Nina Löfberg and Maria Åkesson
The purpose of this paper is to further develop the construct of service platform and to clarify the definition of service platform in an industrial context. To do so, an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to further develop the construct of service platform and to clarify the definition of service platform in an industrial context. To do so, an understanding of the foundations for service platforms, based on a service perspective, is created.
Design/methodology/approach
The study has adopted a qualitative case study approach and builds on in-depth interviews with remote service teams in two multinational firms: one in the food processing and packaging industry and the other in the pulp and paper industry.
Findings
The foundations for successful service platforms consist of modularising resources, integrations and service processes to create value propositions. The value propositions could result in variations of a service or in variations of different services. When defining the concept service platform, the perspective of service needs to be made evident; therefore, the authors define service platform as: value proposition(s) consisting of a modular structure that invites to and facilitates value co-creation between resources, through integration opportunities in a continuous service process.
Research limitations/implications
The results are based on the perspective of two suppliers in similar industries; only remote services were studied. Firms from different types of industries and other types of services could add to the research on service modularity according to a service perspective. Moreover, information about customers and other actors’ involvement on the platform was gathered from the firms studied, no customers or other actors were interviewed.
Practical implications
This study shows the importance of a firm involving itself in the value creation of the customer, that is, focusing on value co-creation. This implies a close cooperation between the manufacturer and its customer – not only at a given point in time but also over a longer period of cooperation. Through the different types of modules building up the service platform, value co-creation can take place in various ways.
Originality/value
This study offers original empirical contributions on platforms from a service perspective. The study contributes to servitisation, service modularity and service (dominant) logic research by developing an understanding of the foundations for service platforms based on a service perspective. It also contributes to platform research more specifically by developing a definition of service platform in an industrial context.
Details
Keywords
Per Echeverri and Maria Åkesson
The purpose of this paper is to identify the key elements of professional identity in service work in order to provide more in-depth theoretical explanations as to why service…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to identify the key elements of professional identity in service work in order to provide more in-depth theoretical explanations as to why service workers do as they do while co-creating service.
Design/methodology/approach
This study takes a multi-perspective on professional identity, i.e. using both an employee and a customer perspective, arguing that the phenomenon mainly consists of what these interactants jointly do during the service interaction and of the meanings that are attributed to it. The authors draw on a detailed empirical study of professionals working at a customer centre. Methodologically, the study is based on practice theory, which helps us to illuminate and analyse both the micro practices and the meaning attributed to the professional identity of service workers.
Findings
The key elements of professional identity in service work are outlined within a framework that describes and explains three different facets of the service workers’ professional identity, i.e. as a core (i.e. individual resources, cognitive understanding, interaction), as conditions (i.e. service prerequisites), and as contour (i.e. demeanour and functions).
Research limitations/implications
The findings are based on an empirical data set from a public transport customer centre. As the results are limited to one context, they do not provide statistical generalizability. Although limited to one service industry, the findings may still be of high relevance to a wide range of service organisations.
Practical implications
The study shows the significance of managers not just talking about the importance of being service-minded; more exactly, a wide range of service prerequisites, beyond cognitive understanding, needs to be in place. It is crucial that service workers are given the time to develop their contextual knowledge of their customers, and of other parts of the service organisation.
Originality/value
This study offers original empirical contributions concerning the key elements of professional identity. An alternative conceptualization of professional identity is provided, through which the paper adds to service research, explaining more specifically what kinds of knowledge and skills are in use during the co-creation of services.
Details
Keywords
Maria Åkesson and Bo Edvardsson
This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework of archetypical customer roles in a self-service-based system by applying role theory to understand customers’ resource…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to develop a theoretical framework of archetypical customer roles in a self-service-based system by applying role theory to understand customers’ resource integration and value co-creation efforts in practice.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a three-phase explorative case study of customers’ experiences of using self-service technologies at a furniture retailer. A total of 90 interviews were conducted.
Findings
Four archetypical enacted customer roles during value co-creation in a self-service-based system are identified: passive non-bothered, passive hesitant, active realist and active independent. Furthermore, it is shown that these roles shape how resources become.
Research limitations/implications
The challenges facing our retail practice bear similarities with those in other contexts, e.g. financial and travel industries, government or public sector service settings, in which self-service technologies are becoming more common. Therefore, this study setting enables some tentative generalizations. The case study approach, however, limits the statistical generalizability of the findings.
Practical implications
The importance of understanding is that not all customers are well-equipped for co-creating value through self-service. By engaging customers and offering them guidance when they encounter difficulties in managing the value co-creation process, as well as viewing them as resource integrators and value co-creators, firms can help them enact more active roles.
Originality/value
The archetypical customer roles contribute theoretically to detailing how resource integration and value co-creation can be shaped by enacted roles, an influence that has not been explicitly proposed in empirical service research.
Details
Keywords
Jörgen Johansson, Michel Thomsen and Maria Åkesson
This paper aims to highlight problems and opportunities for introducing digital automation in public administration (PA) and to propose implications for public value creation of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to highlight problems and opportunities for introducing digital automation in public administration (PA) and to propose implications for public value creation of robotic process automation (RPA) through the perspective of good bureaucracy as a guiding framework.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper addresses the purpose by applying three normative ideal types: Weber’s ideal type for a bureaucracy, new public management and public value management. This paper synthesizes an analytical framework in conducting case studies of the implementation of RPA systems in municipal administration.
Findings
This paper contributes to new insights into public value creation and digital automation. The following four implications are proposed: the deployment of RPA in municipal administration should emphasize that organizing administrative tasks is essentially a political issue; include considerations based on a well-grounded analysis in which policy areas that are suitable for RPA; to pay attention to issues on legal certainty, personal integrity, transparency and opportunities to influence automated decisions; and that the introduction of RPA indicates a need to develop resources concerning learning and knowledge in the municipal administration.
Originality/value
This paper is innovative, as it relates normative, descriptive and prescriptive issues on the developing of digital automation in PA. The conceptual approach is unusual in studies of digitalization in public activities.
Details
Keywords
Maria Åkesson, Per Skålén, Bo Edvardsson and Anna Stålhammar
This article investigates the role of frontline employees in service innovation from a service-dominant logic perspective. Frontline employees lack a formal innovation obligation…
Abstract
Purpose
This article investigates the role of frontline employees in service innovation from a service-dominant logic perspective. Frontline employees lack a formal innovation obligation. Service innovation is a resource integration process resulting in the creation of new value propositions.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study of service innovation projects that includes three different businesses in the IT sector and personal interviews with 25 frontline employees.
Findings
The findings suggest that frontline employees contribute to service innovation by test-driving potential value propositions. Three types of value proposition test-driving have been identified: cognitive, practical, and discursive. The findings suggest interdependencies between the different modes of value proposition test-driving, as well as specific phases of the service innovation process dominated by one form or another.
Research limitations/implications
Value proposition test-driving offers a fruitful context for managers to involve frontline employees and use their creativity and expertise. The case study approach, however, limits the statistical generalizability of the findings.
Originality/value
The study is novel in that it (a) introduces the notion of value proposition test-driving for service innovation; (b) provides a systematic empirical analysis of how frontline employees contribute to service innovation by test-driving value propositions; (c) offers a service innovation model informed by the service-dominant logic; and (d) contributes to the service-dominant logic by detailing how service innovation occurs in practice.
Maria Åkesson, Bo Edvardsson and Bård Tronvoll
A service system, including self-service technologies (SSTs), should facilitate actors’ value co-creation processes to enhance customer experiences. The purpose of this paper is…
Abstract
Purpose
A service system, including self-service technologies (SSTs), should facilitate actors’ value co-creation processes to enhance customer experiences. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how customers’ experiences – both favorable and unfavorable – are formed by identifying the underlying drivers when using SSTs in the context of a self-service-based system. The authors also analyze customers’ journeys, which occur before, during, and after their experience with a self-service-based system with SSTs.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory, inductive study examines customers’ self-service experiences of using an SST. By undertaking 60 customer interviews, an event-based technique identified 200 favorable and unfavorable experienced events, which consist of activities and interactions identified through open coding guided by a theoretical framework. Customers’ experiences form through social norms and rules, referred to here as schemas. The authors sorted the drivers into four main categories of schemas (informational, relational, organizational, and technological) and into three categories: before, during, and after the store visit.
Findings
The authors identified 13 favorable and unfavorable customer experience drivers that guide value co-creation and explain how the flow of value co-creation helps form customers’ experiences.
Research limitations/implications
The results are limited to one self-service system context and therefore do not provide statistical generalizability. In addition, the examined company already focusses on customer experiences; other organizations may have different experience drivers.
Practical implications
The results explain what is important when designing an SST-based service system. Besides, managers can promote the drivers in this research as advantages customers can gain by using self-service.
Originality/value
This study offers original contributions by: first, classifying and analyzing 13 experience drivers in four categories grounded in customers’ schemas; and second, offering a new conceptualization that focusses on the formation of customers’ experiences during a value co-creation process – that is, the customer's journey – rather than on the outcome experience only.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understanding of how a service‐dominant (S‐D) professional identity can be established among the employees of an organisation that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to understanding of how a service‐dominant (S‐D) professional identity can be established among the employees of an organisation that wishes to inculcate the tenets of S‐D logic.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports a case study of a large Swedish public sector organisation in which the transition to e‐government provided an opportunity to inculcate a new service‐based professional identity among employees. The main data collection method is interviewing.
Findings
The study identifies four characteristics of a S‐D professional identity: interaction; customer orientation; co‐creation; and empowerment. The study finds that such an identity can be established through five socialisation processes: collective socialisation; random socialisation; serial socialisation; investiture socialisation; and divestiture socialisation.
Research limitations/implications
As with all case study research, the paper draws analytical generalisations but is unable to provide any statistical generalisations; further quantitative research is needed in this area. Moreover, the paper takes a intra‐firm perspective; future studies could approach the topic from a consumer perspective.
Practical implications
Managers who wish to inculcate S‐D logic in their organisations should focus on developing the interactive and co‐creation skills of their employees, as well as empowering them and providing them with an enhanced understanding of customer orientation.
Originality/value
The study is novel in several respects: it provides a systematic empirical analysis of how S‐D logic can be established in an organisation; the notion of a S‐D professional identity is introduced; and the theory of organisational socialisation is applied to S‐D logic research for the first time.
Details
Keywords
Maria Åkesson and Bo Edvardsson
The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the effects of e‐government on service design as perceived by employees.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyse the effects of e‐government on service design as perceived by employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses semi‐structured interviews with middle managers and front‐line employees, complemented by documentary analysis, to investigate how the introduction of e‐government has affected service design in two Swedish public‐sector organisations.
Findings
The analysis reveals five dimensions of change in the design of services as a result of the introduction of e‐government: service encounter and service process; customers as co‐creators and sole producers of services; efficiency; increased complexity; and integration. The study discusses the significance of these findings with particular examples from transcriptions of the interviews.
Research limitations/implications
This study is rather limited and exploratory in nature; however, it does provide useful information on the categories of change in the redesign of services for e‐government and it does point the way to important avenues of future research in this field.
Practical implications
Four practical implications flow from the present research: managers should involve both employees and customers in projects and processes during the introduction of e‐government services; the services must be redesigned to ensure that the benefits of the information and communication technologies systems are fully realised; the introduction of e‐government might require more time being made available to assist certain customers who are in need of extra time and support from employees; and the time that is saved as a result of the introduction of e‐government must be profitably utilized by careful advance planning.
Originality/value
The study makes an original contribution by identifying five categories of change in the design of services in the context of the introduction of e‐government.
Details
Keywords
Maria Åkesson, Per Skålén and Bo Edvardsson
The purpose of this paper is to review selected literature on e‐government service orientation and highlight differences between academic theory and empirical findings. To date…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to review selected literature on e‐government service orientation and highlight differences between academic theory and empirical findings. To date, there has been little support for predictions made in the e‐government conceptual literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a conceptual framework for a literature review of e‐government and service orientation is presented. A systematic database search is then undertaken to identify the literature related to e‐government and service orientation. Suitable papers are selected, carefully read, and systematically analysed according to the conceptual framework. A discussion and relevant conclusions are then presented.
Findings
The paper finds that a gap appears to exist between conceptual literature and empirical findings. For example, conceptual research claims that e‐government will result in a reduction of staff, yet no empirical findings have proven this. The present study applies institutional theory for understanding the fundamental reasons to this gap.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is based on a literature review of 27 articles, three monographs and one edited volume focusing on service orientation and e‐government. It does not attempt to examine the full range of the literature available within the field of e‐government.
Originality/value
This review paper uniquely considers the gaps between the theory and practice of e‐government service orientation, and identifies where they exist. Some possible explanations for the gaps are explored which can be of interest to both academics and practitioners working in the field.
Details
Keywords
This paper presents an exploratory study to understand the distinctive quality dimensions of high-contact Professional Service Firms (PSFs) and develop a conceptual model for…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents an exploratory study to understand the distinctive quality dimensions of high-contact Professional Service Firms (PSFs) and develop a conceptual model for Quality Management (QM). The paper is based on empirical evidences from multiple cases in leading Indian law firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopted an exploratory, multiple, embedded and comparative case study design. The empirical evidence from multiple case studies in 10 law firms (data includes 42 individual interviews, archival records, field notes) was used to explore the QM dimensions for PSFs.
Findings
The results showed that QM in PSFs is a multifaceted and continuous process rather than a straightforward and episodic one. The findings reveal three distinctive dimensions of QM for PSFs: managing the firm's image; managing the client-firm interaction and support processes and; managing the perceived value of service outcome. Further, the results showed a significant variation in the design of QM practices in a relatively homogenous group of PSFs (law firms). This reflected the influence of personnel and organizational characteristics on the QM.
Research limitations/implications
The research is based on evidences collected from 10 Indian law firms and the research design is exploratory in nature. The future research is suggested in terms of extending the scope and research design.
Practical implications
The insights obtained from the paper have implications for managers working on the design of service operations and particularly service quality in high-contact PSFs similar to law firms. While the study does not prescribe a standard design of QM systems for PSFs, it seeks to foster the thinking of managers by helping them conceptualize the broad quality-control checkpoints and quality attributes specific to PSF settings
Originality/value
The academic research in the management of professional service quality is dominated by conceptual/theoretical models for customer evaluation of service provider's performance and the issue of operationalization of QM in PSFs is still needs further investigation. This paper contributes to the theory of service operations management (SOM) by focusing on the structure of QM systems in PSFs.