Garyfallos Fragidis

Value Co-creation and Customer-Driven Innovation in Social Networking Systems

Value co-creation is a core concept in service science. In this paper we investigate value co-creation to provide some answer on what is it and how can it be achieved. We take a customer-oriented perspective by focusing on the end-customer, the people that utilize services in their everyday lives to meet their personal needs. We consider that value creation is a social activity and we propose social networks as the basic infrastructure for the co-creation of value with business and other organizations, peers, relatives and friends.

The Impact of Customer Participation on Business Ecosystems

The concept of business ecosystems is a new, powerful metaphor that steps forward the movement towards symbiotic and co-evolutionary business networks. The literature describes business ecosystems as economic communities comprised of a number of business entities that are closely related the one to the other with symbiotic relationships; as a result, they constantly interact and seek to co-operate to fulfill their particular goals and attain mutual benefits. In this paper we discuss the role of customers in business ecosystems. We argue that the concept of business ecosystems is focused on the needs and the roles of the producers and neglects the customers, especially the end-customers. We analyse the impact of customers’ participation as active members in business ecosystems and suggest that it intensifies their co-evolutionary character and increases their dynamism. We discuss technological aspects of customer participation in business ecosystems.

The Business Strategy Perspective on the Development of Decision Support Systems

This article examines the support that information systems may provide to the strategy process in business organisations. Being the process through which organizations make decisions for their future, strategy is very important in organisations. Early enough, systems that supported decision making were developed. In the mid of 1980s a new stream of information systems aimed at addressing the specific needs of executives. However, these systems used to serve as general purpose systems for top management needs and did not focus on the business strategy process per se. There is plentiful evidence that these systems do not, in fact, meet the expectations of business strategists. Based on a literature survey in the field of business strategy, this article identifies the needs of the business strategy process, demonstrates the shortcomings of current approaches in the development of information systems that support strategic decision making and proposes implications for the development of information systems that support business strategy

Towards an Ontological Foundation of Service Dominant Logic

The development of service science requires an appropriate theoretical foundation; S-D logic has been proposed as a candidate. Nevertheless, the application of the principles of S-D logic in service science suffers from inconsistencies and misunderstanding. In this paper we provide an ontological representation of S-D logic in order to clarify its key concepts and analyze their relationships. The paper contributes in the establishment of S-D logic as the foundational theory of service science, the resolution of inconsistencies and misunderstandings, the improved understanding of the concepts of S-D logic and the improved communication of experts from diverse areas in the multidisciplinary field of service science.

A proposed conceptual framework for the study of research ecosystems

The concept of ecosystems serves as a powerful metaphor in organizational studies that helps to handle the complexity of the environment in contemporary organizations and steps forward the movement towards symbiotic and co-evolutionary organizational networks. This paper elaborates on the concept of ecosystems to propose a conceptual framework for research ecosystems. The proposed concept of research ecosystems can offer significant benefits for the coordination of research initiatives because it clarifies the attributes of the research environments, outlines the general context in which research activities take place and supports the movement from the contextual level to the particular projectspsila level. The paper delineates also two methods for the study of research ecosystems that refer to the assessment of the density of relationships in research ecosystems and the development of research networks as temporary constellations of research entities.

A Conceptual Framework and an Extended SOA Model for Consumer-Oriented E-Commerce

Value creation in e-commerce is dominated by business-oriented approaches. For example, the two basic types of e-commerce, B2B and B2C, aim at business cooperation or exchanges and increased sales, respectively. The tacit assumptions here are that business firms know (better) customers’ needs and value comes for the business firm and the customer alike through the improvement of the business processes. A shift in the conceptualization of value creation from business-oriented to consumeroriented approaches is taking place gradually in the recent literature. The consumer is recognized as a “co-creator of value” and the business firm as a “service provider”, which operates to provide benefit (i.e. “service”) to the consumer. The value for the consumer derives from the combination of service elements that usually come from different providers, because of the complex nature and the diversity of people’s needs. The role of the business firm is to support the consumer in creating value by enabling his participation in value creation and by producing products and services as the pre-conditions for value creation. This chapter contributes in the development of consumer-oriented e-commerce, that is ecommerce models that focus on the needs of the consumer (the end-customer, the individual), by providing a conceptual framework and an extended SOA model. The purpose of consumer-oriented e-commerce is to empower the consumer in the creation of value according to his personal preferences and needs by composing service from different business firms. Consumer-oriented e-commerce is based on the conceptualization of service, which attracts multidisciplinary interest, and a consumer-oriented ideology that reverses the traditional, business-oriented value creation concepts. The conceptual framework considers service as a collaborative knowledge-based process for value creation. The extended SOA model suggests the use of SOA beyond operational practices for the integration of business processes and the interoperation of information systems and considers the strategic impact of SOA for the development of innovative business models in electronic markets. The extended SOA model can become the technological underlay for the composition of service 1

Providing Customer-Centric Service: Customization and Composition of Service on the Semantic Web

The semantic Web promotes customer-centric approaches in the creation of value and upgrades the role of agents in the configuration of service and solutions for the customer. In this paper we provide a framework for exploiting semantic Web opportunities in the selection, synthesis and performance of value adding activities for the end customer. The role of the mediator is extended beyond the automation of the process to allow for the identification customerspsila implicit needs. We consider the use of WSMO for the development of such a customer-centric environment and outline the technological environment and some characteristic implementation features. Our purpose is to reveal the opportunities of semantic Web for the development of customer-centric service models and to describe the role and functions of intermediaries in such environments.

A Service Model for Customer-Centric Electronic Business

The needs of the Service Economy have not been yet investigated in depth in academic research. This paper analyzes customer participation in services and considers the value-adding opportunities it offers. It proposes a conceptual framework for customer participation in services that is based on customer needs, the service offering and its outcomes. As experiences may be a major type of outcomes of the service process for the customer, we examine value-adding opportunities in dealing with customer experiences and we propose a service model for the association of needs, services and experiences. Such a model can be used for the development of customer-centric services, in which the customer is empowered to configure services according to his/ her needs and preferences, services which bring superior experiences and satisfaction. Based on the example of the tourism, which is experience-intensive, we describe the functional and technical aspects of the model.

The User Perspective on Service Ecosystems: Key Concepts and Models

The concept of service ecosystems emerged recently in service research as an important notion that underlines the complexity of structures in service interactions and the need for comprehensive approaches for the study of service systems. In this paper we focus on the role of the user as the ‘keystone entity’ of service ecosystems – especially for the creation of value. The research objective is to understand better the requirements and the implications of a user-centric perspective on service ecosystems and provide some basic modelling abstractions for the analysis of the structure and the objectives of the service ecosystem. Τhe paper develops the concept of the user-centric service ecosystem at the beginning and then provides a conceptual model of its structure and a goal model for the intentions of the actors. The paper can contribute to the better understanding of service ecosystems, the explanation of the role of the user and the fulfilment of the initial phases of requirements analysis for service ecosystems.