The Human-Side of Service Engineering: Advancing Technology's Impact on Service Innovation

Purpose – As advanced technologies drive changes in digital service and service systems across industries, what are the implications for the Human-Side of Service Engineering (HSSE)? This work updates previous HSSE frameworks (Freund & Spohrer 2012, Freund & Cellary 2017), and extends Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Design (SSMED) studies (Spohrer & Kwan 2009). Newly included are HSSE areas related to determinants of trust: standards, experience, public policy, privacy & ethics. All of these are types of shared information resources that influence trust between actors and will be impacted by advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI). These updates are needed, as the impact of Information Technology (IT) on service systems continues to expand, and AI technologies successfully emulate more human capabilities, including skillful deceit. IT solutions for service systems requirements are widely employed and accepted, but they can also create new challenges and unintended consequences (Arthur 2011, 2017; Blocker et al 2019). Currently, we observe numerous instances of the mass gathering of data in real time from social media, from the Internet of Things (IoT), from AI and Augmented Reality (AR) applications. The purpose of this paper is to consider possible future directions of AI from an HSSE perspective using observations and examples. The paper explores how IT provides an essential engine for integrating the back and front stage of service provision/operation as well as a platform for enabling new innovative value propositions, business models, and service offerings. New architectures for providing digital service are discussed, along with emerging standards about digital service powered by AI/ML/DL (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning/Deep Learning) techniques. Design/Methodology/Approach – Analysis of technology history, digital service transformations, as well as current achievements and trends of computer science and engineering, and deployment of modern IT solutions in different sectors are developed through observations and examples. Findings – Challenges to society and its fundamental values coming from recent advances in data engineering including artificial intelligence are discussed. Specific determinants of trust (standards, experience, public policy, privacy and ethics) are shown to be the key elements of the future evolution of IT based service innovations. Research limitations/implications (if applicable) – The research provides a view of the history of technology, including recent advances in IT and AI, in service and its impact on service innovation, aligned with the Service-Dominant Logic and Service Science literature, and especially HSSE.

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