Yuriko Sawatani

Services research model for value co-creation

The impact of R&D to service business is increasing rapidly by the movement to service economies. The shift to focus on the services businesses, which is happening in manufacturing industries, affects their internal business processes, which include research organizations. In this paper, we study service research activities in a manufacturing enterprise, focusing on the advanced service research initiative, which was initiated as On Demand Innovation Services (ODIS) in 2003, as an exploratory research experiment in IBM. We propose services research model for value co-creation based on the ODIS experiment. We found that new knowledge is created through services activities, which are not created in a laboratory, traditional research activities. In addition, these are keys to the successful service projects. We focused on specific knowledge created during services research model for value co-creation, however, there are another kinds of knowledge also created. To understand and form the research base of service businesses and innovations, we should explore more on service innovation projects and understand critical factors, such as new knowledge created in a project, how they are created, and how the knowledge make the service research base more fruitful.

Toward Research on Designing a Service System

This discusses the shift of design focus looking at innovation history and points out the importance of research on designing a service system. The focus of innovation is shifting from seed- or need-oriented products to a service system creating values by the interactions of providers and receivers and to open innovation. At the same time, the scope of design becomes wider including the whole system design. Because of these shifts, the new research on service system design is emerging. In this chapter, a framework based on two viewpoints, such as systems with value sharing condition and scopes of system layers, is proposed, identifying technical and social difficulties of designing a service system.

R&D Servitization in the Manufacturing Industry

The shift to a service economy by transforming social structure has become a global phenomenon. This shift affects research and development (R&D) organizations. The literature on innovation research and R&D management is rooted mainly in product development based on technology themes. The modern service marketing literature introduces a service-dominant logic (S-D logic) perspective which does not separate services from goods. This paper surveys the R&D servitization organizations in manufacturing industry by questionnaire and interview methods. First, our findings suggest that the outputs created by service-oriented R&D organizations were not only new technologies developed through existing R&D and applications such as extensions and adaptations of technologies, but also integration and design methods to embed technologies into service systems utilizing site knowledge received from the customers. Second, the R&D collaboration with customers changes behaviors of researchers, so that they create new research themes by enlarging the research scope to create a new service system. As a result, a new type of service-oriented researcher has emerged in industry.

Linking Business and Technology for Future Customer Creation

After the 1990s, study on knowledge exploration and exploitation research (March in Organization Science 2(1):71–87, [1]) is initiated. The study recognized the importance of the both of knowledge exploration and exploitation. Furthermore, the knowledge co-creation with the customer and various stakeholders is explored by open innovation and user innovation study. Due to service era, the knowledge creation system affects manufacture companies as well. However, the study focused on knowledge exploration in R&D management of the servitized manufacturing companies is not carried out enough. This paper discusses the importance of management of weak ties for knowledge creation with various stakeholders including the customer in R&D in service era.

Global Perspectives on Service Science: Japan

This contributed volume presents the experiences, challenges, trends, and advances in Service Science from Japans perspective. As the global economy becomes more connected and competitive, many economies depend the service sector on for growth and prosperity. A multi-disciplinary approach to Service Science can potentially transform service industries through research, education, and practice. Offering a forum for best practices in Service Science within Japan, the volume benefits its audience by sharing viewpoints from a wide range of geographical regions and economies. The book is organized as follows: Foundations of Service Science and the service industry sector Public/Private sector partnerships, policies, trade in services, future prospects Contributions from science, social science, management, engineering, design as well as industry sector perspectives Road-maps, methodology, business development, strategies and innovative models, application of information technology, performance measures, and service system design Education and workforce development Case studies from practice, research and educational community Future Directions in Japan This book includes three Forewords written by key leaders in Service Science: Takayuki Aso (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology in Japan) Yasuhiro Maeda (Director, Service Affairs Policy Division METI) Norihisa Doi (Professor Emeritus, Keio University and Service Science, Solutions and Foundation Integrated Research (S3FIRE) Program Officer, JST/RISTEX)

The Findings from the First Service Design Projects

The design focus is expanded from physical products to service systems due to the service economy. The research designing a service system becomes more important. The scope of design becomes wider, more complex and including more interactions among various stakeholders. Because of these shifts, the new research on service system design is emerging. The paper shares the evaluation results and findings of the initial service design projects at Waseda University. The service design projects are evaluated based on the service design management framework. The findings include the importance of the joint ownership of the objectives and the deep argument for innovative idea generation. In addition, the design process of service design projects (meta-design process) such as the team configuration and the theme setting is the key to increase the success of service design projects. Lastly, the prototyping of a service/social system is not enough studied and needs to be explored further.

Service R&D Program Design Aiming at Service Innovation

The society has been fast advancing toward a service-based economy. This phenomenon, common to both developed and developing countries, results from the growth of the service sector’s share of the economy, spurred by rapid growth in service industries consequent to increased social sophistication and diversification. This affects the research and development (R&D) organization, so R&D outcomes are expected to contribute to service innovation. Based on these phenomena, a program concept is introduced to the government-funded R&D to strengthen the linkage between R&D and innovation. In addition, service R&D has been focused triggered by service science initiatives. This chapter discusses service R&D program design for service innovation. Most of the design activities are done at the planning phase. However, the execution-phase activities are more important to achieve program-level objectives by strengthening the linkage between R&D and innovation. These interactions between a program and projects create values that are not expected at the planning phase, so we should have a program management to encourage these post-value co-creation characteristics.