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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.

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.

The authors investigate how logistics digitalization affects two types of third-party logistics (3PL) performance: financial performance and service performance. In particular, the authors explore the mediating role of customer collaboration between logistics digitalization and firm performance based on organizational information processing theory and examine the moderating role of government support.

The authors use an SPSS macro program (PROCESS regression analysis) to analyze survey data from 235 3PL firms in China. The mediation model, moderation model and moderated mediation model are tested.

The empirical results show that in the new age of digitalization transformation, logistics digitalization positively affects 3PL's financial performance and service performance by strengthening customer collaboration. Additionally, government support amplifies the positive effect of customer collaboration on service performance but not financial performance. The moderated mediation test further indicates that government support strengthens the positive indirect effect of digitalization on service performance through customer collaboration.

This study offers empirical insights into the growing body of 3PL literature, and the findings contribute to the theoretical and practical understanding of the emerging research topic of digital transformation (DT) and sustainability issues in 3PL firms.

Supply chain collaboration (SCC) is an important element that contributes to enhanced performance. Nonetheless, there is still a need to understand its role in servitization implementation and outcomes. This study aims to address this gap by looking at the impact of SCC on servitization and performance when considering service levels (base, intermediate and advanced).

Following a quantitative research design, data were collected from firms in pharmaceutical sector.

Moderation effects were tested. Results suggest that SCC is a crucial moderator when it comes to the influence of service levels on servitization consequences and performance, particularly to advanced and intermediate services.

This study contributes to the literature by providing further empirical evidence of the impact of intermediate and advanced services shedding light into the moderating role of SCC.

Vehicle companion is one of the most common companion patterns in daily life, which has great value to accident investigation, group tracking, carpooling recommendation and road planning. Due to the complexity and large scale of vehicle sensor streaming data, existing work were difficult to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of real-time vehicle companion discovery (VCD). This paper aims to provide a high-quality and low-cost method to discover vehicle companions in real time.

This paper provides a real-time VCD method based on pro-active data service collaboration. This study makes use of dynamic service collaboration to selectively process data produced by relative sensors, and relax the temporal and spatial constraints of vehicle companion pattern for discovering more potential companion vehicles.

Experiments based on real and simulated data show that the method can discover 67% more companion vehicles, with 62% less response time comparing with centralized method.

To reduce the amount of processing streaming data, this study provides a Service Collaboration-based Vehicle Companion Discovery method based on proactive data service model. And this study provides a new definition of vehicle companion through relaxing the temporal and spatial constraints for discover companion vehicles as many as possible.

This study comparatively examines the collaborative policy mechanisms for interlocal cooperation (ILC) utilized by municipal managers in Nebraska, USA, and Norway. The research addresses differences in ILC, factors of national setting and implications for ILC management in public service delivery.

Over a seven-year period, the researchers collected data from 16 communities in the two countries to observe perceptions and usages of ILC. Using a policy tools theoretical framework, the authors apply a typology of collaborative mechanisms for comparative analysis.

The findings suggest that institutional orientations in the USA and Norwegian systems of government affect managerial approaches to collaborative service delivery, namely the operationalization of local governments within federal and unitary structures may influence perceptions toward the formality and specificity of ILC policy mechanisms.

This study offers further understanding of ILC mechanisms for public sector management. Theoretical and practical implications of ILC in a comparative international context of governmental systems for collaboration are explored.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies on knowledge creation for innovation purposes by assessing the relationships among the variety of I4.0 technologies adopted (breadth I4.0), the penetration of these technologies within the firm’s value chain activities (depth I4.0) and the mediating role of both internal (inter-functional (IF)) and external [with knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS)] collaborations in this process.

The study employed a quantitative research design. By administering a survey to entrepreneurs, chief operation officers or managers in charge of the operational and technological processes of Italian manufacturing firms, the authors collected 137 useful questionnaires. To test this study's theoretical framework and hypotheses, the authors ran regression and mediation analyses.

First, the results highlight the positive link between breadth I4.0 and depth I4.0. Moreover, the results show the key role played by increased collaboration among the firm’s business functions and by relationships with KIBS in creating knowledge to innovate processes and products when I4.0 technologies are adopted.

The variety of I4.0 technologies adopted enables a firm to use such technologies in various value chain activities. However, the penetration of I4.0 into the firm’s value chain activities (depth I4.0) does not per se directly imply the production of new knowledge, for which a firm needs internal collaboration among different business functions, in particular with the production area, or collaboration with external partners that favor I4.0 implementation, such as KIBS.

To achieve innovation goals by creating new knowledge, especially in the manufacturing industries, firms should encourage internal and external collaboration when I4.0 technologies are adopted. Moreover, policy makers should not only consider fiscal incentives for the adoption of such technologies, but also encourage the building of networks between adopting firms and external actors.

The study is one of the first attempt that provides empirical evidence of how I4.0 enables the creation of knowledge to innovate processes and products, highlighting the relevance of collaboration both within the company and with external partners.

Interprofessional practice (IPP) is one way to structure collaborations to more effectively meet the complex needs of students in educational settings. This article explores the lessons learned when one research team implemented interprofessional education (IPE) experiences in partnership with a public elementary school and pre-service professionals from elementary education, special education and communication science and disorders.

This reflective article explores the lived experiences of researchers and partners who completed an IPE experience within one professional development school’s site. Researcher anecdotes are included to support the viewpoints shared.

It was discovered that IPE experiences are essential to facilitate meaningful collaborations for pre-service professionals to learn with and from one another; however, this requires time, preparation and is most effective when teacher mentors and university professors lead with vulnerability and model flexibility. Investment in IPE is challenging but worth the effort when learning outcomes are realized.

Specific details regarding the structure of this experience are shared as well as future directional goals for programs hoping to implement IPE in their professional practice programs.

Based on the dynamic capability theory, our study tries to explore the mediator mechanism of service supply chain dynamic capability between market orientation and service innovation performance, as well as the boundary conditions in which service supply chain dynamic capability plays a role, in order to reveal the key elements and their mechanisms for manufacturing enterprises to improve service performance.

With a total of 317 valid questionnaires, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the research model and hypotheses.

The empirical results confirm that the three types of service supply chain dynamic capability (environment insight capability, resource integration capability and resource reconfiguration capability) can partially mediate the relationship between firm market orientation (responsive and proactive market orientations) and service innovation performance. In addition, supply chain collaboration has different types of moderator effects on the relationship between the three types of service supply chain dynamic capability and service innovation performance.

This research discovers that market orientation and dynamic capability are the key factors leading to high service performance and reveals the mediating role of service supply chain dynamic capability between market orientation and service innovation performance. Moreover, this research explores the moderating role of supply chain collaboration in service supply chain resource reconfiguration capability and service innovation performance.