Evolving and Holistic View of Service

The word “service” has many connotations, varying with domains and settings. We must understand and deal with its extant variability in order to decipher and capture its inherent nature in business (Morris and Johnston, 1987). This is particularly important for this book because we have to stay in focus to discuss one solution, namely our unique and innovative approach to address the challenges that we have faced in the service sector over the years or new challenges that we will confront for the years to come. Put in a straightforward manner, presenting the “BEST” solution to address all the challenges confronted by academics and practitioners in the service sector is surely not our intention as there will never be such a one-size-fits-all solution. Given that the business world becomes more integrated, complex, and interdependent than ever before, a systemic view of service is the mindset that we will hold throughout this book. In other words, by relying on systems thinking and holistic viewpoints (Flood and Carson, 1993), we will explore and accordingly decipher the inherent nature of service in the unceasingly changing business world. Service is frequently defined as an act of beneficial activity. A service that is considered as an act of beneficial activity actually has a long history. If we retrospect to the simplest material exchange that occurred in ancient times, such as a bushel of wheat exchanged for a barrel of oil, we know that a very basic trading service was performed. No matter what units and containers were used and how the trade was done in ancient times, the exchange or trade, a performed service, was essentially an act of helpful and beneficial activity that met the respective needs of the involved exchangers.