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The aim of this chapter is to understand the nature of business collaboration between healthcare service providers and tourism agencies in Malaysia. Interviews with 17 healthcare service providers in Malaysia reveal that most of the collaboration between healthcare service providers and tourism agencies in Malaysia is informal or loose, despite their intention to leverage on medical tourism for business expansion. Close and tight collaborations are rare. The findings point towards the main reasons behind the rare collaboration which are the high customer orientation of healthcare service providers, the strategic move of business and support for government agenda.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a systematic review that examined police social work and social service collaboration strategies implemented to address social problems.

A systematic review was conducted to identify the components of police social work and social service collaboration strategies. A total of 11 databases were searched. The inclusion criteria centered on the social problem, focus population, service providers, collaboration components and geographic location. Any methodological approach was included provided that a collaboration between police and social service providers focused on addressing a social problem was implemented and described.

The database searches identified 3,065 hits. After first eliminating duplicate titles, then reviewing and eliminating titles and abstracts that did not met the inclusion criteria, 119 full-text studies were reviewed. Among the 81 studies included in the systematic review, 83 implemented collaborations were found. The most collaborations were implemented in the USA, whereas only one implemented collaboration was found among the majority of the countries. Interpersonal violence was the most frequent social problem addressed by the collaborations followed by mental illness, crime, juvenile delinquency, and alcohol and substance use and abuse. Interventions were predominantly delivered by social workers who provided referrals and collaboration with social service agencies that assisted adults.

Given that police officers are first responders to a wide range of social problems, investigating and disseminating information about the characteristics of police social service collaboration strategies is an important endeavor. Whereas investigating the effectiveness of collaborations was not the aim of this review, several practical implications can be derived from the findings. These findings show the types of social problems, partners and tasks that comprise the collaborations. The present findings suggest that law enforcement agencies do not have accessible name brand social work and social service collaboration models that can be replicated. The majority of the collaborations found appear to be unique models implemented between law enforcement and social service agencies. More outcome studies are needed that investigate whether the social problem has improved among citizens that received services from the collaboration.

This paper is the first systematic review focused on police social work and social service collaboration strategies implemented to address social problems.

The purpose of this commentary is to complete the synthesis of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into Seven Commentaries on Service Research Themes developed by ServCollab and the Journal of Services Marketing. As an approach to achieving SDG #17, ServCollab’s collaborative logic and design perspective for collaboration services for sustainable development partnerships are presented.

Collaboration is ServCollab’s Service Research Theme #7, which reframes the UN SDG meta goal #17 of Partnerships. In prior ServCollab research, four possible human interactions were identified: conflict, competition, cooperation and collaboration. Only the shared purpose of collaboration enables elevating the human experience.

The authors found no published service research that studied SDG #17, which means there are huge opportunities for service research on the role of collaboration in service systems. The alignment between the UN SDGs and ServCollab’s goals is explored. A research agenda for service research and SDG goals was proposed for collaborative communications, collaborative technologies and collaborative projects.

Practical ideas are offered for serving humanity through collaboration. Collaborations are the only practical solutions to humanity’s myriad sustainable development problems.

When the United Nations developed its first 16 SDGs, they knew that accomplishing these goals required complex collaborations. That is why SDG #17 is Partnerships. ServCollab’s serving humanity logic applies collaboration to all social settings (large or small) where working together can sustain and regenerate the service ecosystem of Planet Earth.

This commentary describes a unique approach to building collaborative capacity for conducting service research projects for sustaining and regenerating the service ecosystem of Planet Earth.

Absorptive capacity, technological collaboration and servitization are analyzed to establish ways to overcome the balance between products and services in manufacturing companies. A fresh perspective is introduced by presenting a framework for innovation strategy, moving beyond product-based R&D.

The hypotheses are tested using data on Spanish firms in the high-tech chemical and pharmaceutical industries through ordinary least squares regression analysis. The sample consists of 112 manufacturing firms included in the Spanish Survey of Business Strategies.

The results show that absorptive capacity facilitates servitization and that technological collaboration moderates the relationship between absorptive capacity and servitization. The synergies between absorptive capacity and technological collaboration for servitization are recognized from the perspective of open innovation as a way of resolving the trade-off between products and services.

Future research should introduce more sources of collaboration by broadening the value chain perspective. Other approaches to innovation may also be considered, including relationships to process innovation.

The results can provide meaningful guidance for companies to determine the key opportunities of servitization driven by absorptive capacity, and the best ways to leverage open innovation and collaboration strategies to exploit such approaches.

This research enriches theories on servitization, open innovation and innovative behavior. Open innovation strategy should be linked to greater servitization activity and should support an open service strategy. This approach is crucial for building innovation capabilities through technological collaboration.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the attitudes and views of library directors and key librarians on issues related to library collaboration and its impact on the welfare of advanced and cost‐effective systems of library and information services.

A qualitative approach was utilized through the use of semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interviews for collecting needed data from library directors and key librarians in four major universities located in diverse regions in Oman. Collected data were transcribed and relevant themes and patterns were identified following an interpretive thematic approach.

Results show that participants indicated an overall positive attitude toward library collaboration in an academic setting. They believed in the desired individual and institutional benefits that they would gain if their libraries or parent organizations developed and enhanced a collaborative system. The three most important advantages of collaboration were emphasized. They are: to enlarge and improve the library services, including increasing users' access to inter‐library information resources; to reduce costs by sharing manpower and resources; and to share experience through communication and enhance skills and knowledge of staff through collaborative training.

The paper provides an overview and insights into demanding issues related to academic library collaboration in Oman. The result of this study helps propose a frame‐work or strategy for the purpose of initiating and developing a new system of academic library collaboration in Oman.

Library collaboration, overall, has hardly been studied in Oman, or at least in the context of academic librarianship. This paper highlights the importance of library collaboration and its impact on the changing environment of academic libraries.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects that information systems (IS) capabilities can have on supplier collaboration and customer collaboration and on quality performance in service contexts. In addition, the study examines how supply chain collaboration influences quality performance under various levels of environmental dynamism.

The conceptual model for this study is designed on the basis of the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities view (DCV). A survey of 156 UK service firms was conducted and the data analyzed to test theoretical model using the structural equation modeling method. Furthermore, the moderating effect of environmental dynamism was investigated.

The results show that IS capabilities are positively associated with supply chain collaboration. Both supplier collaboration and customer collaboration are positively related to quality performance. Supplier collaboration has a positive effect on customer collaboration. Environmental dynamism significantly moderates the relationship between customer collaboration and quality performance, but no moderating effect on the relationship between supplier collaboration and quality performance.

This study takes a step toward quelling concerns about the business value of IS, contributing to the development and validation of the measurement of IS capabilities in the service supply chain context. The study deepens our understanding of supply chain collaboration by making a distinction between supplier collaboration and customer collaboration and investigating the correlation of supplier collaboration and customer collaboration. The findings extend the empirical application of RBV and DCV. In addition, this study’s findings direct service firms to develop IS capabilities that can enhance specific kinds of supply chain collaboration activities, thereby enabling improved quality performance.

In this study the authors examined the impact of employees' collaborative behaviours with colleagues and customers (i.e. employee–employee collaboration and employee–customer collaboration) on their creative self-efficacy and service innovation from the perspective of service-dominant logic. The authors also examined the differences between frontline and non-frontline fitness service employees in our research model. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

Participants were fitness-centre employees in Taiwan recruited via convenience sampling. A total of 410 participants completed our online survey, and the authors analysed the data using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The authors found that collaboration with both colleagues and customers had a positive impact on employees' creative self-efficacy. Collaboration with colleagues directly affected service innovation, while collaboration with customers indirectly affected service innovation via creative self-efficacy. In addition, there was a significant difference between frontline and non-frontline employees in our research model. Specifically, the path from collaboration with customers to creative self-efficacy was stronger for frontline employees, and the path from creative self-efficacy to service innovation was stronger for non-frontline employees.

This study improves the understanding of the way in which different collaborative behaviours promote employees' creative self-efficacy and service innovation. Further, it is the first to identify the difference between frontline and non-frontline employees and it shows how the effects of collaborative behaviours differ between them in the context of fitness services.

This study aims to examine value cocreation in terms of interfirm collaborations between service firms, their business customers and business partners at different stages of a new service development (NSD) process.

The study develops and tests hypotheses that examine the roles played by business customers and partners in NSD, assuming resource dependency of the focal firm during three NSD stages (ideation, development and deployment). Empirical data were collected from 200 NSD projects and structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that business customer collaboration has a positive effect on ideation performance and development performance, whereas business partner collaboration has a positive effect on deployment performance. These finding support the notion that the value cocreating roles of business customers and partners vary across NSD stages.

Future research should focus on how business partners can be actively involved in the NSD process and how the interests of different parties can be safeguarded. The use of longitudinal data will allow a better examination of the process dynamics.

The study provides managerial implications for service managers in terms of acquiring and allocating resources needed from business customers and partners during different NSD stages.

The study contributes to the growing literature on value cocreation in NSD by empirically demonstrating the respective performance contributions of business customers and partners during different stages of NSD. Moreover, the results also shed light on interfirm collaboration mechanisms from the perspective of resource dependence theory.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically study the necessary and sufficient antecedents of customer loyalty to logistics service providers (LSPs). Despite the abundance of loyalty studies, few studies have empirically examined the complex causal relationships between loyalty and its antecedents using the appropriate research methods.

The study uses fuzzy sets qualitative comparison analysis (FsQCA) to uncover the antecedents and antecedent configurations of customer loyalty. This study examined the necessity and sufficiency of five antecedents (operational collaboration, strategic collaboration, trust, service satisfaction and price satisfaction) and on five dimensions of loyalty (repurchase intension, switching costs, exclusiveness, referrals and overall loyalty). This study developed six research hypotheses based on existing literature and tested them empirically in a manufacturing context. This study compared results from FsQCA with regression analysis.

The findings reveal that only a few antecedent configurations lead to customer loyalty, including a combination of strategic and operational collaboration, bundling of service offerings and combining competitive price with strategic collaboration. Further, the absence of trust negatively affects loyalty, but the presence of trust does not lead to loyalty.

This study contributes to business to business literature by demonstrating how to use FsQCA analysis to test the presence of equifinality, conjunction and causal asymmetry of complex relationships. This study applies FsQCA between antecedent factors and customer loyalty. Furthermore, we demonstrate how to compare and integrate FsQCA with conventional regression analysis which is based on correlation-bounded logic.

This study shows that no single antecedents that can generate loyalty, yet, few antecedent configurations work better than others: collaborating at both strategic and operational level with your partner has the highest impact on loyalty. Another configuration that leads to loyalty is to combine competitive prices with strategic collaboration, which particularly stimulates repurchase decisions. Price is are not sufficient enough to lead to customer loyalty.

This study applied a novel analysis to uncover necessary and sufficient conditions that conventional methods such as regression analysis and structural equation modelling have limited power.

Small councils may not have access to professional procurement resources – one potential solution is to create a procurement shared service with another council. The purpose of this paper is to focus on evidence of the emergence and existence of inter‐organisational procurement shared services and its benefits; a structural approach significantly different from the intra‐organisational centralised/decentralised organisational models and the use of consortia.

Case studies, making use of stakeholder, semi‐structured interviews, were used to probe the experience of six English procurement shared‐services covering 15 councils.

The findings demonstrate evidence of that some smaller councils are benefiting from collaborating in inter‐organisational procurement shared service. The collaborations were engaged in strategic procurement initiatives which would not have otherwise been possible through the use of consortia. However, there was an absence, within the cases, of formal business cases and strategy.

The paper provides evidence that procurement shared services can be inter‐organisational delivering the benefits of intra‐organisational “hard core/soft core” procurement structures and inter‐organisational consortia. The paper also suggests that the benefits gained from procurement shared services have more akin to inter‐organisational collaboration than intra‐organisational shared services. This research is limited in that it only relates to the experience of a purposive sample of small councils that had already decided to pursue a procurement shared service. The research limitations also include the absence of a political perspective.

A procurement shared service appears a viable structural option for smaller councils, whether they have, or have not currently, access to a procurement professional. The research highlights the need to adopt an incremental approach and also sets out suggestions for a strategic approach to shared services procurement strategy.

There is an absence of literature on delivering procurement as a shared service, and shared services in general – in that respect this paper represents research into a new emerging procurement structural model, not previously reported.