Project-based learning in human–computer interaction: a service‐dominant logic approach

Purpose This study aims to propose a service-dominant logic (S-DL)-informed framework for teaching innovation in the context of human–computer interaction (HCI) education involving large industrial projects. Design/methodology/approach This study combines S-DL from the field of marketing with experiential and constructivist learning to enable value co-creation as the primary method of connecting diverse actors within the service ecology. The approach aligns with the current conceptualization of central university activities as a triad of research, education and innovation. Findings The teaching framework based on the S-DL enabled ongoing improvements to the course (a project-based, bachelor’s-level HCI course in the computer science department), easier management of stakeholders and learning experiences through students’ participation in real-life projects. The framework also helped to provide an understanding of how value co-creation works and brought a new dimension to HCI education. Practical implications The proposed framework and the authors’ experience described herein, along with examples of projects, can be helpful to educators designing and improving project-based HCI courses. It can also be useful for partner companies and organizations to realize the potential benefits of collaboration with universities. Decision-makers in industry and academia can benefit from these findings when discussing approaches to addressing sustainability issues. Originality/value While HCI has successfully contributed to innovation, HCI education has made only moderate efforts to include innovation as part of the curriculum. The proposed framework considers multiple service ecosystem actors and covers a broader set of co-created values for the involved partners and society than just learning benefits.

A Holistic View on Resource Management in Serverless Computing Environments: Taxonomy and Future Directions

Serverless computing has emerged as an attractive deployment option for cloud applications in recent times. The unique features of this computing model include rapid auto-scaling, strong isolation, fine-grained billing options and access to a massive service ecosystem which autonomously handles resource management decisions. This model is increasingly being explored for deployments in geographically distributed edge and fog computing networks as well, due to these characteristics. Effective management of computing resources has always gained a lot of attention among researchers. The need to automate the entire process of resource provisioning, allocation, scheduling, monitoring and scaling, has resulted in the need for specialized focus on resource management under the serverless model. In this article, we identify the major aspects covering the broader concept of resource management in serverless environments and propose a taxonomy of elements which influence these aspects, encompassing characteristics of system design, workload attributes and stakeholder expectations. We take a holistic view on serverless environments deployed across edge, fog and cloud computing networks. We also analyse existing works discussing aspects of serverless resource management using this taxonomy. This article further identifies gaps in literature and highlights future research directions for improving capabilities of this computing model.

Service ecosystems: why the media industry prefers access, not ownership

Purpose Because of the increasing importance of access over ownership, the purpose of this paper is to propose a service ecosystem perspective to help managers navigate hypercompetition. With the rise of cloud-based services and the ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has shifted toward hypercompetition, a state characterized by organizational advantages that are rapidly created and then destroyed by intense competitive moves. Because advantages are quickly eroded, organizations must be aggressive in the number of actions they take and the speed with which they execute these actions. The service ecosystem perspective focuses on relationships that allow organizations to jointly adjust to one another and to their environment. Design/methodology/approach This paper first reviews traditional strategies for navigating hypercompetition. Then, it presents an explanation of the service ecosystem perspective. Finally, the three north stars and media examples are provided. Findings The service ecosystem perspective asserts “north stars” that can guide managerial decision-making in hypercompetitive environments. These north stars are: cultivate system norms, facilitate feedback loops and embrace servitization. Originality/value In today’s world, organizations are increasingly seeking access to resources instead of ownership of them. The proposed approach suggests that, rather than an organization owning the resources it needs to achieve advantages, organizations are increasingly relying on accessing resources by coordinating with other organizations to draw upon the resource(s) as needed, without incurring the additional burdens of ownership. Examples from the media industry are used to illustrate the three north stars of the service ecosystems perspective.

Payment Systems as a Driver for Platform Growth in E-Commerce

This chapter visits some of the fundamental concepts from platform economics, network effects, and network externalities. Further on, it discusses definitions of two-sided and multi-sided markets, how they are treated as business models. These concepts are further compared to the concept service ecosystem. A case of a payment service provider whose business model contributes to the growth of e-commerce is included. The purpose is to tease out how research on platforms has developed since e-commerce was in its infancy. The fundamental concepts developed in network economics are still valid and have been translated into different fields with a focus on value creation, information, and interaction. How platforms within platforms spur each other's growth is an area that has the potential to reach new insights on the platform economy.

Key Factors for Measuring Value Co-Creation in the Industrial Service Ecosystem

Managing and measuring value co-creation in industrial services are emerging themes from the perspective of industry and scientific research. Thus, this chapter aims to review the literature in order to identify the criteria for value co-creation management and measuring used to measure value co-creation in the industrial service ecosystem. To achieve this goal, the authors conducted a systematic literature review and a content analysis of the portfolio resulting from the review. Based on the findings, eight criteria were listed for managing value co-creation in the B2B (business-to-business) services sector. In addition, they identified a lack of limited integration and interdependence between the criteria shown in the literature for cooperative service management among companies.

Value co-creation in services for animal companions

Purpose As other actors in the service ecosystem often have a pivotal role in value creation for actors experiencing vulnerability, this paper aims to explore caregiving customer value co-creation in services for animal companions. Design/methodology/approach Study 1 follows a two-step procedure, using two different qualitative approaches (interviews and observations) to identify caregiving customer value co-creation activities. Study 2 serves to empirically test a higher-order structure of caregiving customer participation behaviour in value co-creation and test for differences regarding customer and service characteristics (questionnaire survey; n = 680). Findings The results reveal the existence of various value co-creation activities towards the service provider (e.g. cooperation under consideration of the animal companion’s needs) and animal companion (e.g. emotional support). Significant differences in individual caregiving customers’ activities were found regarding gender, age, type of service and animal companion. Caregiving customer value co-creation is influenced by emotional attachment and has a positive effect on value outcomes for both the caregiving customer and the animal companion. Originality/value This study extends and enriches customer value co-creation literature by providing innovative findings on various such caregiving activities and value outcomes in services for (non-human) actors experiencing vulnerability. It also adds knowledge by showing differences in customer value co-creation behaviour regarding specific customer and service characteristics.

A perspective on value co-creation processes in eSports service ecosystems

PurposeElectronic Sports (eSports) is an emerging sector of the sports and entertainment industry experiencing an accelerated increase in consumer and sponsor demand. This paper aims to study selected cases of eSports service ecosystems, to identify similarities and differences and to understand the different roles, relationships and multiple interactions of actors involved in value co-creation processes.Design/methodology/approachThis empirical paper follows the service-dominant logic to highlight value creation. Based on the sport value framework, an organizing logic for the actors in sports-related ecosystems to exchange service and co-create value, the authors apply the conceptualization of an eSports service ecosystem framework in which actors create value through their interactions. A case study approach was applied to qualitatively describe two cases of value co-creation by multiple actors during three eSports events. Case study 1a is the 2019 League of Legends World Championship Finals in Paris. Case study 1b is the 2020 League of Legends World Championship Finals in Shanghai. Case study 2 is the BLAST Premier Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Global Final 2020, which was entirely virtual.FindingsThe outcome is an empirically investigated conceptual framework of multiple actors co-creating value within a service ecosystem in eSports. The insights of the cases explain how actors interact with each other and co-create value during events in eSports ecosystems. The cases illustrate interactions in the context of eSports where the actors are connected within ecosystems. This enables further development of a value co-creation concept and a better understanding of value co-creation in eSports.Originality/valueThis study contributes to research by explicating a theoretically grounded framework for eSports service ecosystems based on empirical evidence. This research extends the scope of value co-creation beyond the firm–customer dyad to a service ecosystem in eSports, demonstrating the dynamic interactions of multiple actors.

Business Model Enriched With User Experience, as a Systemic Tool in Service Design

Service design and business model design are considered in the literature as separate approaches to value creation for the customer. User experience, as a concept that represents a holistic emotional and meaningful result of the interaction with information technologies, is nowadays an important ingredient of the customer value. This paper aims to theoretically set the ground for using the business model concept as a systemic tool in service design that will support the design for user experience. Against this background, we ask: Can the business model concept successfully represent a system that is required for the value proposition-based service exchange? We investigate this question based on service-dominant logic and accompanying service science, and semantically compare elements of the service system, service ecosystem, and ten service science basic concepts. The analysis shows that the business model canvas, the chosen model for business model representation, satisfies the systemic perspective and can erve as a system platform for integrating with service design.

Morphogenetic Service Ecosystems: An emergentist analysis of the mechanisms of service ecosystem transformation

<p>The service ecosystem concept is becoming an influential unit of analysis and set of assumptions describing a systemic, processual and institutional view of service and exchange. This thesis critiques this set of assumptions and the resulting construction of service ecosystems. The critique forms the first of a three-stage approach to metatheorising underpinning this thesis. At the core of this critique is the issue of conflation, which is aligned with the sociological frameworks and underlying assumptions informing this literature. Conflation collapses the multi-levelled and dimensional complexity of the structure of service ecosystems and leaves it devoid of its cumulative organising and effects played out across time. Following the critique, the thesis pursues two objectives. Firstly, a conceptualisation is developed which offers an overarching lens, connecting a critical realist and emergentist social ontology to an analytical framework and a process of theorising built on reconceptualising the constitution of service ecosystems. Secondly, the thesis undertakes an empirical study to actualise this lens, aiming to develop new theoretical insight and sources of explanation of how service ecosystems’ experience change and stability in developing through time. The thesis undertakes an embedded case study of ICT and digital reform in the New Zealand public sector and the enterprise services market, representing government agencies and service providers as a service ecosystem. The intensive case study provides an exploratory and illustrative setting in which to apply the metatheoretical and analytical framework and offers empirically informed mechanisms as theoretical propositions regarding the changing nature of the service ecosystem. The findings reveal four key mechanisms; compression, modes of alignment, ecotonal coupling and refraction. These mechanisms provide insight into the changing composition of the structure of the service ecosystem, the relationships of compatibility, tensions and complementarity between structures, the generative nature of emerging boundaries, and the role of history and layered organisation in shaping the trajectory of the service ecosystem. These mechanisms, informed by the overarching lens, contribute to overcoming conflation by establishing emergent relationality and a processual intertwining of being and becoming. These become the basis of multi-levelled, multi-dimensional complexity and cumulative organising. These foundations then allow the reconceptualising of change, coevolution and boundaries as important structural features. Finally, the under-theorised roles of stability and change, history, process, time and space are informed by these findings. Subsequently, this thesis contributes to: the need for further interconnected metatheoretical and midrange theoretical work investigating how service ecosystems adapt and evolve; the call to strengthen the metatheoretical and critical orientations and foundations of theories in marketing and service research; the critique of sociological frameworks and their theory-laden answers to the constitution of the social world and the terms on which it is to be researched and explained.</p>

Morphogenetic Service Ecosystems: An emergentist analysis of the mechanisms of service ecosystem transformation

<p>The service ecosystem concept is becoming an influential unit of analysis and set of assumptions describing a systemic, processual and institutional view of service and exchange. This thesis critiques this set of assumptions and the resulting construction of service ecosystems. The critique forms the first of a three-stage approach to metatheorising underpinning this thesis. At the core of this critique is the issue of conflation, which is aligned with the sociological frameworks and underlying assumptions informing this literature. Conflation collapses the multi-levelled and dimensional complexity of the structure of service ecosystems and leaves it devoid of its cumulative organising and effects played out across time. Following the critique, the thesis pursues two objectives. Firstly, a conceptualisation is developed which offers an overarching lens, connecting a critical realist and emergentist social ontology to an analytical framework and a process of theorising built on reconceptualising the constitution of service ecosystems. Secondly, the thesis undertakes an empirical study to actualise this lens, aiming to develop new theoretical insight and sources of explanation of how service ecosystems’ experience change and stability in developing through time. The thesis undertakes an embedded case study of ICT and digital reform in the New Zealand public sector and the enterprise services market, representing government agencies and service providers as a service ecosystem. The intensive case study provides an exploratory and illustrative setting in which to apply the metatheoretical and analytical framework and offers empirically informed mechanisms as theoretical propositions regarding the changing nature of the service ecosystem. The findings reveal four key mechanisms; compression, modes of alignment, ecotonal coupling and refraction. These mechanisms provide insight into the changing composition of the structure of the service ecosystem, the relationships of compatibility, tensions and complementarity between structures, the generative nature of emerging boundaries, and the role of history and layered organisation in shaping the trajectory of the service ecosystem. These mechanisms, informed by the overarching lens, contribute to overcoming conflation by establishing emergent relationality and a processual intertwining of being and becoming. These become the basis of multi-levelled, multi-dimensional complexity and cumulative organising. These foundations then allow the reconceptualising of change, coevolution and boundaries as important structural features. Finally, the under-theorised roles of stability and change, history, process, time and space are informed by these findings. Subsequently, this thesis contributes to: the need for further interconnected metatheoretical and midrange theoretical work investigating how service ecosystems adapt and evolve; the call to strengthen the metatheoretical and critical orientations and foundations of theories in marketing and service research; the critique of sociological frameworks and their theory-laden answers to the constitution of the social world and the terms on which it is to be researched and explained.</p>