Sergio Barile, Clara Bassano, Paolo Piciocchi, Marialuisa Saviano and James Clinton Spohrer
Technology is revolutionizing the management logic of service systems. The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, is challenging interaction between humans…
Abstract
Purpose
Technology is revolutionizing the management logic of service systems. The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, is challenging interaction between humans and machines changing the service systems’ value co-creation configurations and logic. To envision possible future scenarios, this paper aims to reflect upon how the humans’ use of AI technology can impact value co-creation.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is developed, at a conceptual level, using selected elements from managerial and marketing theoretical frameworks interested in value co-creation – Service-Dominant Logic, Service Science and Viable Systems Approach (VSA) – used as interpretative tools to reframe value co-creation in the digital age.
Findings
The interpretative approach adopted and, in particular, the new VSA notion of Intelligence Augmentation (IA), in the perspective of the information variety model, shed new light on value co-creation in the digital age framing a possible “IA effect” that can empower value co-creation in complex decision-making contexts.
Practical implications
The study provides insights useful in the design and management of service systems suggesting a rethinking of the view of AI as a means for mainly increasing the smartness of service systems and a new focus on the enhancement of the human resources contribution to make the service systems wiser.
Originality/value
The paper provides a refocused interpretative view of the interaction between humans and AI that looks at a possible positive impact of the use of AI on humans in terms of augmented decision-making capabilities in conditions of complexity.
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Marialuisa Saviano, Sergio Barile, James Clinton Spohrer and Francesco Caputo
Poverty, hunger, inequalities, diseases, unsustainable use of resources, etc., in spite of scientific progress, still remains unsolved worldwide issues. All these issues relate to…
Abstract
Purpose
Poverty, hunger, inequalities, diseases, unsustainable use of resources, etc., in spite of scientific progress, still remains unsolved worldwide issues. All these issues relate to the challenges of sustainability and sustainable development that now call for urgent answers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the service research community can respond to this call and to identify key areas of potential contribution.
Design/methodology/approach
After a brief review of selected service literature aimed at exploring its interest in the topics of sustainability and sustainable development, the authors develop the interpretative proposal identifying the key requirements of a global engagement in the challenge of sustainability and sustainable development and highlighting the potential contribution of service research.
Findings
Findings highlight the potential contribution of service research to the global challenge of sustainability and suggest acting upon education by considering the “T-Shaped” professional model as a possible reference for embedding sustainability in the education of future managers and addressing the need of interdisciplinary thinking through the systems approach.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed study of service literature is only an exploratory analysis of main contributions that does not aim to identify gaps but only to highlight the potential of a greater engagement of service research in the global call for a more sustainable and inclusive development.
Practical implications
A trans-disciplinary approach is also required. This implies the involvement of the business and the social real world.
Originality/value
This paper represents a novel call for engaging the service research community in a boundary-crossing collaboration with the aim of contributing to address the challenge of sustainability.
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Sergio Barile, Robert Lusch, Javier Reynoso, Marialuisa Saviano and James Spohrer
The purpose of this paper is to create awareness on the need for lifting up the level of analysis in service research by focusing on systems, networks, and ecosystems to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to create awareness on the need for lifting up the level of analysis in service research by focusing on systems, networks, and ecosystems to contribute to the research expansion of the traditionally narrow view of service.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper is built upon three blocks. First, the viable systems approach is revised to highlight the survival, viability, and complexity of service systems. Second, the dynamics of service networks is discussed using an ecological view of service with a nested, networked configuration. Third, these two previous perspectives are integrated using the fundamentals of ecosystems thinking.
Findings
This paper outlines a novel, tri-level approach reorienting and reframing our thinking around systems, networks, and ecosystems. Some research challenges and directions that could expand the body of knowledge in service research are also discussed.
Research limitations/implications
The tri-level approach proposed in this conceptual paper could be enriched with other theoretical perspectives and empirical explorations.
Practical implications
Lifting the level of analysis by focussing on service systems, service networks, and service ecosystems would allow practitioners to expand their business perspective to better face the challenges of complex business settings, enabling them to co-create value for all their stakeholders.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to set the foundation for the next stage of service research by going beyond dyadic interactions to address dynamic systems, networks, and ecosystems across different interaction patterns in complex business configurations.
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Jochen Wirtz and Christian Kowalkowski
The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross…
Abstract
Purpose
The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Beyond a vibrant stream of literature on servitization, the B2B literature has neglected drawing on the wider service literature. This paper aims to examine recent streams of service research that have promising implications and research opportunities for B2B marketing.
Design/methodology/approach
Together, the author team has decades of research, managerial and executive teaching experience related to B2B marketing and services marketing and management. The observations and reflections in this paper originate from this unique perspective and are supplemented by insights from 16 expert interviews.
Findings
The authors identify and discuss in this paper four broad and related themes from the service literature that can stimulate B2B research and practice. First, the authors highlight the implications for capturing value in economies with their rapidly increasing specialization and related growth in B2B services. Specifically, the authors explain where B2B firms should focus on to gain bargaining power in the value chains of the future. Second, an additional strategy to enhance a B2B firm’s power to capture value is servitization, which allows firms to get closer to their customers, increase their switching costs and build strategic partnerships. The authors explore how firms can use service productization to enhance their chances of successful servitization. Third, servitization is expensive, and productivity and scalability are often a challenge in B2B contexts. These issues are tackled in a recent service research stream on cost-effective service excellence (CESE) where the authors derive implications for B2B firms. Fourth and related to CESE, latest developments in intelligent automation offer exciting opportunities for B2B services to be made more scalable.
Originality/value
This paper is based on the unique perspective of the author team and a panel of experts and connects major streams of service research to the B2B literature.
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Abstract
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The purpose of this paper is to assess the viability of the scholarly search engine Microsoft Academic (MA) as a citation source for evaluating/ranking marketing journals.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the viability of the scholarly search engine Microsoft Academic (MA) as a citation source for evaluating/ranking marketing journals.
Design/methodology/approach
This study performs a comparison between MA and Google Scholar (GS) in terms of journal coverage, h-index values and journal rankings.
Findings
Findings indicate that: MA (vs GS) covers 96.80 percent (vs 97.87 percent) of the assessed 94 marketing-focused journals; the MA-based h-index exhibits values that are 35.45 percent lower than the GS-based h-index; and that the MA-based ranking and the GS-based ranking are highly consistent. Based on these findings, MA seems to constitute a rather viable citation source for assessing a marketing journal’s impact.
Research limitations/implications
This study focuses on one discipline, that is, marketing.
Originality/value
This study identifies some issues that would need to be fixed by the MA’s development team. It recommends some further enhancements with respect to journal title entry, publication year allocation and field classification. It also provides two up-to-date rankings for more than 90 marketing-focused journals based on actual cites (October 2018) of articles published between 2013 and 2017.
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Fadi P. Deek, James A. McHugh and Starr Roxanne Hiltz
This paper discusses methodology and technology to aid students learning programming. We have identified and integrated the problem solving and program development skills and…
Abstract
This paper discusses methodology and technology to aid students learning programming. We have identified and integrated the problem solving and program development skills and knowledge students need to apply when programming with the cognitive activities required to accomplish these tasks. We then developed a composite methodological/software environment that supports the overall process of programming in a manner that gives appropriate weight to both language issues and problem solving. The results of a classroom evaluation of the method and the tool are then presented.