, the advent of service innovation, e-commerce, and now digital platforms powered by AI have all given rise to international standardization efforts. In this paper we discuss some of these standardization efforts that are service-related and representative which are of interest to the Service Science community with the aim of informing and encouraging stakeholders to participate, contribute, and produce synergy among academic and industry partners.

The study explores the remodelling of actors, interactions and relationships due to the different use of technologies that can enable contemporary organizations, conceptualized as service ecosystems, to comply with the posed by Covid-19. The aim is to investigate how the adoption of technology can lead to the readaptation of interactions between users to tackle the health “emergency” through the “emergence” of ecosystems transformation by creating innovation and social changes. After the proposition of a theoretical framework, through the interpretative lens of service ecosystems view, Higher education is reread an ecosystem to identify the different technological touchpoints, relational modalities and resources integrating practices that can be implemented in teaching and learning processes to foster the emergence of new knowledge, value and social practices.

The role of society in a firm’s competitive advantage has often been underestimated. The relationship between firms and society has traditionally been considered as responding more to a firm’s moral duty or social responsibility. Some of the literature referenced in this article demonstrates that, in practice, society has often been seen, albeit implicitly, as a source of competitive and comparative advantage for successful firms and/or newly established ones. Technological platforms therefore become an elective tool for engaging with society, both for the economic actors who manage them and for platform-dependent entrepreneurs who use them to increase their ability to stay in tune with the public.

Digital transformation attracted scholars’ attention in various scientific domains, as business models, strategies, human resources management, and, more in general, social sciences. Additionally, digital transformation drove changes in both businesses and society as a whole. Due to its relevance in recent studies and daily activities, we observed the innovation brought by digital transformation at the time of pandemic to understand the contribution it offered. Some of the solutions proposed worldwide were observed, leading to understand the role of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain – among others – in the fight against Covid-19. The analysis offers a perspective on the ways smart technologies enabled suitable outcomes in the activities performed by specialists, firms, and people either to counteract the further spreading of the pandemic or to take care of the patients affected by the virus.

In Smart Cities, there are various contexts and dynamic changes that create complexity and uncertainty for designing the city services. The lack of contextual analysis can cause this to understand how a city should be prepared to accommodate various contexts. Therefore, in this paper, we take the lens of viable systems approach and analyze how the systems and contexts are interconnected and affecting each other. The understanding of the way of connectivity among systems and context will be presented as a critical aspect of city resilience; however, the paper will reflect the position of resilience in the environment of other goals and services of the city. This paper further revisits the smart city layers and services to highlight the connections among different services. To address the contextual changes, to cover the problems with the management of such a complicated environment, IT Service Management applications will be presented.

This paper argues that the way Alcuin implemented new material into curriculum is essentially the same as we do today. The only major difference lies in the relationship of the new material to the new material.

This paper discusses the question of how interdisciplinary teamwork on sustainable projects influences the perception of the concept of sustainability by the team members. The target groups are two projects of the master program “ZukunftsDesign” (Roughly translated as designing the future). The research is carried out by conducting explorative interviews. For a methodical triangulation observation of the group and a survey were used. Finally, the paper summarizes how the perception of the concept of sustainability may or may not change through an interdisciplinary environment to give hints on how sustainable concepts can be communicated more efficiently.

This research examined the impact of the Master’s program ZukunftsDesign on student creativity. The subjective and objective creativity of 42 students were evaluated by means of an online questionnaire and external personality assessment. Findings confirmed the direct link between subjective and objective creativity. The study also revealed promising results for the Master’s program and its students. More in-depth research is required to manifest the identified trends and provide detailed practical and theoretical implications.

This paper intends to provide insight into a project recently initiated and funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) which deals with the design of a blended learning environment for an interdisciplinary and cross-industry audience. The professional diversity of the participants as well as the different levels of expertise they contribute to the project is what makes it unique. The focus within this project is to investigate how human-centered design applied in a blended learning environment can narrow the gap between traditional ways of face-to-face teaching and e-learning. This human-centered approach shall optimize learning experiences to attain the greatest possible benefit for the diverse audience.

In the construction supply industry, there is increasing price pressure on semi-finished products. This price pressure is strongly influenced by the commoditization of the product business. One way of differentiating from competitors in product-heavy industries such as the construction industry is to develop and offer digital services. First, this paper presents the status quo of service development processes within construction suppliers based on deep-dive interviews with long-term industry experts. Second, a process model to enhance service development at construction suppliers is presented. The proposed methodology recombines existing phases and actions while adding additional process steps and decision gateways. Third, an innovation support system is outlined which supports the interdisciplinary development process for smart services. The support system enables the sharing of specialized knowledge among broad and interdisciplinary user groups.

The waste of valuable fresh water is one of the major environmental threats for a future worth living in. Our goal is to make people, especially children, aware of the subject of virtual water and encourage their civic involvement to reduce the water consumption in the production of everyday goods. In the next three years we intend to research if and how such a socio-ecological change of individuals’ and groups’ consciousness could be facilitated through game-based mechanics. For this endeavor, it is crucial to identify and research specific change agents. To ensure this, the use of qualitative and quantitative methods at several measuring points is planned. In addition, reactive and non-reactive research methods are combined and the results are supplemented by surveys in the environment of the studential participants about any behavioral changes.

Digital technologies in Industry 4.0, such as, the Internet of Things (IoT), are enabling transformation of organisations across industry sectors at increasing scale. Organisations are predicted to benefit from both economic efficiencies and the adoption of novel business models, enabled by smart technologies. However, there is reported to be low human capability within industry to achieve IoT transformations. We present an empirically derived model of organisations’ educational learning needs at three stages along a digital transformation journey, focusing on the combination of business and technology knowledge transfer in executive education programmes. Our work contributes to the adoption of new digital technologies in industry by improving the offerings of knowledge transfer providers in this area.

Digitalisation in all sectors and industries has shortened innovation cycles and puts companies under pressure to retain their competitive abilities. The need to acquire new knowledge and capabilities has led to a rising demand for cooperation of industry with universities and technology innovation centres. These organisations now need to provide suitable measures for knowledge and technology transfer and ultimately account for effectivity and impact of their measures. Based on research on knowledge transfer as well as information technology, we suggest a model for evaluating impact of professional education measures that looks at individual and organisational impacts separately. This paper helps to better understand how teaching interventions can contribute to the capability of business organisations to implement digital technologies.

Product-Service Systems (PSS) are an established field of research. In the era of digitalization, data of smart products becomes a valuable resource and can be used to provide smart result-oriented PSS. In an exploratory study in the machinery and plant industry, the socio-technical changes from a provider’s perspective was researched. This paper outlines the socio-technical transformation frame developed on basis of the insights and the challenges identified with the transformation.

For manufacturing companies, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the digital transformation is often a large step – creating digital and “smart” products even more. In advance, SMEs need to know how well they are prepared to smartify their products. We are developing a maturity, capability and measures based approach which is used to strengthen the strategic decision making process for developing smart products and services in SMEs. The methodical tool kit is designed to be the foundation to structurally analyse an SME and derive measures to initially smartify its product offers.

Digitalization offers enormous opportunities not only to optimize operational processes, but also to redefine creative processes, e.g., in the area of innovation. This is becoming increasingly important in light of the fact that innovation is increasingly taking place in ecosystems, which means that an enormous amount of collaboration must be enabled in distributed and interdisciplinary teams. To be successful in this, innovation teams need easy access to the multitude of methods and assistance in selecting the appropriate method for the specific task. To this end, we propose a classification framework that structures methods from innovation management and service design based on higher-level task areas. The framework was developed and evaluated together with several companies. Results were implemented in the form of a playbook that won the red dot design award.

Process models can assist in structuring and managing projects. For typical IT-projects, there are plenty process models which evolved over the last decades. Compared to them, data science process models focus on the specific challenges and aspects of data-based projects. They started evolving just before the turn of the millennium. This paper evaluates contents which could and should be included in data science process models to be useful for enterprises, especially when they are small and medium-sized or do not have their core competences in data science or IT. Regarding these contents, some existing models are analysed, providing an overview of their focus. Concluding, a vision for a continuous data science process model is given, which not only addresses the previously discussed contents, but also fulfils additional aspects to be useful in practise.

Cosplayers are content creators who are symbolic of the universal struggle of micro-entrepreneurs in being fairly compensated for the value they generate. As industries gained exposure and increased sales, they have historically repaid cosplayers who act as brand ambassadors, community leaders, and content creators with symbolic victories. The core issue is a deeply rooted social and cultural learned behavior that causes cosplayers, much like the micro-entrepreneurs they represent, to fail to recognize their value. To transition cosplayers from celebrated hobbyists to paid professionals, this research identifies the potential of game-based learning, world-building, and cosplay as an opportunity for value generation for the contributing cosplayers.

The impact of rapid changes to online course content delivery via platforms such as Zoom and the new demands placed on learning management systems such as Canvas and Blackboard to maintain a semblance of order, were staggering for many educators. However; out of the rapidly changing higher education landscape, there were successes that emerged and we witnessed a burgeoning of online education communities for sharing what can be best described as DIY teaching survival strategies. This research describes a process for sharing success strategies between educators using a mixed method data collection survey and an online participatory group brainstorming protocol using Zoom, an online whiteboard, and an observation method to identify and evaluate teaching strategies in face to face, hybrid and online formats. This online education evaluation strategy, “Innovation in Teaching (I-Teach) Event,” will be discussed with regard to the tools and the techniques of documenting, comparing, and evaluating teaching strategies and technologies.

Color is a critical element in how people perceive products and can affect the decision-making process, and it is also known to be an element that influences the perception of taste and flavor. People associate colors with flavors; therefore, natural color can be an indicator of food flavors. Our experiments began several years ago with children and adults within the context of snack packaging. In this study, we removed the context of food packaging and children as audience members, focusing only on color itself within an adult population.This study investigates five colors used in the market with computer-generated color palettes to review relationships between: color and flavor, preferred color to eat, perception of healthier color, and whether favorite colors influence individual’s eating selections. In this study, four questions were given, with five colors options. The following questions were asked: 1) Rank the color you prefer to eat, 2) Identify flavors that you associate with the color, 3) Rank the color you think is healthier to eat, and 4) Rank your favorite colors.As a research method, an online survey was distributed to a university community. The data analyzed 804 adults’ responses. Respondents ages 18 to 65+ participated in the online survey. Red is the most selected color as the first choice to eat, followed by blue, green, yellow, and pink. Green is selected most often as the healthiest color expectation, followed by yellow, red, blue, and pink. Blue was chosen as the overall preferred color, followed by green, yellow, pink, and red. This study will additionally report the color association with flavors and correlations among the age group, gender, and ethnicity.

The 2020 pandemic caused an unexpected digital shift in education and professional practices all throughout the world. For higher education faculty to effectively teach the second half of the semester, teaching strategies had to transfer from brick-and-mortar classrooms and studios to the virtual classroom. Transitioning from an entirely face-to-face (f2f) format to an entirely online synchronous format disrupted curriculum and required an immediate pedagogical redesign.This ongoing study suggests that classroom shifts from entirely f2f to an online synchronous format can be successful in an undergraduate creative discipline if appropriate technologies are introduced and there is faculty presence. The findings from the surveys show that there are several disruptive technologies, that when used together, allowed for a seamless transition from f2f to online. In addition, the study suggests that students felt better prepared for remote work success after completing half of a semester or an entire semester entirely online.

Creating exhibitions in virtual reality offers unique user experience design challenges. This paper examines a case study of a past VR exhibit and discussions on future UX and usability research for VR exhibitions. Due to COVID19, student BFA shows across the country were canceled as most Universities went virtual. In an effort to create virtual student shows, many programs put together websites or zoom-style showcases. At Fresno State University, the Graphic Design BFA students put on a virtual show using Social Web VR. This paper examines the UX design of the VR show. Next, it examines the UX planning for the 2021 BFA show using social web-based VR. Finally, the paper concludes with plans for researching best practices for the UX of Virtual Exhibition Design moving forward. While social web-based VR offers great potential, designers must be careful to keep VR Exhibits human-centered and consider all participants' total user experience.

The motivation of this work is to examine and describe the relevance of architecture for Human Centered Service Design (HCSD). HCSD is the agile practice of improving service exchange (value co-creation and human well-being) in multi-level actor-to-actor networks. In this agile practice of HCSD, an architectural view means analyzing and describing the building blocks at micro, meso, and macro levels. All social and economic actors are embedded in broader social networks, coordinated by institutions and capable of acting on resources to mutually co-create value [1-3]. Since actions, institutions, and structure influence each other, this work considers the entire multi-level network in the understanding of a holistic service system ecology to investigate the relevance of architecture for HCSD [4, 5].

Since the advancing digitization, the amount of data increases exponentially and the potential to use this data to innovate data-driven business models is high. In the city, in particular, the new technologies generate large amounts of data that can be used to make a city smarter. However, the process of innovating new data-driven business models is complex and not trivial to create a shared understanding between the different involved actors. Our research shows that the link between data and the citizen's value proposition is not clear and requires specific steps in between. To support such processes, this work develops a graphical artifact for the Smart City area. Firstly, we supplement the existing knowledge of data-driven Smart City Services and lay the foundation for further concepts in this area. Second, the artifact can be used in practice to make their city smarter and to innovate data-driven business models.

The German Online Access Act presents a disruption in the way public services and service ecosystems are conceived, planned and developed. In a longitudinal case study approach, we aim to analyse, how the OOA is implemented so far and what can be learned towards conceptualizing service innovation with a regard and connection to human centred design. Our research focus is, how a Service-Dominant logic approach can contribute to innovate public service delivery through service systems design.

In the following we present a multilevel design perspective to analyze the case of a fully digitized health insurance company in Germany which is striving to innovate by (re)designing practices to institutionalize new health services and solutions. To nurture digital service innovation companies are required to strengthen and expand design knowledge concerning actor engagement and related systems of engagement. Presented research strives for deeper understanding of the microfoundations of value co-creation, namely actor engagement, for the emergence of service innovations from a theoretical and practical point of view. This research is conducted in context of evolving Service Dominant Architecture (SDA) as implementable IT artifact and conceptual framework.

This paper demonstrates that human resource management (HRM) literature is moving towards a service science perspective in which value creation unfolds over time and is embedded in broader social systems [1, 2]. To contribute to this grounding, the authors draw on service science and service-dominant logic to promote a view of service (eco) systems and provide further theoretical foundation for hr and HRM [3, 4]. The purpose of this paper is to derive implications for the foundation, understanding and management of hr and HRM in terms of service exchange and value co-creation.

The strength of associated network effects is not only an expression of the platform’s initial success, but also a driving force for further growth and service innovation. However, many platform organizations struggle to create strong network effects to attract further platform participants. Therefore, organizations need to understand how to exploit the self-reinforcing character of different types of network effects and thus, to achieve a unique value proposition and deliver innovative solutions to their customers. The purpose of this work is to analyze how organizations can actively create and promote different types of network effects and thus, foster service innovation and enhance value propositions. To achieve the objectives set, we apply a qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews involving seven platform organizations. Conducting this research, we identified four main categories that play a key role regarding the creation of network effects: (1) user attraction, (2) user retention, (3) monetization and (4) governance.

In analyzing the effect of product/service recommendation advertising by social media influencers, the difference in the effect considering name recognition has not been sufficiently examined. This study examines the differences in the effects on product/service recommendation intention between professional and unidentified endorsers based on the trustworthiness and expertise of the information provider and the degree of parasocial relationship (PSR) for consumers who viewed advertisements by influencers on YouTube (YouTuber) and made a purchase. As a result, the recommendation intention for professional YouTuber was positively influenced by expertise and trustworthiness, whereas for recommenders of unknown type, it was positively influenced by PSR. The findings will provide service companies with formulating advertising strategies that consider the name recognition of the endorsers when conducting endorsement advertising using social media influencers.

The service industry takes an essential and necessary position in business and provides various types of entertainment to consumers. Restaurant is recognized as one of the most influenced service industries under the COVID-19 impact, consumers who goes to the restaurant are strictly decreased since the preventing from COVID-19. This paper strives to focus on designing a new reservation system help the restaurant manage the space efficiently and maximize the social value. Considering that customers may have incentives to misreport their values, the VCG mechanism is implemented to ensure that each customer takes rational actions. As a result, we expect that such a reservation system with the VCG mechanism applied can allocate customers efficiently and raise the revenue of the restaurant on condition that the proper prevention of COVID-19 contagion.

Circular Economy (CE) is a concept that transforms the consumption of resources in corporate activities into a new form of symbiosis for sustainable economic growth. Efforts towards CE require multi-departmental collaboration and transformation of existing systems, so it is difficult to proceed unless clear goals are set. In an organization that has aimed to expand its business as a manufacturing industry leader in the linear economy, it is necessary to make a major change in thinking in order to consider the value of the entire CE ecosystem. Also, the digital transformation of the business in a platform society where value co-creation with ecosystem partners is increasingly important, created additional challenges and opportunities for alignment with the CE strategy.We try to develop a strategy from the bottom up based on the effectuation of entrepreneurial theory and human-centered design. In this paper, we discuss the background, approach, and practical results.

Due to an aging workforce and national recruitment initiatives, the number of individuals with disabilities in the civil engineering and construction industries is expected to increase. However, little work has examined existing access barriers that discourage disabled and aging individuals from entering into or remaining in the civil engineering and construction fields, with the majority of extant work focusing on individual accommodation. In this paper, we explore the ways existing and emerging workplace technologies that are reshaping disciplinary norms also improve the overall workplace accessibility in civil engineering and construction. Specifically, we focus our discussion on three technologies impacting civil engineering and construction: drones, augmented reality, and prefabricated and modular construction. In this discussion, we introduce points of alignment observed across these technologies and disability studies perspectives and conclude with identifying areas for future work and considerations for industry for creating universally accessible environments without perpetuating colonizing or ableist ideals of workplace participation.

Multi-modal approaches have increasingly shown promise in exploring the human side of engineering via the assessment of authentic responses to learning or working environments. This study explores the utility of non-invasive physiological wrist sensors in measuring the reactive and regulatory responses of a group of 161 engineering students taking an authentic engineering practice exam. The practice exam was categorized into Conceptual problems (e.g., rote memorization) and Analytical problems (e.g., requiring application of learned concepts through equations and free-body diagrams). Responses were measured through electrodermal activity and indicators of performance. Findings identified that the type of practice exam problem, even if designed to be within the moderate range of difficulty, influenced how students reacted to and regulated their performance to the problem (as seen by stronger positive correlations in the Analytical problems) and that these may occur via multi-componential processes.

The future of work will be defined by increased connectivity between technology and people. The engineering workforce is situated at this intersection and needs a broad and ever-evolving system of competencies to address socio-technical issues. Although engineering practice continues to adapt at the human-technology frontier, education has been slower to respond. As a result, there is a purported competency gap between academia and industry. Within engineering education, faculty members play a critical role in the academic preparation and professional formation of students. Thus, it is instructive to consider faculty members’ perspectives on the competencies that define a student’s ability to succeed in the workplace. This study employed a qualitative approach through interviews with 11 engineering faculty members to characterize these perspectives. The findings indicate that faculty members emphasize students’ intra- and interpersonal competencies and their involvement in competency-building activities outside of the classroom. This paper concludes by leveraging the findings into a broader discussion of competencies needed for the future of work and equity and access related to competency-building activities.

The nurse station is the hub of various activities in the hospital ward space. The service design of nurse station plays an important role in patients’ hospitalization experience and nurses’ work experience. In this paper, Kano model is introduced into the Kansei Engineering method to study the service of ward nurse station. A questionnaire survey is conducted among nurses and patients in three hospitals. This study compared nurse and patient evaluations to reveal the relationship between ward nurse station service attributes and user perception, and to determine the priority of nurse station service attributes that need to be improved. This study can help hospital managers improve the service quality of ward nurse station. When hospital managers want to improve the experience of patients and nurses, they can improve the service quality by improving the service attributes that affect the experience.

Automation, powered by advances in machine learning and data science, is super-charging innovation and disrupting industries and jobs. Work in America looks very different from a couple of decades ago, and it will look even more different going into the future decades. For new jobs to offset the losses, particularly in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), America will require an adaptable workforce [1] with a new set of skills [2]. To gain an industry perspective on how STEM undergraduate educational institutions might best meet the expected demands for new skills, the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP) was awarded a contract by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal of this project was to seek the perspectives of industry leaders using a survey and a workshop focusing on workforce re-skilling and educational trends that industry views as important and necessary for a thriving future workforce. These perspectives were summarized and provided to leaders in higher education. In this paper, the authors present the outcomes of the workshop, the stakeholder feedback, a roadmap for the future of STEM education, and a set of recommendations to the leaders of higher education institutions.

Platforms and their surrounding ecosystems are becoming increasingly important components of many companies' strategies. Artificial Intelligence, in particular, has created new opportunities to create and develop ecosystems around the platform. However, there is not yet a methodology to systematically develop these new opportunities for enterprise development strategy. Therefore, this paper aims to lay a foundation for the conceptualization of Artificial Intelligence-based service ecosystems exploiting a Service-Dominant Logic. The basis for conceptualization is the study of value creation and particularly effective network effects. This research investigates the fundamental idea of extending specific digital concepts considering the influence of Artificial Intelligence on the design of intelligent services, along with their architecture of digital platforms and ecosystems, to enable a smooth evolutionary path and adaptability for human-centric collaborative systems and services. The paper explores an extended digital enterprise conceptual model through a combined, iterative, and permanent task of co-creating value between humans and intelligent systems as part of a new idea of cognitively adapted intelligent services.

The digitization of factories will be a significant issue for the 2020s. New scenarios are emerging to increase the efficiency of production lines inside the factory, based on a new generation of robots’ collaborative functions. Manufacturers are moving towards data-driven ecosystems by leveraging product lifecycle data from connected goods. Energy-efficient communication schemes, as well as scalable data analytics, will support these various data collection scenarios. With augmented reality, new remote services are emerging that facilitate the efficient sharing of knowledge in the factory. Future communication solutions should generally ensure connectivity between the various production sites spread worldwide and new players in the value chain (e.g., suppliers, logistics) transparent, real-time, and secure. Industry 4.0 brings more intelligence and flexibility to production. Resulting in more lightweight equipment and, thus, offering better ergonomics. 5G will guarantee real-time transmissions with latencies of less than 1 ms. This will provide manufacturers with new possibilities to collect data and trigger actions automatically.

The realization of human-centered intelligent services requires a conceptualization of space and time that is intuitive for the human and employed in a concrete way by the services. In this position paper, we argue that qualitative temporal and spatial representation and reasoning must play a role in service interactions and service compositions in particular. We describe an initial prototype dealing with qualitative temporal relations and illustrate the added value of these kind of approaches in the tourism domain, as an exemplification.

The systematic transfer of research results into practice is indispensable for solving a wide range of operational problems. It is also a key driver of innovation – an increasingly vital economic factor. This applies equally to the field of service research, which provides a key source of knowledge for service companies. A current study is investigating how this knowledge is obtained and used by German service providers. The study also provides a starting point to discuss implications for service research.

Smart tools for assistive information providence promise positive effects on service delivery and quality. This paper describes results of a broad empirical study, where actual service technicians were subjects, analyzing the effect on service quality by information tools which are different in their degree of adaptiveness for customized use. The paper delivers guidelines on what tools best to develop and use dependent on the service technician’s age and critically reflects on the potential of AR-technology within service operation.

We designed HIRO, a robotic baby doll, to be used in an interactive, non-pharmacological intervention that combines doll therapy with robot technology for elderly people with dementia. We took a minimal design approach; only the most basic human-like features are represented on the robotic system to encourage users to use their imagination to fill in the missing details. The robot emits baby voice recordings as the user interacts with it, giving the robot more realistic mannerisms and enhancing the interaction between user and robot. In addition, the minimal design simplifies the system configuration of the robot, making it inexpensive and intuitive for users to handle. In this paper, we discuss the benefits of the developed robot for elderly dementia patients and their caregivers.

Aikido is a modern Japanese martial art of self-defense style. Though there are no tournaments, practitioners of all ages and genders around the world train their technique and discipline their body and mind. People train through embodied knowledge; after observing an Aikido master’s demonstration, each practitioner pair up with a training partner and practice mimicking the observed technique. Despite the lack of personalized coaching, there are many enthusiastic, long-term practitioners of Aikido around the world. To clarify their motivations, this study focused on value creation in Aikido from the perspective of a service. We conducted a qualitative analysis by interviewing several advanced practitioners and found that rich emotional value was created both physically and mentally rather than functional value, and the created value has resulted in many enthusiastic practitioners.

Recently, research facilities in academia take on a crucial role in the innovation ecosystem where facilities are promoting research collaborations through shared use with other research organizations, academia, and firms. We focus on the remote operation of measurement methods and speed-up technologies as a countermeasure against COVID-19 setback, whereby face-to-face contact and interactions are restricted, thus making it impractical for users to visit and use research facilities. We discuss how these new technologies and methodologies promote and obstruct industry-academia research collaborations during the post-corona period. Specifically, the focus is on NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Device), a state-of-the-art research facility that promotes shared use to external users in Japanese academic research institutes.

Japanese companies started to use the cultural anthropological method, namely ethnography, from the latter half of 2000. However, there are only some literature on how ethnography is introduced into companies in Japan, how it is operated, and what the challenges are. The purpose of this study is to identify the practices and challenges of ethnographic research in Japanese companies from the perspectives of in-house ethnographers. The main investigation field is a corporate laboratory of a telecommunications service provider. The data of this paper were collected from the participant observations and interviews in the company. We compared the ethnography practiced in companies to academic/traditional anthropological ethnography, which often involves anthropologists living in an isolated community for an extended period of time to understand culture. The comparison revealed both the ingenuity and challenges of ethnography as it was practiced in companies.

In this article, based on service design thinking, I will sort out the common methods in service design theory with the design process of the double diamond model proposed by the British Design Institute, such as stakeholder relationship diagrams, user journey diagrams, service blueprints, etc. At the same time, combine the summarized method with the brand image building process which is suitable for Chinese national conditions to explore the brand image building method suitable for Chinese intangible cultural heritage brands. This will also provide a new direction for the research on intangible cultural heritage branding.

Customer value co-creation plays an important role in creating desired values that can better satisfy customer needs. However, there are few studies on the relationship between service innovation and customer value co-creation. This study aims to investigate the influence of mobile banking service innovation (concept, technology, and process) on customer value co-creation intention (information sharing and feedback), and how such effects are moderated by cultural values (power distance, collectivism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance). Data was collected via questionnaires sent to customers using the mobile banking service of banks in Vietnam. The participants were requested to response to each question using a five-point Likert scale. The data was then analyzed by exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. The findings could enable appropriate strategies to facilitate customer value co-creation to be identified.

The main purpose of this research is to develop a framework for co-enhancing the skills of social entrepreneurs, by deeply investigating the roles played by diverse people while participating in a social business design lab. This research adopts the case study research method and selects the Yunus Centre Social Business Design Lab in Bangladesh. The data were collected from secondary sources, including archives of social entrepreneurs from Yunus Centre Social Business Design Lab in Bangladesh, and websites of the Centre. In addition, a total of 30 interviews were conducted. We identified 25 different skills of social entrepreneurs. The results of this research show that diverse people who participated in the social business design lab played different roles to support the social entrepreneurs.

Due to COVID-19, experience-based services such as travel and dining have been scaled down significantly in 2020–2021. Such services have been shifting to online formats in an effort to integrate real-world and virtual experiences, though it is difficult for them to charge the same prices as those of real-world services. Online ‘cheering’ may be a potential way to enhance online experiences and bridge the real world and virtual world. Online spectating services such as Twitch have successfully incorporated cheering functions which viewers can use at low costs. This study proposes an ecosystem for online experience-based services with cheering functions such as Twitch and analyzes cheering on Twitch to examine this ecosystem. Finally, this study reveals the value of an ecosystem that provides interactive cheering functions.

The purpose of this study is to probe the possibility of value co-created by the media and audience in the paid media service ecosystem. This article mainly spotlights on pay television and paid Vod (Video on Demand) called OTT (Paid Vod services via the web) as paid media. The research target is on paid media of which the main area is pay television with OTT added. Inevitably, the usage or consumption of paid media is relevant to consumer value for audience. The focal points of traditional media researchers and marketing practitioners have tended to be on the current needs of the audience. Whereas this study challenged to explore untapped reasons of media consumption through the life stories of audience. The research method used was interviews with audience on their life stories. The combination of memory with current media consumption enables audience and the media to co-create new values the media firm did not provide for.

There are four stages for development of IoT systems identified as monitoring, control, optimization, and autonomy. The value that the IoT system can provide is constrained by the capabilities of the system, therefore it is necessary to build a service that fits the feature of the system. Based on fifty IoT business cases, the researchers classified fourteen values for four IoT systems and proposed methods to improve on services based on features of IoT system. However, the value classification had a wide range of value expressions, and therefore might not focus correctly on the provided services. This paper is reconstructed with the fourteen value classifications of IoT systems by using elements of value and suggests more appropriate service design.

In Japan, where one out of four elderly are over 65 years old, with some 4 million visiting nurses, there is a structured system for patients to spend their final days at home instead of in the hospital. This paper aims to illustrate how collaboration between visiting nurses and patients can achieve the living style of patient’s choice through co-creation. It displays methods for sustaining the normal life of the patients through detailed case studies of visiting nurses who not only provide nursing care but are proactively engaged in maintaining the “normal” life activities of the patients.Up until now in the research of Japanese visiting nurses, there were virtually no long-term holistic investigation/research spanning several years where ethnography was being used, nor analysis conducted on co-creation between visiting nurses and patients. In that sense, the analyses in this paper are substantial.

Reviews from players regarding different characteristics of an esports game are one of the worthiest sources for the developers to enhance their services or adjust operating strategy. However, little research has been conducted on detecting esports players’ favorite topics dealing with topic modeling. Thus, this paper aims to use a data mining approach to analyze community data in the games domain available on Steam. We collected more than 1.2 million English reviews from four esports games up to August 2020 on Steam. Our contributions in this paper are: (i) we manually build a dataset by filtering out high-quality esports reviews, (ii) we then infer and group reviews into 3 groups with 19 topics, and (iii) we add more contributions to finding the emerging opinions of esports players towards the different topics of esports reviews, which might benefit further research on understanding esports reviews.

With the fast spread and reliance on digital technologies in industry and society, collaboration between humans and machines (artificial intelligence and machine learning) becomes an important subject; however, it is not clear what kind of value can be specifically created by the collaboration between humans and machines. Roadmapping is effective as a dialogue tool for clarifying the value among stakeholders. However, the traditional roadmapping methods are insufficient, since collaboration between humans and machines can be considered as a socio-technical system, and hence evolves, while influencing each other side. This paper proposes the new co-evolutionary technology roadmapping method, and reports the results carried out for the roadmapping workshop for machine learning applications.