• Attached is a very simple survey.
• The objective is for the INFORMS service professionals to specify, in their judgment, their top three open questions in the science, engineering, and management of services.
• For your reference, a sample of a completed page is included.
• Please complete and email your input to me.
Your email address will remain confidential and will not be disclosed.
• Feel free to write about more than three Open Questions or fewer than three.
• On demand, I will forward the entire set of inputs that I receive.
All identifications will be deleted to maintain confidentiality of authorship..
• We will report the results of this survey at the Beijing INFORMS meeting.
• A panel of experts will discuss and interact with those present at the panel session.
Thank you for your help.
I am looking forward to sharing the results of the survey with our community.
Victor Tang
Definition of an “Open-Question”
An Open Question is one that meets the following criteria.
Clear and Actionable
The Open Question must be clearly defined so that scholars and/or practitioners can develop actionable agendas.
An informed researcher can take action.
Value
A solution will contribute by opening new vistas or by vacating inhibitors in services’ science, engineering, or management.
Power
A solutions must have high explanatory, predictive, and confound control power.
Falseabibility
Solutions must be such that they can stand the test of falsibility.
Examples from Other Disciplines
Mathematics
Is there a set with cardinality between 0 and 1?
This is Hilbert’s continuum hypothesis: There is no such set.
Physics
Do or did magnetic monopoles exist? Has •B always been true?
This is one of Maxwell’s four equations.
Does the Higgs field exist?
This is driving CERN to find the Higgs boson.
Economics
Why is “the home-bias puzzle” persistent?
Does removal of legal trade barriers affect between-country trade?
Open Question Example. (Give it a name. Provide a declarative statement).
NAME: Services Metrology
DECLARATIVE STATEMENT. Service has no science of measurements.
DESCRIPTION. (Provide a description of the problem /opportunity and why it is important)
Description. Science has a rigorous system of units. Physics has ISU’s. seconds, etc. By combinations of units, the scientist can define new concepts, e.g. acceleration as meters/sec2 . Electrical engineers have amperes, volt, ohm, etc. Computer scientists have the Kolmogoroff measure for complexity, bits, bytes, channel capacity, etc. Marketing has man-centuries of research on value and customer satisfaction attempting to reach for the holy grail of a measurement unit. What about services? Regrettably, we have an excess of qualitative, fuzzy, imprecise descriptions.
Importance. Suffice it to quote Lord Kelvin: “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be.”
HOW DOES WORK ON THE OPEN QUESTION CONTRIBUTE TO SERVICES’ SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, OR MANAGEMENT? PLEASE SUGGEST ACTIONABLE STEPS.
Contribution. An agreed to system of units for Services will necessarily improve the rigor and clarity of scholarly and management thinking about services, e.g. what is the unit for value, customer satisfaction? Our hope is that descriptions of imprecise, nebulous ideas will not stand the scrutiny of serious scholars or practitioners. For example, INFORMS Today 39(1) had equations which are not exactly meaningful.
How do you address price/value for services with orders or magnitude difference?
Some argue that existing approaches from the social sciences, from marketing, psychology, etc are sufficient. Many of those measures do not pass minimal tests of rigorous measurements, such as reproducibility, repeatability, traceability, and so on. How do you correlate price and value for a service?
Suggested action. Suggest that the Services Cluster form a self-organized task force to study the Services Metrology snd make recommendations. The objective is to promote clear thinking, research papers, etc.
PLEASE LIST 3 PAPERS ON YOUR OPEN QUESTION
1. Otto, K N., V. Tang, W.P. Seering. 2004. Establishing Quantitative Value for Product and Service Features: A Method for Customer Case Studies. Chapter 11 in The PDMA Toolbook for New Product Development. John Wiley & Sons. NY.
2. Roberts, F.S. 1985. Measurement Theory. Cambridge University Press.
3. BIPM, Bureau International de Poids et Measures. 2011. What is Metrology? Downloaded on October 2011. http://www.bipm.org/en/convention/wmd/2004/
OPTIONAL. Name and email address. Victor Tang victang@alum.mit.edu.
Open Question 1. (Give it a name. Provide a declarative statement).
NAME: __Service Counting________________________________________________________
DECLARATIVE STATEMENT. __No one knows the number of service system entities_____
DESCRIPTION. (Provide a description of the problem /opportunity and why it is important)
Description. It has been said that service science is the study of service system entities. How many exist in the world? How many are being systematically studied? Physicists have estimates of the number of particles in the universe, biologists have estimates of the number of living organisms by genus species Do service scientists have any agreed upon (or even highly debated) estimates of the number and types of service system entities that exist?
Importance. Before teaching children mathematics we teach them to count. Service arithmetic might reveal interesting patterns in the ecology of service system entities and their relationship to each other. Scientific methods that have been used to study other types of ecologies, from biological to even nuclear-stellar-genesis could be applied to the study of service system ecologies. Also, we might discover the most interesting and informative service system entities are under-studied.
HOW DOES WORK ON THE OPEN QUESTION CONTRIBUTE TO SERVICES’ SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, OR MANAGEMENT? PLEASE SUGGEST ACTIONABLE STEPS.
Contribution. An agreed upon (or even highly debated) estimate of the number of service system entities would more clearly define what an object of study of this emerging field is and what is not. With this quantitative foundation in place, other efforts to quantify and study service systems would be more firmly grounded in basic quantitative rigor. For example, the study of their interaction mechanisms would make more sense, once we know more clearly what all the entities are. Does the law in different countries recognize differently which entities can sue other entities?
Suggested action. The number of people, businesses, non-profits, and governments would be easy to estimate. However, can a service system entity exist without a single person inside? Without an owner that takes responsibility for it? Suggest that the Services Cluster form a self-organized task force to study the Service Counting and make recommendations. The objective is to promote clear thinking, research papers, etc.
PLEASE LIST 3 PAPERS ON YOUR OPEN QUESTION
1. Mars, M. M., J. L. Bronstein, and R. F. Lusch (2012) Ecosystems: How Applicable to Organizations? working paper, McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, University of Arizona.
2. Arthur, W. B. (2011) The second economy. McKinsey Quarterly, 4 (October)
3. Hawley, A. H. 1986. Human ecology: A theoretical essay. Chicago, Illinois: U Chicago Press.
Dear colleague,
• Attached is a very simple survey.
• The objective is for the INFORMS service professionals to specify, in their judgment, their top three open questions in the science, engineering, and management of services.
• For your reference, a sample of a completed page is included.
• Please complete and email your input to me.
Your email address will remain confidential and will not be disclosed.
• Feel free to write about more than three Open Questions or fewer than three.
• On demand, I will forward the entire set of inputs that I receive.
All identifications will be deleted to maintain confidentiality of authorship..
• We will report the results of this survey at the Beijing INFORMS meeting.
• A panel of experts will discuss and interact with those present at the panel session.
Thank you for your help.
I am looking forward to sharing the results of the survey with our community.
Victor Tang
Definition of an “Open-Question”
An Open Question is one that meets the following criteria.
Clear and Actionable
The Open Question must be clearly defined so that scholars and/or practitioners can develop actionable agendas.
An informed researcher can take action.
Value
A solution will contribute by opening new vistas or by vacating inhibitors in services’ science, engineering, or management.
Power
A solutions must have high explanatory, predictive, and confound control power.
Falseabibility
Solutions must be such that they can stand the test of falsibility.
Examples from Other Disciplines
Mathematics
Is there a set with cardinality between 0 and 1?
This is Hilbert’s continuum hypothesis: There is no such set.
Physics
Do or did magnetic monopoles exist? Has •B always been true?
This is one of Maxwell’s four equations.
Does the Higgs field exist?
This is driving CERN to find the Higgs boson.
Economics
Why is “the home-bias puzzle” persistent?
Does removal of legal trade barriers affect between-country trade?
Open Question Example. (Give it a name. Provide a declarative statement).
NAME: Services Metrology
DECLARATIVE STATEMENT. Service has no science of measurements.
DESCRIPTION. (Provide a description of the problem /opportunity and why it is important)
Description. Science has a rigorous system of units. Physics has ISU’s. seconds, etc. By combinations of units, the scientist can define new concepts, e.g. acceleration as meters/sec2 . Electrical engineers have amperes, volt, ohm, etc. Computer scientists have the Kolmogoroff measure for complexity, bits, bytes, channel capacity, etc. Marketing has man-centuries of research on value and customer satisfaction attempting to reach for the holy grail of a measurement unit. What about services? Regrettably, we have an excess of qualitative, fuzzy, imprecise descriptions.
Importance. Suffice it to quote Lord Kelvin: “When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be.”
HOW DOES WORK ON THE OPEN QUESTION CONTRIBUTE TO SERVICES’ SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, OR MANAGEMENT? PLEASE SUGGEST ACTIONABLE STEPS.
Contribution. An agreed to system of units for Services will necessarily improve the rigor and clarity of scholarly and management thinking about services, e.g. what is the unit for value, customer satisfaction? Our hope is that descriptions of imprecise, nebulous ideas will not stand the scrutiny of serious scholars or practitioners. For example, INFORMS Today 39(1) had equations which are not exactly meaningful.
How do you address price/value for services with orders or magnitude difference?
Some argue that existing approaches from the social sciences, from marketing, psychology, etc are sufficient. Many of those measures do not pass minimal tests of rigorous measurements, such as reproducibility, repeatability, traceability, and so on. How do you correlate price and value for a service?
Suggested action. Suggest that the Services Cluster form a self-organized task force to study the Services Metrology snd make recommendations. The objective is to promote clear thinking, research papers, etc.
PLEASE LIST 3 PAPERS ON YOUR OPEN QUESTION
1. Otto, K N., V. Tang, W.P. Seering. 2004. Establishing Quantitative Value for Product and Service Features: A Method for Customer Case Studies. Chapter 11 in The PDMA Toolbook for New Product Development. John Wiley & Sons. NY.
2. Roberts, F.S. 1985. Measurement Theory. Cambridge University Press.
3. BIPM, Bureau International de Poids et Measures. 2011. What is Metrology? Downloaded on October 2011. http://www.bipm.org/en/convention/wmd/2004/
OPTIONAL. Name and email address. Victor Tang victang@alum.mit.edu.
Open Question 1. (Give it a name. Provide a declarative statement).
NAME: __Service Counting________________________________________________________
DECLARATIVE STATEMENT. __No one knows the number of service system entities_____
DESCRIPTION. (Provide a description of the problem /opportunity and why it is important)
Description. It has been said that service science is the study of service system entities. How many exist in the world? How many are being systematically studied? Physicists have estimates of the number of particles in the universe, biologists have estimates of the number of living organisms by genus species Do service scientists have any agreed upon (or even highly debated) estimates of the number and types of service system entities that exist?
Importance. Before teaching children mathematics we teach them to count. Service arithmetic might reveal interesting patterns in the ecology of service system entities and their relationship to each other. Scientific methods that have been used to study other types of ecologies, from biological to even nuclear-stellar-genesis could be applied to the study of service system ecologies. Also, we might discover the most interesting and informative service system entities are under-studied.
HOW DOES WORK ON THE OPEN QUESTION CONTRIBUTE TO SERVICES’ SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, OR MANAGEMENT? PLEASE SUGGEST ACTIONABLE STEPS.
Contribution. An agreed upon (or even highly debated) estimate of the number of service system entities would more clearly define what an object of study of this emerging field is and what is not. With this quantitative foundation in place, other efforts to quantify and study service systems would be more firmly grounded in basic quantitative rigor. For example, the study of their interaction mechanisms would make more sense, once we know more clearly what all the entities are. Does the law in different countries recognize differently which entities can sue other entities?
Suggested action. The number of people, businesses, non-profits, and governments would be easy to estimate. However, can a service system entity exist without a single person inside? Without an owner that takes responsibility for it? Suggest that the Services Cluster form a self-organized task force to study the Service Counting and make recommendations. The objective is to promote clear thinking, research papers, etc.
PLEASE LIST 3 PAPERS ON YOUR OPEN QUESTION
1. Mars, M. M., J. L. Bronstein, and R. F. Lusch (2012) Ecosystems: How Applicable to Organizations? working paper, McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, University of Arizona.
2. Arthur, W. B. (2011) The second economy. McKinsey Quarterly, 4 (October)
3. Hawley, A. H. 1986. Human ecology: A theoretical essay. Chicago, Illinois: U Chicago Press.
OPTIONAL. Name and email address. Jim Spohrer, spohrer@us.ibmcom