Systemic Business Community

SABI Session 1, Wednesday, July 19, 2009, 13:30 – 15:30, ISSS Brisbane

The first of four sessions of the Special Integration Group on Systems Applications in Business and Industry will center on research into service systems.  The discussion will begin with two papers, and then segue into a conversation that will extend over the break into Session 2.

Wendy J. Gregory, Graeme Nicholas, Mark Anderson, Jeff Foote, Gerald Midgley, Alistair Sheat and David Wood, “Serving the Public Sector: a New Approach for Co-Created Value”

Public sector organisations worldwide strive to deliver services that are valued both by recipients of the services, and by the wider community who indirectly benefit from services being provided. Public services therefore have to manage evaluations of their services from both macro and micro perspectives – that is, how do individual recipients judge the value of the service provided and how does the broader community judge the value of the service provided? Therefore, of growing concern to public service organisations is how to work with individuals and communities to co-create value through service delivery.

The Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) is a New Zealand government owned Crown Research Institute whose mission is to protect people and their environments through research. Our main clients are two public sector organisations charged with delivering safe and healthy communities in NZ. ESR’s services therefore support these public sector organisations in providing value for money services to the NZ public.

During 2007, ESR and IBM NZ began discussions about ways in which we could collaborate in undertaking research that would both build capability in novel and emerging systems and social science methods and would contribute to the development of an academic field termed “service science”. Since July 2008, we have been undertaking a funded project that will:

• develop capacity in service science methods and concepts;
• undertake theoretical and methodological research on service science and the contribution systems thinking and social science can make to the wider field of service science; and,
• undertake a pilot project with Police on how to respond to the role of alcohol and drugs in enabling violent behaviour, with a view to providing ‘proof of concept’ of a particular approach to service science.

In this paper, I will: explain some of the key ideas and drivers behind IBM’s investment in the development of the field of service science; and, report on progress in the Police case study, showing how insights from service and systems sciences have influenced the project direction.

[Abstract (1217)]

David Ing, “Envisioning Innovation in Service Systems: Induction, Abduction and Deduction”

An initiative to transform or redesign a service system can be centered on envisioning a future that may be explicit or implicit, shared or tacit. When that future represents a discontinuous change from the current state, detailed analysis from a single frame (e.g. process modeling) may mislead or confuse collective choices and priorities.

Four envisioning engagements – across a variety of service businesses – are reviewed as case studies to surface commonalities in approach. Success in the engagements has largely been attributed to the sequencing of consultations into sequential phases of induction, abduction and then deduction.

Challenges to adoption of this three-phase approach are outlined, as a departure from current practice in envisioning innovations. Following an inductive style of description, conclusions are presented with theoretical saturation of research concepts based on the philosophy of phenomenology.

Keywords: service systems, innovation, system envisioning, induction, abduction, deduction

[Abstract (1084, 1217) as text] [Paper (1217) as PDF]

As described in the SIG on SABI call for papers, the authors above will lead discussions in the Singerian Inquiring System style (i.e. without visual aids).

The scheduling of sessions makes a segue into the Conversation on an Emerging Science of Services Systems practical.  See Session 2 for a brief description.

daviding July 5th, 2009

Posted In: ISSS