This document presents a conceptual model for service exchange based on service-dominant logic. It discusses key concepts in service-dominant logic like service systems and value co-creation. It proposes a resource-service-system model as an extension of the traditional resource-event-agent model to better capture the perspectives of service-dominant logic. Specifically, the model represents services as economic events rather than resources and shows how service systems interact and exchange resources to co-create value through services. The document concludes by outlining areas for future research like extending the model to capture the process and compositional aspects of services.

1. A Conceptual Model of Service
Exchange in Service‐Dominant Logic
Geert Poels
Faculty of Economics and Business
AdministraBon, Ghent University
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2. Outline
• Service‐Dominant Logic
• Service System
• Service system modelling = business modelling
• The Resource‐Event‐Agent conceptual model
• The Resource‐Service‐System conceptual
model
• Open issues, challenges, future research
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3. Service‐Dominant Logic
• Service‐Dominant Logic (Vargo & Lusch)
‘’Service Science embraces the world view of the service‐dominant
logic.’’ (Cambridge SSME symposium, July 2007)
• Main ideas
– Service is the applicaBon of competences (skills, knowledge) for the
benefit of another party
– All economic exchanges are service exchanges: service is exchanged
for service on the basis of voluntary economic reciprocity
– Goods are involved in this process as appliances for service provision:
they are conveyors of competences
– SDL represents a shi in thinking about value in terms of
• Operand resources (‘D‐resources’): passive resources that require acBon to
make them valuable
to
• Operant resources (‘T‐resources’): acBve resources that embody competences
and that can act on other resources to make them valuable
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4. Comparing the ‘new’ and ‘old’ logics
• Goods‐Dominant Logic • Service‐Dominant Logic
– Services are seen as units – Service is seen as a process
of output – Value in use: value is
– Value in exchange: value is created through resources
created through transfer of acBng upon other
resources resources
– One party produces the – Each party brings in or
services and another party makes accessible its own
consumes the services resources and both parBes
co‐create value for the
service beneficiary
Service‐Dominant Logic represents a shi< in logic of exchange,
not just a shi< in type of product that is under invesCgaCon.
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5. Service System
• DefiniBon (Maglio, Vargo, Caswell, Spohrer)
‘’an open system (1) capable of improving the
state of another system through sharing or
applying its resources (i.e., the other system
determines and agrees that the interacBon has
value), and (2) capable of improving its own state
by acquiring external resources (i.e., the system
itself sees value in its interacBon with other
systems)’’
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6. • Key characterisBcs
– A service system is a configuraBon of resources, of which
at least one operant resource
• physical resources with legal rights (people)
• conceptual resources with legal rights (organizaBons)
• conceptual resources treated as property (shared informaBon)
• physical resources treated as property (technology)
– Service is the applicaBon or sharing of resources for the
benefit of another system
• At least one operant resource that embodies competences is
applied or shared
– Service entails an interacBon with another service system
• Service is co‐creaBon of value rather than producBon by one party
• The other party needs to bring in or make accessible its resources
– There is an economic moBve for service systems to interact
• A service leads to another service that benefits the service system
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7. Service system modelling =
business modelling
• Service‐Dominant Logic assumes an economic context
for service exchanges
– Enterprises are a major category of service system
– The business logic of an enterprise is expressed in a
business model
→ modelling an enterprise as a service system, emphasizing
the applicaBon of its resources for the benefit of another
system in the context of economic exchange, is business
modelling
• Business modelling knowledge has been specified and
formalized in business model ontologies, which offer
concepts in terms of which business models can be
arBculated
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8. Resource‐Event‐Agent Model
REA takes a Goods‐Dominant Logic perspecCve on economic exchange
as services are a subtype of Economic Resource
• Services are economic resources that can be transferred, i.e. control over the
services can be transfered from one person to another.
• The provider ‘produces’ the services (i.e. creates value) and the receiver
‘consumes’ the services (i.e. destroys value)
• The value of the services is determined through the economic exchange, usually
in terms of what is being paid for them
• To model the transfer an economic event is needed, e.g. a services transfer,
provision or delivery event.
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9. Example: a car change oil service
Economic resources Economic event Economic agents
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11. Resource‐Service‐System Model (1)
Basic Resource/Service/System ConstellaCon
In a Service‐Dominant Logic interpretaCon of REA, service maps to
economic event, not to economic resource
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12. Example revisited again
Operant Resource
Operand Resources Service Service systems
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13. Resource‐Service‐System Model (2)
Service Exchange View
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14. 19‐2‐2010 IESS 1.0 Geneva 17‐19 February 2010 14

15. Resource‐Service‐System Model (3)
Service System ComposiCon View
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16. Resource‐Service‐System Model (4)
Service Accountability View
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18. Future research
• Extend conceptual model to accommodate
– Process structure of service: service lifecycle
model
– Service (system) component structure: service
composiBon model
• Model tesBng
• Ontology development
• Ontology alignment
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19. Auxiliary slides
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20. MoBvaBon – Service Science
• New , disBnct field based on an interdisciplinary
approach to research
• IniBaBve launched in 2004 by IBM, intending to
integrate separate service research areas
• DefiniBons (Maglio et al.)
– ‘’Service science is the study of the applicaBon of the
resources of one or more systems for the benefit of
another system in economic exchange.’’
– ‘’NormaCve service science is the study of how one
system can and should apply its resources for the mutual
benefit of another system and of the system itself.’’
– ‘’Service science, management, and engineering (SSME) is
the applicaBon of normaBve service science.’’
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21. PRINCIPLES:
‐ Service systems interacCng in a service take on provider or client roles
‐ The provider takes responsibility for transforming or operaCng on a service
target that is owned by the client
‐ The interacCon of both systems is required to create value for the client
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22. The need for modelling service systems
• Modeling helps studying service systems and
their interacBons
• A recommendaBon for research made at the
Cambridge SSME symposium (July 2007)
– ‘’create modelling and simulaBon tools for service
systems’’
• A challenge for Service Science research
– ‘’Chief among the challenges that lay ahead is the
challenge of developing a shared vocabulary that can
be used across disciplines to describe the great variety
of service systems.’’
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23. The need for modelling service systems –
citaBons from Service Science literature
• ‘’someday service scienBsts may work with formal models
of service systems”
• “Models and analyBcal methods for service systems will
allow us to find opportuniBes for efficiency gains and to
create new informaBon‐based services.”
• ‘’understanding service and service innovaBon requires
new ways of thinking (worldviews or logics) and new
abstracBons’’
• ‘’Perhaps more than any other subjects, advancement in
Service Science depends on models and simulaBons of
alternaBve service systems designs.’’
• “Formal representaBon and measurement of work in
service systems is a grand challenge for the services
economy”
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24. Independent view REA model
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25. REA‐Based service ontologies
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26. Example revisited
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27. FoundaBonal Ontology for Service
Science
• ‘’It seems legiBmate to assume that goods are
objects (endurants, in DOLCE’s terms), while
services are events (perdurants)’’
⇒ Conform with Service‐Dominant Logic
(‘service as a process’)
⇒ A service is not transferable
⇒ The disBncBon between a service economic
resource and a service (transfer) economic
event is not supported
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28. Resource‐Service‐System Model (5)
Service Process View
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