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The purpose of this paper is to: first, explain why a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens arises from the digital society; second explore some core elements of the competition between the new model of the provision of welfare services and the classic ideal model of the professionals’ provision of welfare services; third, suggest why it is most likely that the two models of the provision of services are combined into a symbiotic co-evolution scenario; and fourth, examine why and how this symbiotic co-evolution scenario results in new participatory spaces for the main actors associated with the provision of welfare services.

The review of the literature examines how the new model for the provision of welfare services facilitated by big data challenges the traditional professional model for the provision of welfare services. The authors use the Danish case to illustrate a number of themes related to this looking at the hospital sector as an example.

The proposition is that a symbiotic co-evolution scenario will emerge. A mix of the classic ideal model and practice of the service professionals’ provision of services and the digital society’s model of the provision of services is the most likely scenario in the years to come. Furthermore, Data-driven management (DDM) as an integrated key element in a symbiotic co-evolution creates (opens up) participatory environments and spaces for the main actors and agents associated with the provision of welfare services to the citizens.

DDM’s impact on the provision of welfare services is still being realised and worked out, and more empirical research is needed before it is possible to point at the most likely scenario. However, according to the authors’ analytical framework, the institutional logics perspective, as presented in Section 2, a symbiotic co-evolution is most likely such that DDM will constitute a new logic within the provision of welfare services on the basis of which citizens as end-users could be provided with welfare services, but it is not likely that the new logic of DDM can displace the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services. Therefore, the new logic of DDM will be combined with and integrated into the existing logics within service provision, such as the Weberian bureaucracy, the Street-Level Bureaucracy, the New Public Governance and the Market. In spite of this, DDM can successfully be promoted by international management consulting firms, as a management concept which can remedy all the problems of the classic service professionals’ model of the provision of welfare services to citizens.

As a consequence of this, new relationships among professionals, data analytics, (middle) managers and citizens will be created regarding the provision of welfare services. Considering the new participatory environments and spaces and the new relationships among the classic service professionals, the data analytics, the (middle) managers and the citizens as end-users, the provision of welfare services may become an arena for negotiation of a new future model of the provision of welfare services to citizens.

The digital society has emerged from and developed further via: digitising, online information in almost real time, algorithms, data-informed decision-making processes, DDM and, ultimately, big data. The authors expect to see further digitising, more sophisticated algorithms and more big data. The authors suggest that a new model of the provision of welfare services to citizens will emerge from the development of the digital society. The authors also suggest that this new model will compete with the classic model of the provision of welfare services.

The study focuses on the value co-creation processes in humanitarian professional services provision, analysing the key enabling factors of beneficiaries' participation, involved in long-term integration programmes (L-TIPs).

Through an in-depth case study, the research looks at the practices of value co-creation in humanitarian professional services, considering both the perspectives of the professional service provider and beneficiary.

In professional services beneficiary's participation affects the success of the L-TIPs outcomes. Participation's enablers can be classified into four different spheres, each belonging to different elements of professional service: the beneficiary, the professionals, the service design and the external environment.

This paper contributes to the literature on humanitarian operations & supply chain management. By focussing on an understudied phase of the disaster life-cycle management, it contributes to the theory of value co-creation by exploring new issues and drivers of beneficiary's participation.

This research has interesting implications for policymakers and humanitarian practitioners. First, guidelines for professionals' behaviours and interventions should be designed as well as new practices and strategies should be adopted. Second, governments should avoid concentrating L-TIPs in few big humanitarian centres.

The study focuses on an understudied stage of humanitarian operations, namely the L-TIPs, and uses this setting to build on the theory of value co-creation in professional services by identifying its enabling factors, clustered into four spheres, namely beneficiary, professional, service design and environmental.

Policymakers push online health services delivery, relying on consumers to independently engage with online services. Yet, a growing cluster of vulnerable patients do not engage with or disengage from these innovative services. There is a need to understand how to resolve the tension between the push of online health service provision and unengagement by a contingent of health-care consumers. Thus, this study aims to explore the issue of digital unengagement (DU) (i.e. the active or passive choice to engage or disengage) with online health services to better inform service design aligned to actual consumer need.

Adopting a survey methodology, a group of 486 health services consumers with a self-declared (acute or chronic) condition were identified. Of this group, 110 consumers were classified as digitally unengaged and invited to write open-ended narratives about their unengagement with online health services. As a robustness check, these drivers were contrasted with the drivers identified by a group of digitally engaged consumers with a self-declared condition (n = 376).

DU is conceptualized, and four levels of DU drivers are identified. These levels represent families of interrelated drivers that in combination shape DU: subjective incompatibility (misalignment of online services with need, lifestyle and alternative services); enactment vulnerability (personal vulnerabilities around control, comprehension and emotional management of online services); sharing essentiality (centrality of face-to-face co-creation opportunities plus conflicting social dependencies); and strategic scepticism (scepticism of the strategic value of online services). Identified challenges at each level are the mechanisms through which drivers impact on DU. These DU drivers are distinct from those of the digitally engaged group.

Adding to a nascent but growing literature on consumer unengagement, and complementing the engagement literature, the authors conceptualize DU, positioning it as distinct from, not simply a lack of, consumer engagement. The authors explore the drivers of DU to provide insight into how DU occurs. Encapsulating the dynamic nature of DU, these drivers map the building blocks that could help to address the issue of aligning the push of online service provision with the pull from consumers.

This paper offers insights on how to encourage consumers to engage with online health services by uncovering the drivers of DU that, typically, are hidden from service designers and providers impacting provision and uptake.

There is a concern that there will be an unintentional disenfranchisement of vulnerable segments of society with a generic policy emphasis on pushing online services. The paper sheds light on the unforeseen personal and social issues that lead to disenfranchisement by giving voice to digitally unengaged consumers with online health services.

Offering a novel view from a hard-to-reach digitally unengaged group, the conceptualization of DU, identified drivers and challenges inform policymakers and practitioners on how to facilitate online health service (re)engagement and prevent marginalization of segments of society.

We identify three key areas of change in the context of professional services. First, is the increasing demographic diversity and growing income inequality within professions; second, is the emergence of neo-liberal ideologies that challenge traditional professional norms; third, is the emergence of management consulting as a distinct occupational group with professional aspirations. We argue that these trends have produced an environment in which the delivery of professional business services has become disembedded from its institutional context of professionalism. We speculate about the possibility of the re-emergence of professionalism as a distinct logic of authority and control for professional service organizations.

Approximately 100,000 people in the UK aged 75 and over have concurrent dementia and sight loss, but current understanding of their experiences, needs and preferences is limited. The purpose of this paper is to report on a research project that explored the provision of social care and support for older people with both conditions.

The project was a collaboration between the universities of York, Worcester, Bournemouth and Cambridge, supported by the Thomas Pocklington Trust and the Housing and Dementia Research Consortium. Data for this paper were drawn from focus groups held in 2013 involving 47 professionals across the dementia, sight loss and housing sectors.

Thematic analysis identified five main barriers to providing high-quality, cost-effective social care and support: time constraints; financial limitations; insufficient professional knowledge; a lack of joint working; and inconsistency of services. The requirements of dementia and sight loss often conflict, which can limit the usefulness of equipment, aids and adaptations. Support and information needs to address individual needs and preferences.

Unless professionals consider dementia and sight loss together, they are unlikely to think about the impact of both conditions and the potential of their own services to provide effective support for individuals and their informal carers. Failing to consider both conditions together can also limit the availability and accessibility of social care and support services. This paper is based on input from a small sample of self-selecting professionals across three geographical regions of England. More research is needed in this area.

There are growing numbers of people living with concurrent dementia and sight loss, many of whom wish to remain living in their own homes. There is limited awareness of the experiences and needs of this group and limited provision of appropriate services aids/adaptations. A range of measures should be implemented in order to support independence and well-being for people living with both conditions and their family carers. These include increased awareness, improved assessment, more training and greater joint working.

People living with dementia or sight loss are at high risk of social isolation, increasingly so for those with both conditions. Services that take an inclusive approach to both conditions can provide crucial opportunities for social interaction. Extra care housing has the potential to provide a supportive, community-based environment that can help residents to maintain social contact.

This paper adds much-needed evidence to the limited existing literature, and reflects the views of diverse professionals across housing, health and social care.

Health policies in England highlight the need for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to embed new knowledge in practice, yet evidence remains scarce about the services’ ability to learn from the external environment. This paper aims to present a critical analysis of the CAMHS’ ability to implement new knowledge through the lens of absorptive capacity, an organisation’s ability to identify, assimilate and use new valuable knowledge.

Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from the CAMHS department of a mental health organisation in England to explore the services’ absorptive capacity.

Professionals were identified having an impact on the main absorptive capacity components in the following ways: professional background and perceived reliability of knowledge sources appeared to affect knowledge identification; informal communication was found to facilitate knowledge assimilation and exploitation; trust was found to enable knowledge exploitation, particularly between senior management and frontline professionals. At an organisational level, team meetings and internal reporting were identified as enablers to knowledge assimilation and exploitation, while organisational hierarchy and patient data management systems were identified as barriers to knowledge assimilation. No organisational processes were found regarding knowledge identification, indicating an imbalanced investment in the main components of absorptive capacity.

Investing in these underpinning factors of absorptive capacity can assist CAMHS with capitalising on new knowledge that is valuable to service provision.

This study offers novel insights into the learning ability of CAMHS through the lens of absorptive capacity.

To test the validity of the presumed characteristics of professional services by studying their manifestation in the problem solving that occurs in service production.

The paper uses medical research as secondary data to study the existence of associations between the presumed characteristics of professional services and problem solving in the medical context. A systematic review of empirical studies concerning physicians' prescribing decisions is conducted.

Supporting assumptions presented in the literature, specialist knowledge of professional and customer participation was found to influence prescribing decisions. The assumption regarding collegial control was partially supported. Some degree of contradiction was found with respect to the presumed professional autonomy and altruism. Whilst the professional services literature emphasises factors related to the client's problem, the service encounter and the profession, we conclude that problem solving is influenced also by factors embedded in the related organisational, market and institutional environments.

Further empirical validation of the presumed professional characteristics is needed. The results indicate that professional services research should pay more attention to the role of the wider context in professional problem solving. Medical researchers might also benefit from a broader perspective on patient participation.

An holistic view of factors that influence physicians' prescribing decisions is of use to managers of health care organisations, marketers of pharmaceuticals, and policy makers and third‐party payers.

By using an interdisciplinary approach, the paper contributes to professional services research by providing empirical support for the often repeated characteristics of professional services and outlining factors that potentially influence problem solving within professional services.

Professional quantity surveying (QS) services are critical to successful delivery of construction projects within planned budget, quality and duration. The supply of QS professional services is largely dependent on the price level of services and the willingness of clients to pay. The pricing of professional QS consultancy services has been confronted with a myriad of pricing challenges due to rapid changes in the business environment; the pervasive influence of information technology; and the complexity of clients’ expectation. It is therefore necessary for QS consultancy firms to develop strategic competences for the pricing of their services. In addition, numerous studies have not given the pricing the pricing of professional services the requisite attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the strategic competences for pricing professional QS services.

The study was positioned within the positivist tradition. As a result, the quantitative approach was adopted using a survey questionnaire to collect data from QS consultants. The sample size of the study was 79 professional quantity surveyors chosen by using simple random sampling technique from a population of 372 registered professional QS of the Ghana Institution of Surveyors. Using the χ² test and factor analysis, the study established relationship between strategic competences and pricing of QS services.

The study found that strategic competences for pricing QS professional services is significantly related to the managerial and professional competence of QS consultants. The strategic competences of QS consultants identified by this study include business management, services cost management; and production capabilities.

This study provides an empirical basis for QS consultancy firms to focus on strategic direction of their contractual arrangement with clients. Practically, resource configuration and on strategic competences for professional service pricing would create price leadership.

The study advances the pricing knowledge within the QS practice by demonstrating the nexus between strategic competences and the pricing of QS professional services which hitherto this study have not been effectively investigated.

This study provides us with new knowledge in the form of conceptual framework of the contextual layers of service experience within professional business services. This study aims to answer the following questions: What kinds of contextual layers can be identified influencing service experience? How specific characteristics of professional service context may influence customer experience at these different layers?

The framework is based on extensive literature review considering research in the fields of service and relationship perspectives, likewise professional services.

The framework is based on extensive literature review in the fields of service and relationship perspectives, likewise professional services.

Only a limited number of studies seem to address the highly topical context of professional/knowledge-intensive business services and relationships. The authors tie the discussion concerning different contextual layers of service experience to this specific operating context with the aim of identifying their importance and influence in service experience. Related to this context, this study highlights the importance of understanding role of individuals in service experience, rarely emphasized in B2B dyadic setting. The framework also contributes to current discussion regarding service experience and “zooms in” to the context and its detailed levels.

Presents a review of the literature on the methods and approaches for identifying and satisfying customer requirements for professional service organizations and thereby facilitating a process of continuous improvement. Finds that putting in place a process of continuous and company‐wide improvement in professional service organizations is not easy owing to intangible outputs, high buyer interactions and a lack of heterogeneity. Points out that the entire client interaction process requires careful management control and the provision of professional services which meet the needs and requirements of clients, requires well developed recruitment, training, internal communications and appropriate reward and recognition systems.