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The future development of the internet is not only heavily dependent on its technological evolution, but also on business sustainability for the interconnection ecosystem the web relies on, where various players characterized by fairly different economic structures and interests are coexisting. Therefore, in this paper the authors aim to propose a methodological framework for developing innovative interconnection business models.

Starting from a comprehensive as‐is analysis including the selection of appropriate service scenarios, market activities are abstracted through an archetypization process. Based on that, a value network for the future marketplace is proposed and makes it possible to design a business model for carriers, before, as last step, both the value network configurations and the to‐be business model are evaluated.

The framework to assess the future internet ecosystem depicts the interconnections value network, shedding light on its key activities; it proposes the establishment of a new dynamic interconnection marketplace based on an emerging interconnection value network where traditional and original roles coexist; and it evaluates the introduction of sending party pays and bid‐and‐ask solutions for governing the marketplace and its business models.

The authors' approach addresses carriers, over‐the‐top providers and technology providers as well as end user groups, specifically aiming at fostering the evolution of the future internet by means of developing innovative value configurations and business model options with a substantial impact for a broad set of stakeholders on a global scale. Thus, the canvas of guidelines presented and discussed in this paper covers all stakeholders in the interconnection ecosystem and provides a solid starting point for upcoming implementations.

The purpose of this paper is to present a design fiction diegetic prototyping methodology and research framework for investigating service innovations that reflect future uses of new and emerging technologies.

Drawing on speculative fiction, the authors propose a methodology that positions service innovations within a six-stage research development framework. The authors begin by reviewing and critiquing designerly approaches that have traditionally been associated with service innovations and futures literature. In presenting their framework, authors provide an example of its application to the Internet of Things (IoT), illustrating the central tenets proposed and key issues identified.

The research framework advances a methodology for visualizing future experiential service innovations, considering how realism may be integrated into a designerly approach.

Design fiction diegetic prototyping enables researchers to express a range of “what if” or “what can it be” research questions within service innovation contexts. However, the process encompasses degrees of subjectivity and relies on knowledge, judgment and projection.

The paper presents an approach to devising future service scenarios incorporating new and emergent technologies in service contexts. The proposed framework may be used as part of a range of research designs, including qualitative, quantitative and mixed method investigations.

Operationalizing an approach that generates and visualizes service futures from an experiential perspective contributes to the advancement of techniques that enables the exploration of new possibilities for service innovation research.

To survive and grow in an era of uncertainty, companies should strive not only for a single visionary view, which most likely corresponds with their expectations, but instead they should try to acquire multiple views that describe the whole ”window of opportunities”. The development of external market scenarios to assess current strategies is the usual way of coping with these uncertainties. Today this traditional scenario approach has to be extended in four directions: the use of market scenarios to systematically develop future‐robust strategies, the use of alternative strategy scenarios to address uncertainties within an organization, the use of scenarios as a basis for strategic early warning processes and the combination of performance measurement and strategic early warning in a scenario‐based future scorecard. In conclusion it is shown that scenarios could significantly help to bridge the gap between strategy implementation and early‐warning processes.

The Information Superhighway is at this stage a vision, and not a reality; conduit, content and connectedness are discussed as the prerequisites for a high speed network, which is still some years away. Possible service scenarios for future networked public libraries are outlined, together with some current issues to be be solved. The importance of a shared view is emphasised.

The purpose of this paper is to forecast the performance and adoption of residential energy management technology (REMT).

The paper integrates scenarios, analogy and Bass diffusion model.

Four different scenarios were identified. Bass curve parameters were extracted through many different existing devices, and then fit into each scenario subjectively to produce four different kinds of diffusion curves.

The approach and the model provide decision and policy makers to evaluate how they should position new energy management innovations based on the desired type of diffusion.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential roles for service robots (i.e. socially assistive robots) in value networks of elderly care. Taking an elderly person’s perspective, it defines robot roles according to their value co-creating/destroying potential for the elderly user (i.e. focal actor), while acknowledging consequences for a network of users around the elderly (i.e. network actors).

This qualitative, interpretative study employs in-depth phenomenographic interviews, supported by generative cards activities (i.e. Contextual Value Network Mapping), to elicit an elderly person’s tacit knowledge and anticipate the effects of introducing an automated actor on institutionalized value co-creation practices.

The proposed typology identifies six roles of socially assistive robots in an elderly person’s value network (enabler, intruder, ally, replacement, extended self, and deactivator) and links them to three health-supporting functions by robots: safeguarding, social contact, and cognitive support.

Elderly people have notable expectations about the inclusion of a socially assistive robot as a new actor in their value networks. The identified robot roles inform service scholars and managers about both the value co-destruction potential that needs to be avoided through careful designs and the value co-creation potential that should be leveraged.

Using network-conscious phenomenographic interviews before the introduction of a novel value proposition sheds new light on the shifting value co-creation interplay among value network actors (i.e. elderly people, formal and informal caregivers). The value co-creation/destruction potential of socially assistive robots and their corresponding roles in care-based value networks offer insights for the design of meaningful robotic technology and its introduction into the existing service networks.

This paper reports research that investigates the perceptions of service managers on the future of customer service. It provides insight into the evolving managerial issues through detailed interviews with senior customer‐service directors and managers in different service sectors. Service organisations that will be successful in the future will focus the roles and capabilities of their customer‐service staff on customer needs, and support them through active service leadership. A six‐stage approach to developing the necessary strategies for managing customer service in this environment is deduced.

The launch of both Euronet and the British Post Office two‐way data service to the US has been delayed. Due to become operational in December 1978, Euronet is now unlikely to be open until June 1979. As reported in the March 1978 issue of Online Review, Euronet — the European data transmission network was due to interconnect customers through packet switching exchanges in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Rome and remote access points in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin and Luxembourg. The network is based on technology developed for the French Transpac domestic network and it seems that delays in starting up Transpac are the major cause for postponing Euronet until next year. However, arrangements with host computers are progressing ‘very satisfactorily’ according to Dr. Georges Anderla, Director for Information Management, in Luxembourg. Five hosts — Blaise (London), Corte di Cassazione (Rome), CTI (Ministry of Economic Affairs, Brussels), FIZ4 (Karlsruhe) and Infoline (London) — have signed statements regarding their connections to the network . Another 15 are still due to sign and Dr. Anderla seemed to welcome the delay by stating that “…the extended pre‐launch planning period gives us the opportunity to introduce the facility with a broader range of host and databases and a greater number of users than would otherwise have been the case.” Meanwhile both Switzerland and Spain — two non‐European Community countries — have made formal application to join Euronet.

A real potential exists for library use of voice technologies: as aids to the disabled or illiterate library user, as front‐ends for general library help systems, in online systems for commands or control words, and in many of the hands‐busy‐eyes‐busy activities that are common in libraries. Initially, these applications would be small, limited processes that would not require the more fluent human‐machine communication that we might hope for in the future. Voice technologies will depend on and benefit from new computer systems, advances in artificial intelligence and expert systems to facilitate their use and enable them to better circumvent present input and output problems. These voice systems will gradually assume more importance, improving access to information and complementing existing systems, but they will not likely revolutionize or dominate human‐machine communications or library services in the near future.

The purpose of this study is to develop a service logic oriented framework for business model development. “Service logic” covers the basic principles of the three contemporary customer value focused business logics: service-dominant logic, service logic and customer-dominant logic.

This study is based on an empirical qualitative research and deployed the focus group method. The data are generated in a series of interactive co-creative focus group workshops involving both practitioners and academics.

As the outcome, a new tool was developed, called Service Logic Business Model Canvas. The new canvas is a modified version of the original Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2010).

This study adopts service logic in business model thinking and increases knowledge on how to keep the customer needs in the centre of business model development.

The developed canvas makes the theory of service-dominant logic tangible and easily applicable in practice. It enables service innovation truly based on customer value by ensuring that the customer is in the centre of all the elements of a business model. It can function both as a rapid prototype of a new business model and as a communication tool that quickly illustrates the company’s current business model. It can also help in creating a customer-centred business culture. It is designed to be applied to each customer profile separately, thus enabling a deeper understanding of the customer logic of each relevant profile.

Earlier business model frameworks tend to be provider-centric and goods-dominant, and require further development and adaptation to service logic. This study adopts service logic in business model thinking. It embeds the true and deep customer understanding and customer value in each element of the business model, and contributes to both business model and service-dominant logic literature.