Service Science Research and Service Standards Development

Abstract

Recent increases in interest in the development of service standards among standards organizations follow the trend of growth in the service sector. This research in progress reviews the relationship between service science research and service standardization to determine whether there are areas of convergence and mutual influence and opportunities to increase exchanges between these two sides for mutual benefit. Service standards published by ISO and current service standards projects were categorized into Types (1) back stage, and (2) front stage of service activities. The definitions of “service” were also extracted from ISO standards to determine their commonality with service science concepts. It was found that ISO service standards were mostly related to back stage of service activities but some increase in projects with front stage orientation was seen. There was scant evidence that the definition of service used in standards had some commonality with service science concepts. Limitations to the research together with recommendations for further work that would foster mutual benefits for both service science research and standards development were discussed.