Center for Open Innovation


Key Research Topic: Services Science



Getting Started: Introduction to Services Science

Learn More: Articles & Books on Services Science

Center Projects and Research in Services Science


Getting Started: Introduction to Services Science

Briefly:

“Services sciences, Management and Engineering hopes to bring together ongoing work in computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, business strategy, management sciences, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences to develop the skills required in a services-led economy.” IBM SSME website

“The goal is to … advance a new science that examines the configurations of people, technology, and business. Specifically, SSME will use services as a context to understand:


“Services science would merge technology with an understanding of business processes and organization, a combination of recognizing a company's pain points and the tools that can be applied to correct them." BusinessWeek, 1/21/05


For a brief introduction to Services Science, Management and Engineering, click any of these links:



Learn More: Articles & Books on Services Science, Management and Engineering

Lohr, S., “Creating the jobs of the future”, International Herald Tribune, 4/18/06

Lohr, S., “Academia Dissects the Service Sector, but Is It a Science?,” New York Times, 4/18/06

Chesbrough, H. and Spohrer, J. (2006), “A research manifesto for services science,” Communications of the ACM, 49:7, pp. 35-40. (requires subscription)

Spohrer, J., Maglio, P., Bailey, J., Gruhl, D., (2007), "Steps Toward a Science of Service Systems," Computer, 40:1, pp. 71-77. (requires subscription)

Bitner, M.J., Brown, S., Goul, M., Urban, S., “Services Science Journey: Foundations, Progress, Challenges”, Arizona State University working paper (pdf)

Spohrer, J., Maglio, P., “The Emergence of Service Science: Toward systematic service innovations to accelerate co-creation of value”, IBM working paper (pdf)

Dietrich, B., Harrison, T., “Serving the Services Industry”, OR/MS Today, 33:3 (June 2006)


Center Projects and Research in Services Science, Management and Engineering

According to a recent study by the National Academy of Engineering, services comprised 80 per cent of the US gross domestic product in 2003. And according to the OECD, they account for a similar percentage of economic activity across all of the advanced industrial economies. Yet most analyses of innovation – and certainly the syllabi of most business school classes on innovation – focus on products, not services. It is past time to update our academic curriculum for teaching and researching innovation to address the dominant sector of economic activity in most advanced economies.

Projects within this area include:


Services Innovation Conference

The Center for Open Innovation and the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation (Tekes) invited academics and business leaders for a service innovation conference on April 27-29, 2007 at the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley. Please see below for more detail.

Conference Overview

Services are today responsible for the main part of employment in the Western countries, yet academia has not yet developed a robust research agenda for understanding innovation in services.
The sponsors’ goals of advancing the knowledge of innovation and management in services were served through the conference, titled Innovation in Services: Challenges and Opportunities for Economies, Industries and Firms.

The conference examined service innovation at the Economy level, including innovative service concepts and associated skills and competencies for firms in a service economy; at the Industry level, including business models in services industries, and the ways in which they are similar to or different from those of product industries; and the Firm level, including service innovation processes in service firms, and the organizational structures, management and leadership methods of service firms.

Program Information

Presentation Digests

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