Exploring Services Science

Service Science is a new interdisciplinary approach to the study, design, implementation, and innovation of service systems. However due to the variety in service research, there is no consensus yet about the theoretical foundation of this domain. As a basis for a common understanding of service systems and their interactions, Service Science researchers Spohrer and Kwan proposed the service systems worldview. The ISPAR model was presented as a part of this service systems worldview as a tool for identifying ten possible interaction episodes, i.e., the sequences of activities that are undertaken by two interacting service system entities. In this paper we evaluate the use of the ISPAR model as a process model for service systems. We identify the shortcomings of the ISPAR model and propose possible improvements. This analysis leads to the development of a new service process model which is demonstrated through tree different examples.

We are living in a world of interactions, surrounded by electronic devices which are getting numerous and are complicating interactions. Moreover, the users are now mobile, evolving in multiple changing environments. The problem is even more complex when it comes to collaborative tasks where these conditions can inhibit productivity and software as a service adoption. This paper presents an ongoing work on the usage of adaptive interfaces to address this problem and the issues raised.

The prevalence of the service paradigm spans diverse domains like commercial, social, technological or scientific. Due to its simplicity and familiar semantics, it provides a powerful general abstraction for system programming, interaction, and integration. Several standardisation efforts have further contributed to the popularity of the service concept and its usage, since this provides a uniform access to and aggregation of entities with different characteristics and at different levels of the cyberinfrastructure. The perceived current trend on making everything accessible as a service (XaaS) builds on such service characteristics, and examples range from Web-enabled Wireless Sensor Networks, the Internet of Things and Web of Things, to Cloud computing, and the Internet of Services. Upon the acknowledgement of such high heterogeneity and of the extreme large scale of emerging service systems, Service Science presents a novel and overarching view on analysing and developing further the service paradigm. The high complexity of current and future service systems in this domain, require innovative solutions to be developed in order to improve service productivity and quality. To this extent, this work concentrates on service engineering Web services and proposes a solution based on the Session concept contributing to solve open problems on service system interaction and adaptation. The focus is on the interactions between Web services interfacing stateful resources and its clients, in particular. The session abstraction is used to: a) capture the service/users interaction context, b) support dynamic interaction models within, and c) contextualize on demand and automatic dynamic adaptations. The major goal is to capture Web service/users interactions modelled as Sessions, in order to simplify their re-use and adaptation in the context of the cited Services Sciences’ complex systems.

Privacy could play a key role for digital identity protection and security, which are becoming major needs for individuals, organizations and societies. Digital identity management functionalities are increasingly delivered as sets of services, rather than monolithic applications. So, an identity layer in which identity and privacy management are interoperable could be more realistic and an acceptable situation in the context of distributed environments. Such interoperability could be offered through the design of a set of loosely coupled, publicly hosted and available to on-demand calls services and the implementation on open standards basis. The aim of the article is to disassemble digital identity-related privacy requirements that are drawn from global, domestic and business-specific privacy policies into a set of eight ready-to-use, granular and loosely coupled services that could accommodate a service-oriented architecture (SOA). OMG SoaML service architecture, service contract architecture, message type, service contract choreography, composite application components, and provisioning diagrams are provided.

This paper proposes an ontological definition of services. Such a definition is one of the fundamentals of service research. The understanding of essentialities of the notion of services as its definition, which differentiates services from the other notions, contributes proper modeling and conceptualization of services in services design and knowledge management of services. The existing definitions and characteristics of services, however, cannot differentiate services from other concepts: especially function of product. In this paper, we propose a new definition of services based on ontological consideration. Our definition can differentiate services from product functions. Firstly, we discuss the problem of the existing definitions and characteristics about the distinction. Secondly, we explain our definition and the essential characteristics of services using an ontological model of services. Lastly, we demonstrate its applicability of our definition using some examples and compare it with the existing definitions.

In this paper we describe a service modeling project done at an IT department that provides IT services to a network of state owned healthcare providers in the state of Vaud in Switzerland. The goal of the project is to understand how to maintain business continuity in the case of a disaster affecting the IT department’s data center. We analyze how to precisely relate the business requirements to the IT operation requirements with the help of the SEAM Enterprise Architecture method. The results are refined service levels and the identification of the required technical architecture.

The potential impact of new ICT on efforts to enhance citizen engagement in the policy process is now widely recognized, but the academic research on design, use and evaluation of e-engagement tools is still in its infancy. Through the use of an explorative case study, the aim of this paper is to consider how new ICT tools can be used to reinforce e-democracy and how the design of technology can facilitate citizen engagement. To this intent, we apply a new framework to evaluate the efficacy of some electronic tools used by a specific e-democracy project that involve, with different results, eight Italian Administrations. We have assessed the level of e-democracy developments based on four different dimensions: transparency, interactivity, usability and web site maturity.

Protection of data and information security are crucial to business processes and include technical, sociological and organizational aspects. The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of information security policy and organizational compliance within a socio-technical framework. Citing come of the major compliance acts in the United States, this paper examines how the need arose for information security compliance and the antecedents that made compliance mandatory for organizations. This would apply to any organization, in whichever other country, within its legal compliance framework. A discussion follows to help shed light on how both individual employees and the organization as a whole often fail to implement a satisfactory compliance initiative. Finally, the research presents a set of key factors that influence successful implementation of information system security Compliance into the information security policy (ISP), along with what actions should be taken to make compliance a competitive advantage for the organization, taking advantage of the particular relationship between compliance and ISP.

A perception gap or misunderstanding between different groups/stakeholders is one of the most common reasons for the difficulties in many real world problems, such as multi-organizational coordination, risk communication, and service matching and satisfaction. Before trying to solve such problems, however, it is necessary to focus more on the perception gap itself. In this paper we propose a model based on the concept of mutual belief that describes the perception gap between different stakeholders, as well as a model-based methodology for quantifying and bridging the gap. Using cross-cultural communication between international and Japanese students as a case study, we show the applicability and validity of our proposal. Through the case study, we have confirmed that it is possible to identify different types of gaps using the model, and moreover, that some gaps can be reduced by the proposed method.

Present day enterprises often become service-oriented enterprises, which are comprised of a dynamic network of organisations that collectively provide services. These services express stakeholders’ needs, and can be viewed from different perspectives. In this paper, we consider value web and enterprise architecture perspectives. Specifically, we present a step-wise mapping approach that integrates the value modelling technique e³value into the enterprise architecture language ArchiMate. The main contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we present our initial arrays into how to bridge between e ³ value and ArchiMate and, in doing so, we show how these modelling techniques complement one another. Second, by reflecting on the bridging between e ³ value and ArchiMate, we discuss the limitations of our integration, which provides useful input for future efforts into model integration. We illustrate our approach by means of a case in the insurance domain.

This paper provides a retrospective view on the development of the field of service science. It reviews how – commencing in the late 1970s – the field started to be developed into the contemporary era where a service-dominant (S-D) logic has gained much scientific attention. The most important developments and debates regarding the (non-) usefulness regarding a differentiation strategy between goods and services in this period are highlighted. In addition, some illustrative examples regarding scientific application of the contemporary S-D logic perspective are given.

In service-dominant (S-D) logicvalue is viewed as being co-created between companies, customers, and other actors within a service system. In order to understand how service systems maintain their viability and competitiveness, two fundamental questions should be addressed: “how is value created for and with the customers in service systems?” and, “how is the value captured by the service provider in service systems?”. The first question deals with “value creation” while the second addresses “value capture”in the “service value equation”. The extant research mainly focuses on the service design from the value creation perspective. Thereby, there has been little discussion about suppliers’ value capture and its trade off with value created for and with service customers. In this paper, adapting a holistic perspective, weintroduce a modeling framework that can assist in the understanding and the analysis of value creation and capture and their interplay in service systems. We illustrate the applicability of our framework by conducting a descriptive case study of the value creation and capture in Amazon service system in the period between 1997-2001.

This contribution presents an ontological model of services that describes them as complex temporal entities, constituted by interrelations of states, actions and processes, occurring in a wider service system. Our aim is to establish rigorous ontological foundations for the various basic notions of service science, including service, service system, service process, service system life-cycle, and service value co-creation. A crucial role in our approach is played by the notion of commitment, which allows us to provide a definition of service as generic commitment to guarantee the execution of value co-creation actions.

In open mobile environments, mobile device may be connected to several network system offering heterogeneous sets of services using different names. The services can be anything and introduced by anybody, which results to have the possibility of having similar service with different names or different services having the same name. The current IEEE 802.21 Media Independent Handover Services facilitate handover across these heterogeneous networks. However, the standard just provides network continuity without ensuring service continuity during the handover. We propose extensions to the MIH, which enable the exchange of service information in addition to network information at handover. This service information constitutes the fundament for a novel service discovery capable of discovering equivalent services and enabling the handover between them. In this paper, the extended MIH handover procedure is explained thoroughly. The proposed service discovery system developed on Android is presented and a few use scenarios are given for illustration.

The delivery of e-services across organizational boundaries poses a number of issues in terms of design of inter-organizational systems that support service delivery effectively. In this context interoperability emerges as a mandatory requirement for the design of Information Technology (IT) platforms supporting collaborative e-service environments. In this paper we address this issue by presenting a design theory for IT platforms supporting e-services based on both a deep understanding of the interoperability concept and a design research approach. Through the analysis of a cooperation framework developed in the context of an EU funded project, we instantiate the theory by providing the concrete example of a solution addressing this design problem.

This study focuses on the factors that affect the schools decision to offer educational services by an e-learning platform. We based on institutional framework to explain the choice of e-learning adoption by schools operating in rural contexts. These schools face greater difficulties to achieve education requirements and, thus, they are forced to ensure their services adopting an alternative educational model compared with traditional face-to-face learning. Based on the qualitative approach, we investigated the case of the “Digital school project” in Italy. The study highlighted that coercive and mimetic institutional isomorphism affect rural schools decision to use the distance education.

The services industry is currently the fastest growing part of economic activity in the world and some companies are changing their business models from product manufactures to service providers. However, the services quality is still affected by gaps identified two decades ago. One example of these gaps is when the service provider has a perception of what the customer expects that diverges from the real expected service. To solve this problem, we are working on a service quality approach based on the Enterprise Ontology theory. According to this theory, the operation of organizations is all about communication between social actors and their production. Based on it, a Service Level Agreement definition is given and a service quality specification solution is derived. We applied the solution in the Information Technology Division of a private bank and the solution showed to be mature enough to model the bank reality regarding service quality levels.

In the emerging service-centred economy, even the most physical product is “wrapped” in services. Businesses tend, then, to become more and more information-intensive and networked. In this scenario, the business role of Information Management is crucial. This paper investigates management literature as to the role of the highest ranking executive in charge of Information Systems, i.e. the Chief Information Officer (CIO). We found that, in the 1980s and first 1990s, most literature suggested that CIOs were to be intended as staff, strategy-making managers, similar to CFOs; but since the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, CIOs are also expected to work side by side with line managers and to give perceivable contribution to profits. In this scenario, the active contribution of Information Management in developing value-added services may transform IT from a perceived cost center to a perceived profit center within the organization. In the Conclusions, some suggestions for further research are presented.

Cloud-platforms are of increasing importance for the provisioning of computing services because they enable the co-creation of value in an unprecedented way. To fully leverage the benefits it is necessary to know about the sources of value co-creation. The sources for value co-creation in cloud-platforms can be identified by conceptualizing cloud-platforms and analyzing operations on the conceptualization entities. To properly conceptualize cloud-platforms, configurations and configuration items are introduced as new entities. The set of operations on configuration items mirrors the value-co-creation capabilities of cloud-platforms. Thus, by enumerating the operations on configuration items, the value-co-creating capabilities of cloud-platforms can be determined and compared.

This paper proposes a set of criteria used to establish the \(\mathcal{Q}\)uality of \(\mathcal{S}\)ocial \(\mathcal{N}\)etwork (\(\mathcal{Q}\)o\(\mathcal{SN}\)) of a social network connecting social Web services together. These latter are quite different from (regular) Web services since they can, for instance establish and maintain networks of contacts, count on their contacts when needed, and form with other peers strong and long lasting collaborative groups. A social Web service can sign up in three social networks referred to as competition, collaboration, and substitution. Prior to signing up the social Web service checks the privacy, trust, fairness, and traceability criteria that constitute the social network’s \(\mathcal{Q}\)o\(\mathcal{SN}\). The interpretation and evaluation of each criterion vary from one social network to another.

Mobile devices such as smartphones are becoming an important point of access for a large number of services. Accordingly the interaction between the device and the mobile user is changing towards a mutual adaptation. In this paper we present a set of empirical results to support our claim that an interdisciplinary framework is required to build mobile interfaces that increase mobile user perceived added value. The main contribution of this paper lays in its adaptation of technology adoption models towards mobile devices to derive a set of design guidelines and its test design to derive relevant outcomes.

During the last decade the incumbent companies in the recorded music industry had severe difficulties in adequately reacting to technological improvements and changes in consumers’ needs. Which business models are best suited to the new circumstances is not yet clear. Thus, experiments with alternative business models are essential. The omnipresence of music in the digital era means that, the product ”recorded music” is loosing it’s value and is instead reinforcing the service aspect of music. Many product-based companies are seeking to improve their competitiveness by moving toward service-based business models. However, incumbent firms face severe barriers to conducting business model experiments with such service-based offers. This is why entrepreneurial startup companies are the leading force in steering business models toward a service-dominant perspective. In this article we will analyze and categorize the service-based business models of recently founded music companies to identify some of the generic characteristics of innovative business models in the recorded music industry.

Services Design can be a key asset for competitive advantage, as an instrument for operational excellence or strategic positioning. As the activity aimed to create meaning, design plays a pervasive role on strategic positioning. From the need to develop the design discourse according to the strategic position and vice-versa. This paper focuses on the conceptual connections between both, defining a framework for their simultaneous development and definition, in straight connection to the company’s activities. We present and describe the use of a specific methodology tool, the Strategic Design Opportunity Matrix (SDOM), that allows a visual description of the areas of design on which to perform, according to selected value attributes linked related to the company’s activities. This will contribute to the definition of the Design Discourse that will support the strategic positioning statement.

This paper focuses on the concept of experience design with the purpose of reflecting on how to create meaning from the experience of studying at university. The first part translates certain concepts based on service design to the field of Higher Education and the second describes the making of a questionnaire which intends to find the keys used by students to describe the university experience, from an exploratory point of view. The outcome of a first application of this questionnaire is analyzed and the most relevant conclusions are highlighted.

Firms are constantly looking for more effective ways to improve their products and services. Recent studies have outlined the benefits of opening the innovation process to external knowledge sources. The creative and innovation locus can lie also outside the firm, in places where technical knowledge, marketing experience and customer activities intersect. The Web 2.0 and the online communities, favoring the communication and the collaboration among firms and their customers, become an important way to support the creativity and the development of innovative ideas through social interactions. We have selected a case study of a multinational firm that exploits an online community and other social platforms to improve its practice of innovation.

A major shift of paradigm is currently taking place in the business world. The old business model, once focused on the efficiency of manufacturing and galvanised by standardisation, is steadily making place to a service-based business model underpinned by customisation.

Although such a shift is being embraced throughout the developed as well as the emerging world, academia is still lagging behind as the potential of service as a discipline has yet to be fully explored. In a service business, ensuring customer confidence on the security of the service is key to a successful service launch or for retaining customers’ loyalty. However as research on service science is still at its infancy, metrics for the specification and valuation of such confidence are still to emerge.

To encourage more work in this direction, this paper explores the motivation behind the ongoing adoption of a service paradigm and provides a set of metrics that could be beneficially investigated by academia to help businesses address more effectively the need for both service provider and consumer to have Security Assurance.