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The purpose of this paper is to explore how functional and appropriateness arguments influence the adoption of modularity principles during the design of a professional service architecture.

Action design research was conducted to examine the design process of a modular service architecture for specialised elderly care by a multi-professional group. Data collection methods included, partly participatory, observations of the interactions between professionals during the design process, interviews and document analysis. Data analysis focussed on the emerging design choices and the arguments underlying them.

A wide range of both functional and appropriateness considerations were enlisted during the design process. The three core modularity principles were adapted to varying degrees. In terms of the design outcome, the interdependencies between the modularity principles necessitated two trade-offs in the modular design. A third trade-off occurred between modularity and the need for professional inference where services were characterised by uncertainty. Appropriateness was achieved through the professionals reframing and translating the abstract modularity concept to reconcile the concept’s functionality with their professional norms, values and established practices.

The study adds to service modularity theory by formulating three trade-offs that are required in translating the core modularity principles into a functional set of design choices for a multi-professional service environment. Moreover, the inherent intertwinedness of the core modularity principles in professional services requires an iterative design process. Finally, the authors saw that the ambiguity present in the service modularity concept can be used to develop a design that is deemed appropriate by professionals.

Applying “modularity” principles in services is gaining in popularity. The purpose of this paper is to enrich existing service modularity theory and practice by exploring how services are being decomposed and how the modularization aim and the routineness of the service(s) involved may link to different decomposition logics. The authors argue that these are fundamental questions that have barely been addressed.

The authors first built a theoretical framework of decomposition steps and the design choices involved that distinguished six decomposition logics. The authors conducted a systematic literature search that generated 18 empirical articles describing 16 service modularity cases. The authors analysed these cases in terms of decomposition logic and two main contingencies: modularization aim and service routineness.

Only three of the 18 articles explicitly addressed the service decomposition by reflecting on the underlying design choices. By unravelling the decomposition in each case, the authors were able to identify the decomposition logic and found four of the six theoretically derived logics: single-level process oriented; single-level outcome oriented; multilevel outcome oriented; and multilevel combined orientation. Although the authors did not find a direct relationship between the modularization aim and the decomposition logic, the authors did find that single-level decomposition logics seem to be mainly applied in non-routine service offerings whereas the multilevel ones are mainly applied in routine service offerings.

By contributing to a common understanding of modular service decomposition and proposing a framework that explicates the design choices involved, the authors enable an enhanced application of the modularity concept in services.