The document proposes three laws of service science: 1. A service shall permeate - services will interact and change over time through permeation with other services. 2. The impact of a service is determined by its rate of permeation with other in-scope services - how much and with what types of services a given service permeates. 3. A service has both positive and negative permeation partners that determine its lifespan - positive partners allow growth while negative partners can lead to decline or self-destruction without limits.

1. Three Laws of Service Science
V 1.2
Manaw Modi, Alessio Giuiusa, Jim Spohrer
• Service Science Gap Addressed
• Governing science is archaic, an all-binding framework is absent.
• Dynamics are unprecedented as real-life forms make choices (Ng
2012) with emotions.
• Existing analysis frameworks (Bitner, Sampson…) are incapable
of measuring a service.
• Ideating with the right group here

2. 2
What was the approach to the Laws?
• Here, service literature was plenty – supporting laws were missing
– Necessary to pick a target set of vast literature
• Goal set to identify top 100 HBR “service” papers
– Searched for “service” and found 900 papers
– Within this sample, further refined the research by keywords
– Identified 100 most frequently occurring words to rank top 100 HBR “service” papers
• The laws were validated and refined using many of these top papers.

3. 3
Which Laws?
• Our driving considerations were:
• Do’s
• Quantify a service.
• Address how a service morphs, grows or shrinks.
• Define organization in such terms
• Don’ts
• Do not ignore the dynamic nature of service – rather
emphasize it.
• Do not bring in product “boxed” mind-set

4. 4
Fundamental Concept – Permeation
• Simple idea actually
– The very act of a service changing as it interacts with other services
– Services interact and change at the same time
– A service can permeate with itself
• It is like two gases diffusing into each other and reacting
– Volume, temperature and pressure etc. changing
– A new chemical form might result
– Secondary effects like smell, sound, and light etc. might also be present
• Permeation emphasizes fluidity of services and can mathematically
measure service phenomenon over multiple scales.

5. LAW #1 - What are
Services and Service
Systems?
A service shall
permeate.
• Service will interact.
• Service will seek permeation
partners or be sought by
other potential partners.
• A non-permeating entity is
either not a service or a
service in a critical situation
to find a permeationg partner.
LAW #2 - What is the
impact of a service
in a service system?
The impact of a service
within a service system
is given by its effective
rate of permeation and
in-scope service factors.
• Service may permeate with
other services at various
rates.
• A given service factor might
be constructive for one
service while being
destructive for another.
LAW #3 - How is the
life-span of a service
determined?
A service has positive as
well as negative
permeation partners.
• For a given service there will
be at least one negative
permeation partner.
• Without a negative
permeation partner, a service
will eventually self-destruct
itself.
• A service is its own positive
and negative partner.
The Three Laws
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6. The First Law – A service shall permeate.
• What remains static is not a service.
• A service will change over one or more service factors.
• Self-permeation of a service manifests in its intelligence and behavior within its service system.
SERVICE SYSTEM
Group of
Services i.e.,
"Service Scope"
and their Service
Entities
Service
Agreements, Dis-
agreements and
Permeation
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7. The Second Law - The impact of a service within a service system is given by
its effective rate of permeation and in-scope service factors.
• A service will have many permeation partners.
• The influence of a service depends upon which service
it permeates with and to what degrees.
• A service sustains longer if it permeates friendly
services and overpowers unfriendly ones.
• A small change in a service with high degree of
permeation usually creates huge ripples.
– Conversely a large change in a service with low degree of
permeation may have little or no impact.
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8. The Third Law - A service has positive as
well as negative permeation partners.
• Every existing and potential permeation
partner holds many seed opportunities for the
birth of a new type of service.
• A negative partner may bring death.
• A service DNA carries a signature of historical
attempts at transforming the service.
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9. Mathematical Interpretation
• A service has a half-life or a doubling-time given by:
• Seldom are services linear!
– Highly non-linear
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POSITIVE PERMEATION
SERVICE IN
CONTEXT
MOST
INFLUENTIAL
SERVICE(S)
HALF LIFE HALF LIFE
DOUBLING TIME DOUBLING TIME
NEGATIVE PERMEATION
SERVICE IN
CONTEXT
MOST
INFLUENTIAL
SERVICE(S)
DOUBLING TIME HALF LIFE
HALF LIFE DOUBLING TIME

10. Resulting Service Strategy Framework
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11. Resulting Service Strategy Framework
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12. Service Value-Chain
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13. Next Steps
• Positive permeation partners needed!
– How to best validate and apply the laws?
• Q & A
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Thank you!