Services Science – Fundamentals, Challenges and Future Developments

Citation

Reynoso, J. (2008), "Services Science – Fundamentals, Challenges and Future Developments", International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 19 No. 5, pp. 682-684. https://doi.org/10.1108/09564230810903523

It has been just a few years since the term service science appeared in the business arena and in the academic literature. Recognition of the importance of the strategic role of service for competitiveness in the information technology industry led IBM to launch an initiative called Service Science Management and Engineering (SSME). Since then, a number of workshops and conferences have been organized in different parts of the world to present and discuss initial ideas, reflections and challenges around the notion of service science. The contents of this book are the result of the first German Services Science Conference, held in Ingolstadt in 2006. Co‐edited by Bernd Stauss, Kai Engelmann, Anja Kremer and Achim Luhn, the book contains 15 contributions structured in four parts. First, the need for service science and some fundamental concepts are discussed. In particular, two main streams are included. SSME is presented as “an urgent call to action for industry, government and academics to focus on becoming more systematic about service innovation”. Despite of its initial bias towards information‐based services, this call for a general theory of service is an initial effort to integrate a different array of sciences in relation to service activities. Also, service engineering is presented as a transdisciplinary approach. It addresses interesting and difficult questions regarding the meaning and scope of service science, and the need to transform service research itself. Four main requirements for service engineering are presented: generation of new knowledge, closer integration of engineering disciplines, enabling research projects with companies and creating platforms with the international community.

The second part focuses on important research issues about services science. Four contributions present different and supplementary perspectives. First, this part includes interesting and relevant propositions about services science, including, for example, the strong focus of service research on marketing and management and much less on other disciplines as well as the difference of being multidisciplinary and not interdisciplinary. Perhaps, the most interesting proposition is that of the need to define more clearly and precisely the conceptual core of services science, that is, the different levels of analysis that could be identified around services. In this vein, five different perspectives are presented, including service sector, service industries, service transformation, service topic and service management. Service research should consider the complexity and diversity of each of these perspectives. Also, major challenges posed by services science to all parties involved are discussed here. Such challenges become particularly relevant in the case of universities, where power groups are strong and difficult to accept new academic and scientific paradigms. The sectoral approach of services is also included in this second part of the book. This is especially interesting as it discusses some of the weaknesses and drawbacks of service research, criticizing the lack of integration and organization of the service research community and the need for a more holistic approach incorporating different academic disciplines capable to cross traditional boundaries. Then, a computer scientist's perspective is also given to services science in this second part. This short but challenging contribution addresses a key, provocative question: “Do we need a new discipline”? It is argued here that if services science is a problem‐solving discipline, it should focus on specific activities (e.g. banking, retailing, tourism, etc.) rather than on generic problems related to all service industries. This second part finishes with an application‐oriented perspective. The need for action to develop, design and model service‐driven innovation processes in a systematic way is emphasized. In this regard, the interrelationship between service and innovation is at the heart of international competitiveness.

The book then turns services science to focus on teaching. In this third part, four contributions are included to discuss the evolution of service education and curricula in business and engineering schools. Challenges and limitations are addressed, by discussing key issues, including, for example, current weaknesses of service education, topics for service science academic education, challenges of establishing services science at academic institutions and, services science in continuing education. The dilemma between the need for an independent service science education versus the need for transformation of existing curricula is particularly interesting, as this is at the heart of service science conceptual challenge discussed in the first part of the book. Finally, the last part of the book includes five contributions focusing on collaboration for services science, addressing the need of combining theory and practice. Issues like service innovation and knowledge creation in relation to business collaboration are part of this discussion. The reasons behind cooperation, the organization and challenges for the future of cooperation between academia and business are presented, including the practitioners' perspective represented by Siemens and IBM.

Overall, each of the four parts of the book clearly addresses both good progress and also great challenges about the current notion and the future of services science.

Focusing on the conceptual fundamentals of services science, it would be important to consider that for the last thirty years, it has been very difficult to integrate different academic management silos around service, and so integrating different scientific silos would seem even a more challenging effort in the years to come. Also, there are very important differences to be considered when talking about a science of services, including those interrelated but different notions of IT services, IT services management, IT related‐services, IT service role in services management and services management itself. Currently, a great deal of the discussion on services science has been to some extent limited to the IT business environment. Understanding and managing such differences properly would require a crucial transformation in different perspectives and at different levels throughout the organization.

Focusing on research, certainly a challenge is related to the existence of great complexity and diversity produced by the different levels of analysis. From international/regional (e.g. European Union) to national policies, all the way down to universities, programs, and even courses on service. This situation would require special interest and attention to conduct research with specific focus. This in turn may require the need of epistemological discussions and the identification of problems and obstacles at different levels of analysis.

Focusing on teaching, the paradigm shift within universities, moving from silo approach to a problem/process‐based approach seems another important barrier to break. In this regard, the need for holistic/systemic view of service organizations seems essential. An important issue would be to distinguish the difference between discipline design and curricula design. It would be also very important to avoid the temptation to use the same academic contents with new labels. To distinguish really original, new ideas from just examples related to IT services based on already existing service management models and concepts is also something to be considered when focusing on teaching services science. The current bias on the notion of services science towards IT service‐related academic programs would need to change as this initiative continues evolving.

Finally, focusing on the business arena, the integration of perspectives among key players including governments, corporations and universities, among others, seems also crucial.

Building the bridge between theory and practice and between the top and the bottom of the economic pyramid through action research is also very important to reach service business development via collaboration as expressed in the book.