SERVICE SCIENCE

Vol. 8, No. 2, June 2016, pp. 1–2

http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/serv.2016.0147

Call for Papers

Service Science

Special Issue: Service-Dominant Logic:

Institutions, Service Ecosystems, and Technology

Coeditors : Irene CL Ng, WMG, University of Warwick, Stephen L. Vargo, Shidler College of Business, University of Hawai’i at Manoa

Deadline for Submissions: December 1, 2016

Research Challenge

Technology is evolving at breakneck speed, driven by and driving institutional change and ecosystems development. For example, wireless sensor technologies allow objects to provide information about their environment, context, and location; “smart” technologies allow everyday things to interact with users; e-textiles or smart textiles enable digital components and electronics to be embedded in them. These and similar innovations provide the potential to connect technologies, old and new, leading to additional innovation and economic growth. Industry is beginning to wake up to the possibility of every object being connected through the “Internet-of-things,” creating new business models and value propositions, as well as disrupting legacy ones (Ng et al. 2015,Ng 2013).Service-dominant (S-D) logic has been reframing marketing and business thought since publication of the

Journal of Marketing article “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic of Marketing” (Vargo and Lusch 2004; see also Vargo and Lusch 2008, 2016). Through the efforts of hundreds of scholars worldwide, S-D logic has increasingly developed into a generalized, integrated narrative of value cocreation, applicable to a full range of business disciplines as well as other fields. As technology evolves, extending and disrupting economic and business models, there is a need to more fully understand innovation, technology, service ecosystems, and institutions from an S-D logic perspective. This can

ground the discussion of technological evolution on a common set of foundational principles, frameworks, and research, shaping future research as well the technology-driven economic and business policies of firms and governments. Vargo et al. (2015) have extended the S-D logic conceptualization of technology to a narrative of the combinatorial evolution (Arthur 2009) of institutions in service ecosystems. This broadens the scope of innovation beyond firm-centered business models to markets and the economic system, and emphasizes the social practices

and processes that drive value creation and innovation. Based on such a view, institutionalization—the maintenance, disruption, and change of institutions—can be seen as a central process of innovation for both technology and markets.

This special issue calls for papers relating to the conceptual and empirical understanding of technology

and innovation from an S-D logic perspective, incorporating existing understanding of service ecosystems and institutions. We are particularly interested in new methodologies and empirical measurements (e.g., Parry et al. 2016) that could develop mid-range theories and S-D logic applications. We are also interested in the shift of ecosystem boundaries toward outcome-based markets and economic systems (Ng et al. 2009, 2013). Specifically, we invite papers in the following areas:

the role of institutions and service ecosystems in technology;



the role of technology in institutions and service ecosystems;



customer experiences, engagement, and relationships with sociocyber-physical objects;



new institutions, logic, corruptibility, and power for sociocyber-physical objects;



the role of liquification and density in technology;



diffusion and institutionalisation of sociocyber-physical objects as service;



new transaction boundaries, markets, and business models for sociocyber-physical objects as service;



organizational forms in a digital service ecosystem;



big data and the Internet-of-things from an institutional and service-ecosystems perspective.

To submit a manuscript please see http://pubsonline.informs.org/page/serv/submission-guidelines.

Additional Information

For more information, please contact Yin Lim at y.f.lim@warwick.ac.uk.

Readings

Arthur B (2009) The Nature of Technology (Free Press, New York).

Ng ICL (2013) New business and economic models in the connected digital economy.

J. Rev. Pricing Management 12(6):1–7.

Ng ICL, Ding X, Yip N (2013) Outcome-based contracts as new business model: The role of partnership and value-driven relational assets. Indust. Marketing Management 42(5):730–743.

Ng ICL, Maull R, Yip N (2009) Outcome-based contracts as a driver for systems thinking and service-dominant logic in service science: Evidence from the defense industry.Eur. Management J. 27(6):377–387.

Ng ICL, Scharf K, Pogrebna G, Maull RS (2015) Contextual variety, Internet-of-things and the choice of tailoring over platform: Mass customisation strategy in supply chain management. Internat. J. Production Econom. 159(January):76–87.

Parry G, Brax S, Maull R, Ng ICL (2016) Operationalising IoT for reverse supply: The development of use-visibility measures. Supply Chain Management: Internat. J.

21(2):228–244.

Vargo SL, Lusch RF (2004) Evolving to a new dominant logic for marketing.

J. Marketing 68(January):1–17.

Vargo SL, Lusch RF (2008) Service-dominant logic: Continuing the evolution. J. Acad. Marketing Sci.

36(1):1–10.

Vargo SL, Lusch RF (2016) Institutions and axioms: An extension and update of service-dominant logic. J. Acad. Marketing Sci. 44(1):5–23.

Vargo SL, Wieland H, Akaka MA (2015) Institutions in innovation: A service ecosystems perspective.

Indust. Marketing Management

44(1):63–72.