Information-intensive Services Research Articles

Information-Intensive Operations-Based Service Process Classification

This paper attempts to extend our understanding of service operations in the advent of virtual services. Through analysis of the central aspects of the service delivery process and extant service classification literature, the paper introduces a service provider-customer input-based service classification. Empirical breakdown of a number of service processes to their constituent parts suggests that for a service classification to be complete it ought to consider the actions and input of the service provider and of the customer. Additionally, it is suggested that there are different variants of information-intensive services. The findings point towards emergent high-potential research areas in service operations management.

Skilled Tradable Services: The Transformation of U.S. High-Skill Labor Markets

Since 1980, economic growth in the U.S. has been fastest in its largest cities. We show that a group of skill- and information-intensive service industries are responsible for all of this new urban bias in recent growth. We then propose a simple explanation centered around the interaction of three factors: the disproportionate reliance of these services on information and communication technology (ICT), the precipitous price decline for ICT capital since 1980, and the preexisting comparative advantage of cities in skilled services. Quantitatively, our mechanism accounts for most of the urban biased growth of the U.S. economy in recent decades.

High technology export and high technology export impact on growth

The term high-tech, covering the high-tech industry and the information-intensive service sector, is based on advanced scientific and technological expertise that requires science, technology, and innovation (STI), and is based on Research & Development expenditure. Sectoral, product and patent approaches are used for classification by OECD and European Union. Literature review on high-tech show that countries focusing on Research and Development Expenditures and new patents have succeeded in increasing their high-tech exports as well. Turkey is one of the countries where the levels of high-tech export is not at the desired levels yet therefore the government must give incentives for Research and Development expenditures and new patents for innovation, as high-tech export affects GDP growth positively.

Strategic alliance between information intensive services and supply chain integration: impact on firm performance

Goal: This Survey-based empirical research is aimed to theorize and assess a structural model that incorporates strategic alliance between Information Intensive Services (IIS) and Supply Chain Integration (SCI) and its impact on Firm Performance (FP), with special reference to Indian business houses.
 Design / Methodology / Approach: This paper proposes a hypothesis model within the decision-making framework that offers strategic alliance tool for managers in the area of supply chain to operationalize business decisions. Samples of more than 210 primary data sets are collected from population of different industries in India by a proper sampling method and by framing questionnaires. The relationship, as proposed in the hypothesis model, is assessed empirically by using statistical techniques called Structural Equation Modeling. 
 Results: Practitioners may expect improved supply chain performance through strategic alliance between information intensive services and supply chain integration, as it is demanded industries in this Industry 4.0 era.
 Limitations: The hypothesis framed by western standards seems to be obvious; however, considering the Indian business scenario, where the supply chain and technology of information systems are almost a new concept in most firms, this seems to be a valid area of research.
 Practical Implications: Research conceptualizes and develops different dimensions of information-intensive services that offer empirical support for the adoption of proper information system to improve performance within an integrated supply chain.
 Originality / Value: This survey-based empirical research will ‘coordinate and highlight the issue of integration’ of Enterprise Information Systems within the organizational supply chain.

Managing Data, Information, and Technology in Cyber Physical Systems: Public Safety as a Service and its Systems

This paper introduces a unified representation for collaborative development of complex services in public safety to explain the infusion of digital technologies into the design of the community resilience processes with respect to the potential hazardous events. It aims at helping to understand how ICT-based knowledge may help stakeholders situated in various positions inside society to participate collaboratively to service development actions. It presents a roadmap to conceive, design, and operationalize the creation of digital artefacts to compound its supporting systems, including the digital one. This representation includes a way of describing the domain of interest to conceive complex services employing human-oriented development, a way of reasoning on the resilience processes complexity, using semantic reasoning along with the time series quality assurance (TSQA) solution ontology, and a way of developing data processing components as internal (technical) services in enterprise information systems to support the design of novel environmental monitoring digital services. A unified semantic reasoning-based approach to evaluate data quality in cyber-physical systems is described to exemplify the creation of a complex public service ecosystem that promotes collaborative knowledge sharing to formalize the domain expertise through the information intensive services. The TSQA ontology integrates knowledge from other domain-specific ontologies to define and share concepts designating observations acquired from sensors, quality issues, methods for detecting quality issues and correcting data, and tags applied to data objects to assure the data traceability. A semantic component that manages the TSQA ontology and the SWRL-encoded rules are introduced in the data acquisition module of a cyber-physical system application for environmental monitoring to solve a specific problem of data cleaning associated with the water resources management. This method is applicable to any time series of measured data.

The Assessment of Meaningful Outcomes from Co-design: A Case Study from the Energy Sector

Even though co-design is a well-accepted approach for designing to meet user needs, what influence it has on design outcomes remains unclear. This article presents the co-design process of a prototype energy advice service. We evaluate the impact this process had on the outcome over time, demonstrate how co-design generated informative insights, and identify the benefits and challenges of employing a co-design process to design and develop meaningful content for future ‘information-intensive’ services. A theoretical framework, a “think aloud” approach, and systematic data coding, enabled us to uncover user perceptions of the evolving design qualities. This meaning-making co-design process enabled user needs to surface and be iteratively addressed. As the content of the reports became increasingly tailored, and the users’ familiarity with the topic increased, the process highlighted further evolving and underlying information needs. This confirms the value of adopting a content first approach when designing information intensive services and foregrounding meaning making within the complex energy demand reduction context.

India’s comparative advantages in services trade

In the recent decades, India has not only experienced substantial growth in its services trade with the rest of the world but has also become a net exporter of services. Using the annual exports and imports data of 10 disaggregated service items from 2000 to 2013, this paper computes and analyzes various comparative advantage (CA) measures. The analysis reveals that India has had a CA in computer and information services and other business services (that include a wide range of information-intensive services) for the entire sample period. These two service categories together accounted for more than two-thirds of the total commercial services export from India. Furthermore, according to an alternative CA measure that considers intra-industry trade, India seems to have CA over the rest of the world in different services such as travel, communication services, and personal, cultural, and related services as well. This paper further explores the shape and dynamics of the distribution of the CA measures by employing a nonparametric method. The distributional dynamics analysis indicates that India is more likely to lose CA over the rest of the world than to gain dominance from a comparative disadvantage (CDA) position in services trade.

From data to value: A nine-factor framework for data-based value creation in information-intensive services

Service is a key context for the application of IT, as IT digitizes information interactions in service and facilitates value creation, thereby contributing to service innovation. The recent proliferation of big data provides numerous opportunities for information-intensive services (IISs), in which information interactions exert the greatest effect on value creation. In the modern data-rich economy, understanding mechanisms and related factors of data-based value creation in IISs is essential for using IT to improve such services. This study identified nine key factors that characterize this data-based value creation: (1) data source, (2) data collection, (3) data, (4) data analysis, (5) information on the data source, (6) information delivery, (7) customer (information user), (8) value in information use, and (9) provider network. These factors were identified and defined through six action research projects with industry and government that used specific datasets to design new IISs and by analyzing data usage in 149 IIS cases. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of these factors for describing, analyzing, and designing the entire value creation chain, from data collection to value creation, in IISs. The main contribution of this study is to provide a simple yet comprehensive and empirically tested basis for the use and management of data to facilitate service value creation.

Appropriateness of cellular operations in information-intensive services

We investigate the appropriateness of cellular work structures for information-intensive services under a wide range of conditions. In this study, we also consider important and unique service characteristics, such as the relationship of operator performance and workload or overwork. The approach uses experimental design and discrete event simulation. The results favour the cellular structure in service environments in which (a) significant reductions in key operational parameters may be achieved by introducing work cells, such as in setup time, in task duplication, and in the number of administrative layers; (b) no severe bottlenecks emerge; (c) operators are cross-skilled; and (d) high information dependencies exist amongst tasks. The study concludes by citing important managerial implications that service managers and consultants need to consider before embarking into the establishment of cells.

품질경영학회 50주년 특별호: 서비스품질 분야 연구 리뷰

Purpose: This paper reviews the papers on service quality issues which are published in the Journal of the Korean Society for Quality Management (KSQM) since 1965. The literature review is purposed to survey a variety of service quality issues for several categories in terms of industry as well as research model. Methods: By use of the double diamond design process model 71 papers are analyzed 4 stages which are discover, define, develop and deliver. And all of service quality issues are classified into 4 categories: service factory, mass service, service shop and professional service by the service process matrix typology. Results: According to this review, there are several features of research trends. There are ‘from physical service to information-intensive service pattern’ and ‘from private sector to public sector pattern’. And the Kano model has been a steady-selling model to measure the service quality as like a SERVQUAL. Another meaningful issue was a convergency of the research method and tools such as BSC, CRM, AHP, DEA, Information System, Systgem Dynamics and 6 Sigma. Conclusion: The review paper is expected to provide future direction to improve service quality theories and applications. There are three future research topics: Application area, measurement model and research purpose. Key words: Service Quality, SERVQUAL, SERVPERF, Kano Model, Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty

Understanding the dynamics between organizational IT investment strategy and market performance: A system dynamics approach

In recent years, information technology (IT) companies have faced fierce competition across dynamic environments; as such, ways of enhancing organizational performance and obtaining competitive advantage through IT investment have become important issues for academia and businesses. Further, time delays between IT investment transfers and actual market performance make measuring the impact of IT investment on market performance more complex. Based on the perspective of long-term, non-linear, closed-loop causality, this study develops a computerized system dynamics model to analyze the dynamic relationships between organizational IT investment strategy and market performance within information-intensive service industries. The results of this study provide several important implications for IT investment management research and practice. The proposed system dynamics model also provides IT managers with a useful decision support tool for evaluating different IT investment strategies.

IT-Enabled Information-Intensive Services

In information-intensive services (IISs), information interactions have a significant effect on service-value creation. Recent innovations in IT have facilitated the creation of various types of IT-enabled IISs (IT-IIS) in which IT is essential for information interactions. The authors introduce the generic composition of the IIS value-creation system, then view this system from an IT-oriented perspective to propose classifications for various IT-IIS types. This knowledge serves as a basis for designing new IT-IISs. The authors also conducted two IT-IIS design case studies.

Development trend and coping strategies of financing sector in big data era

A review of the major characteristics of the big data era shows that the financing sector, as an information-intensive service industry, is stepping into the primary stage of the big data era. This is evident because the data characteristics and data processing requirements applied in the financing sector comply with the concepts and features of big data. This paper also verifies that in the future, the financing sector, especially the banking sector, will be distinguished by features of open-mindedness, digitization, high productivity, and scientific decision-making processes in the big data era. However, efforts will need to be made to face challenges from verified corporate cultures and various expertise in management and technology. This paper also suggests proper strategies for the financial sector in the big data era, providing practical guidance for financial service planning, and lays a consolidated foundation to explore theories of new finance.

Information Service Blueprint: A Service Blueprinting Framework for Information-Intensive Services

Information-intensive service (IIS) is a type of service in which information interactions have the most effect on service value creation. Recent innovations of information and communication technology have created various types of IISs, and the literature argues that IIS should be a research priority in this information economy. This research proposes a new service blueprinting framework specialized to IISs, called the Information Service Blueprint. The framework user can succinctly capture the big-picture and key points of the complex IIS process in question by blueprinting an IIS. The Information Service Blueprint has served as a basis for blueprinting IISs in IIS design projects with industry and government. An experiment to compare the Information Service Blueprint with the conventional service blueprint also confirms its utility for blueprinting IISs. This research would serve as a basis for analyzing and designing IISs.

Price comparisons on the internet based on computational intelligence.

Information-intensive Web services such as price comparison sites have recently been gaining popularity. However, most users including novice shoppers have difficulty in browsing such sites because of the massive amount of information gathered and the uncertainty surrounding Web environments. Even conventional price comparison sites face various problems, which suggests the necessity of a new approach to address these problems. Therefore, for this study, an intelligent product search system was developed that enables price comparisons for online shoppers in a more effective manner. In particular, the developed system adopts linguistic price ratings based on fuzzy logic to accommodate user-defined price ranges, and personalizes product recommendations based on linguistic product clusters, which help online shoppers find desired items in a convenient manner.

International Trade, Technology Diffusion, and the Role of Diffusion Barriers

This paper assesses the welfare impact of trade and technology diffusion as well as the change in the cross-country distribution of GDP due to removal of trade costs and diffusion barriers. The model extends the multi-country Ricardian trade model of Alvarez and Lucas (2007) to include technology diffusion with diffusion barriers. A key feature of the model is that some countries export goods produced by foreign technology via diffusion. The model is calibrated to match the world GDP distribution, the merchandise trade and technology diffusion shares of GDP, and real GDP per capita for a sample of 31 countries. Data on international trade in royalties, license fees, and information intensive services are used as proxies for international technology diffusion. There are three key findings. First, the welfare gains from removing diffusion barriers are 4-60% across countries, generally larger than the gains from removing trade costs (8-40%). The main reason is that diffusion has a larger impact on the nontradable sector due to the substitutability between trade and diffusion in the tradable sector. Another reason is that diffusion barriers are generally larger than trade costs. Second, removing trade costs and diffusion barriers has little impact on reducing the dispersion of real GDP per capita (measured by Gini index) across countries. Compared to the benchmark, free diffusion decreases the Gini by 4%, and free trade decreases the Gini by 2%. Third, removing diffusion barriers increases trade, which indicates that diffusion may enhance trade.

U.S. Trade in Information-Intensive Services

Trade in services has increased significantly and the United States has been a leader in services trade. The U.S. not only accounts for the largest share of world trade in private services but also runs a substantial amount of surplus in services trade. One important trend has been the rapid growth of U.S. trade in information-intensive services. This paper examines the growth and patterns in U.S. exports and imports of various information-intensive services. The analysis indicates that trade in business, professional, and technical services; financial services; and insurance has experienced the most rapid growth in recent times. This paper further discusses some of the intuitively plausible explanations for the growth of trade in information-intensive services.

Exploring the representation of complex processes in information-intensive services

It is well known that Information-Intensive Services (IIS), such as financial services, information technology services, healthcare, telecommunications and broadcasting, and education have shown some of the highest growth rates in the service sector of the US economy. In such services, the business processes are often complex, involving a number of different parties. For example, multiple people from both the service supplier and the customer participate to co-produce a desired service outcome. Through a few case studies, we observe a set of common characteristics of such complex service processes. To obtain a systematic understanding of such processes, we explore the possibility of applying existing modelling or representation frameworks and evaluate them based on how well they address the characteristics of complex processes in IIS as well as other analysis requirements.

Analysis and Improvement of Information‐Intensive Services: Evidence from Insurance Claims Handling Operations

Information‐intensive services (IIS), such as financial services, business services, health care, and education, form a large and growing part of the service sector in the US economy. In this paper we present a classification of IIS based on their operational characteristics. We also propose empirically grounded conceptual analysis and prescriptive frameworks useful for the improvement of certain types of IIS. By conducting statistical analyses of a large sample of claims data from one of the largest property and casualty companies in the United States, we isolate key drivers of service performance and identify preemptive actions that can favorably impact performance metrics. Those results demonstrate the direct operationalization of the proposed frameworks with primary data. Our conceptual analysis, empirical findings, and the prescriptive framework that follow, provide an action plan that can lead to a systemic improvement in the performance of information and customer contact intensive services.

Global industrialisation of information-intensive services: a reference architecture for electronic business media

The relentless march of improvements in the cost-performance ratio of information technology today, facilitates the provision and consumption of Electronic Information-Intensive Services (EIIS) across company boundaries. However, existing products and services exhibit both managerial and technological weaknesses. Therefore, new concepts are required to facilitate a comprehensive industrialisation of cross-organisational EIIS. In this work, we present and thoroughly discuss a modular, service-oriented reference architecture for electronic business media which allows for realising 'Lean' management and implementation of cross-organisational collaboration. Based on the IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description, in combination with the St. Gallen Media Reference Model, this reference architecture provides four main views: community (structural organisation), process (process-oriented organisation), services and infrastructure. By applying this reference architecture to the case of public administration in Switzerland, we show its potential to realise a 'Lean' organisation and implementation of cross-organisational electronic collaboration.