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The Unified Service Theory

A Paradigm for Service Science

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Handbook of Service Science

Abstract

This chapter discusses a Unified Service Theory (UST) that has been set forth as a foundational paradigm for Service Operations, Service Management, and now Service Science . The fundamental purpose of the UST is to unify the various phenomena we call “services” (i.e., service processes) in a way that demonstrates both how they are distinct from non-services and how they share common managerial principles. The UST prescribes boundaries for Service Science and reveals a gamut of service topics of interest to designers, managers, and researchers. Although the UST has its origins from a business operations perspective, it draws a common thread between the various perspectives pertaining to service.

This chapter is dedicated to the late and great Christopher Lovelock. Few have contributed more to service management thought than Christopher, and he epitomized the ideal of interdisciplinary collegiality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout this chapter the term “services” is used to mean “service processes” or “processes which are each characterized as a service.” Unfortunately, in some fields the term “services” has acquired an undesirable connotation of “intangible products,” and some have proposed banning the use of the plural term “services” altogether (Vargo and Lusch 2008b). Herein the plural term “services” is used for grammatical convenience in referring to multiple service processes, and is not intended to be a digressive reference to intangible products. A risk of abandoning the plurality of “services” is trivializing the vast variety of “service” manifestations. Note that the singular term “service” has specific meanings in contexts such as the military, religion, horse breeding, and so forth, so even that singular term requires some contextual understanding.

  2. 2.

    Vargo and Lusch have claimed that their version of Service-Dominant Logic is neither a theory nor a paradigm, but rather a mindset (Vargo and Lusch 2008a, p. 9). They argue that it does not have a “worldview” status, but then suggest that it is “a foundation for a general theory of marketing,” and “a basis for reorienting theories of society and economic science.” They also describe it as an “alternative to the traditional goods-centered paradigm….” We therefore treat Service-Dominant Logic as a paradigm, or something comparable to a paradigm.

  3. 3.

    Arguably, Computer Science had a similar history, with strong motivation coming from industry, particularly IBM.

  4. 4.

    The UST classifies traditional make-to-stock manufacturing a non-service when it is accomplished without inputs from customers. Custom manufacturing requires at least an information input from customers, therefore would be categorized as a service. For more explanation, see (Sampson and Froehle 2006, p. 336) or (Sampson 2001, p. 142).

  5. 5.

    http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm

  6. 6.

    Note that this discussion refers to the traditional market perspective that companies sell goods and/or services. Recall that the UST perspective does not consider goods and services to be two distinct things, since tangible items (goods) are often involved in processes that have customer-component inputs (services).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

    Scott E. Sampson

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  1. Scott E. Sampson
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Correspondence to Scott E. Sampson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. IBM Research - Almaden, Harry Road 650, San Jose, 95120-6099, USA

    Paul P. Maglio

  2. IBM Research - Almaden, Harry Road 650, San Jose, 95120-6099, USA

    Cheryl A. Kieliszewski

  3. IBM Research - Almaden, Harry Road 650, San Jose, 95120-6099, California, USA

    James C. Spohrer

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Sampson, S.E. (2010). The Unified Service Theory. In: Maglio, P., Kieliszewski, C., Spohrer, J. (eds) Handbook of Service Science. Service Science: Research and Innovations in the Service Economy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1628-0_7

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