Emerging Digital Frontiers for Service Innovation

TLDR

Emerging digital frontiers for service innovation are explored through a workshop at HICSS, focusing on service systems that integrate cognitive, smart, and cyber‑physical components and rely on interconnectedness among system components. The workshop report aims to support the nascent service science discipline and foster discussions on service innovation. Participants concluded that service systems—centered on humans and personal data—are essential for innovation and value creation, while highlighting challenges across cognitive, smart, cyber‑physical, and human‑centered domains.

Abstract

This paper examines emerging digital frontiers for service innovation that a panel discussed at a workshop on this topic held at the 48th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). The speakers and participants agreed that that service systems are fundamental for service innovation and value creation. In this context, service systems are related to cognitive systems, smart service systems, and cyber-physical systems and depend on the interconnectedness among system components. The speakers and participants regarded humans as the central entity in all service systems. In addition, data, they saw personal data in particular as key to service systems. They also identified several challenges in the areas of cognitive systems, smart service systems, cyber-physical systems, and human-centered service systems. We hope this workshop report helps in some small way to cultivate the emerging service science discipline and to nurture fruitful discussions on service innovation.