A perspective on service orchestration

Service-oriented computing is an emerging paradigm with increasing impact on the way modern software systems are designed and developed. Services are autonomous, loosely coupled and heterogeneous computational entities able to cooperate to achieve common goals. This paper introduces a model for service orchestration, which combines a exogenous coordination model, with services’ interfaces annotated with behavioural patterns specified in a process algebra which is parametric on the interaction discipline. The coordination model is a variant of Reo for which a new semantic model is proposed.     

A decade of microprocessor innovation: an economist's perspective

During the decade following the introduction of the first microprocessor in 1971, 203 different microprocessors were introduced. Of these products, 69 were original designs whilst 134 were second-source versions, or copies, of the originals. This paper analyses the entire range of new microprocessors introduced during the period 1971–1981, and draws conclusions on what motivates the different manufacturers to produce the devices they do, the role of product standards and the role of second-source producers. The strategies of six major companies that produce original designs are considered in detail and show the emergence of a product leader.     

Understanding Web 2.0 service models: A knowledge-creating perspective

We examined Web 2.0 services that provide different levels of knowledge exploitation and developed a framework for classifying existing service models from a knowledge-creation perspective. More than 1000 Web 2.0 application sites were analyzed and classified. We termed the two types of service platforms: Experience-Socialization and Intelligence-Proliferation. These involved four types of service models that we termed as Exchanger, Aggregator, Collaborator, and Liberator. These models show the diversity of existing Web 2.0 applications and provide a framework for a better understanding of operating patterns and value propositions within the Web 2.0 paradigm.     

Information technology in open innovation: A resource orchestration perspective

Building on the resource orchestration view, we proposed a dual role of information technology (IT) in the form of IT-enabled resource acquisition (IRA) and IT-enabled resource operation (IRO) in determining innovation performance. Through analyzing the survey data from 235 organizations, we found that in a dynamic business environment, IRA assists organizations in accruing benefits from their open innovation (OI) strategies. In a less dynamic business environment, IRO enhances the impact of OI strategies on innovation performance, whereas IRA diminishes such an impact. Post-hoc interviews reveal further insights into how organizations utilize ITs (IRA and IRO) to obtain innovation benefits.     

A structural service innovation approach for designing smart product service systems: Case study of smart beauty service

Smart Product-service systems (PSS) are the emerging type of PSS that offer market value and dynamic intelligence combining products and services as solutions to consumers based on digital technology. To design a smart PSS with an effective way, a structural design approach is required. Nevertheless, only a few existing researchers discussed this topic. Aiming to bridge this gap, an integrated way is proposed for smart PSS design. This study refines a generic approach for structural service innovation approach which integrates the advantage of PSS engineering and service engineering for designing smart product service systems. The structural design approach is based on the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) incorporating with service blueprint named PRR method. Three design phases are demonstrated as verification of the PRR method by an elaborated case study of the smart beauty service. Based on PRR, three key design phases are integrated, i.e., (1) problem definition, (2) resolution generation, and (3) resolution design. Empirical results and implications are collected and discussed to obtain valuable insights for value creation.     

Digital innovation: Review and novel perspective

While research has produced valuable insights about digital innovation, we lack a comprehensive understanding about its core nature, and research across disciplinary boundaries lacks integration. To address these issues, we review 227 articles on digital innovation across eight disciplines. Based on our findings, we (1) inductively develop a new definition and propose a new framing of current conceptualizations of digital innovation, (2) organize central concepts of the literature on digital phenomena and show how they intersect with our conceptualization, and (3) develop a framework to organize digital innovation research according to five key themes. We conclude by identifying two particularly promising areas of future research.     

OntoPipeliner: An ontology-based automatic semantic service pipeline generator

The Web is a distributed environment rich with Web services going through continual metamorphosis; thus, sustaining semantic stability of service composition has become a major challenge. Automatic service composition – enabled both by the use of ontologies that describe service domains and by user-specified constraints bound to the ontologies – provides us candidate service pipelines at composition design time. The ontology-based languages for semantically describing web services, such as OWL-S, have been widely used. Though rich and comprehensive in their expressiveness, the use of these languages still leaves much of composition process manual. In this work, we present an ontology-based semantic web service composition system called OntoPipeliner. It employs a novel way of utilizing characteristics of Web services that reflect the classes and properties of domain ontologies and provides the ontology-guided constraints for automatic composition of services, in order to guide the user toward the best pipeline that meets the user requirements.     

Collective action problems in public sector innovation: A business model perspective

We explore how the literature on business models can explain the outcomes of innovation attempts in the public sector. Our findings suggest that governments can access a well‐developed knowledge domain for a public sector area but have a weak ability to propagate its value for society. Drawing on the business model literature concerning interdependence and distributed agency, we illustrate how a collective action problem related to innovation may arise in the public sector. We illustrate this new category of public innovation challenge with the (failed) case of the Swedish civil contingencies system and subsequently discuss a new line of inquiry for future research.     

物流云服务——面向供应链的物流服务新模式*

为解决当前物流服务方式在推广应用方面的诸多瓶颈问题,在云计算、云制造、物联网、RFID等技术发展基础上,提出了一种面向供应链的物流服务新模式———物流云服务。给出了物流云服务的定义,分析了物流云服务区别于以往物流服务方式的创新特征,提出了物流云服务的业务架构和技术架构,讨论了实施物流云服务所需解决的关键技术和问题。最后,以汽车产业供应链物流为例,设计了汽车物流云服务模式,对物流云服务模式进行应用验证。     

Interactive Persuasive Systems: A Perspective on Theory and Evaluation

Interactive systems are increasingly used in a growing number of domains to encourage users to perform certain actions or take a certain position toward a given subject. This article offers a perspective on interactive persuasive systems that emphasizes theories and concepts that can guide their design and evaluation. The goal is not to champion a theoretical model over others or to compare the effectiveness of different persuasive strategies but rather to depict the current conceptual landscape in this field and highlight emerging concepts and positions that have recently appeared in it. The article includes a discussion of some representative, general, and domain-specific constructs that can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of interactive persuasive systems.     

ICT infrastructure for innovation: A case study of the enterprise service bus approach

In this paper we investigate the relationship between ICT infrastructure and innovation. In recent years the concept of the enterprise service bus has been introduced as an ICT architecture that supports strong integration of distributed components and services, but at the same time allows for adding or subtracting business partners at short notice. What are the organizational issues and challenges of this approach? Building on a case study from Norway we investigated this topic in the context of innovation of ICT based services. Our findings were analyzed at three levels; the bus as technical infrastructure, the bus as innovation infrastructure and the bus as organizational structure. We find that the bus as technical infrastructure supports innovation within a business unit, while the bus as innovation infrastructure facilitates the innovation of new business services. Further, we propose that a shared topology of these three levels is important to support the overall innovation process. As illustrated in our case, this also raises new challenges for the innovative corporation.     

A study on e-learning take-up intention from an innovation adoption perspective: A case in China

This research aims to examine, from an innovation adoption perspective, Chinese students’ intention of taking up e-learning degrees. A survey of Chinese students was conducted to reveal their perceptions concerning innovation attributes relevant to e-learning and their intentions of taking e-learning programmes provided by UK universities. Given the rapid development in e-learning and its potential impact on how learning takes place, this research argues that e-learning take-up represents adoption of an innovation in educational services, rather than just an IT technology. It therefore examined e-learning adoption using Rogers’s relational model of perceived innovation attributes. Rogers’s model was adapted to the e-learning context. A questionnaire survey was developed to collect data from a sample of Chinese students (n = 215). Prior to final analysis the dimensionality and validity of the implementation of Rogers relational model was assessed. Findings suggested that only perceived compatibility and trialability have significant influence on e-learning adoption intention.     

A computational narrative construction method with applications in organizational learning of social service organizations

Acquisition of knowledge must be interwoven with the process of applying it. However, traditional training methods which provide abstract knowledge have shown ineffective for gaining experience of the work. In order to solve this problem, more and more researchers have included narrative in simulation, which is known as narrative simulation. By providing the narratives, participants recognize the choices, decisions, and experience that lead to the consequences of those decisions. It has been proven that narrative simulation is very useful in facilitating in-depth learning and reflective learning. However, conventional methods of data collection and narrative construction for narrative simulation are labor intensive and time consuming. They make use of previous narratives manually and directly. They are inadequate to cope with the fast moving world where knowledge is changing rapidly. In order to provide a way for facilitating the construction of narrative simulation, a novel computational narrative construction method is proposed. By incorporating technologies of knowledge-based system (KBS), computational linguistics, and artificial intelligence (AI), the proposed method provides an efficient and effective way for collecting narratives and automating the construction of narratives. The method converts the unstructured narratives into a structural representation for abstraction and facilitating computing processing. Moreover, it constructs the narratives that combine multiple narratives into a single narrative by applying a forecasting algorithm. The proposed method was successfully implemented in early intervention in mental health care of a social service company in Hong Kong since the case records in that process have structural similarities to narrative. The accuracies of data conversion and predictive function were measured based on recall and precision and encouraging results were obtained. High recall and precision are achieved in the data conversion function, and high recall for the predictive function when new concepts are excluded. The results show that it is possible for converting multiple narratives into a single narrative automatically. Based on the approach, it helps to stimulate knowledge workers to explore new problem solving methods so as to increase the quality of their solutions.     

Casting for service innovation: The roles of frontline employees

The purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of frontline employees (FLEs) in service innovation processes and how they contribute to these roles. In the literature, FLEs are argued to play an important role in service innovation; however, neither the potential types of roles nor what taking on these potential roles means to FLEs, have previously been studied. This study investigates FLEs' actions in different types of service innovation processes. Based on analyses of eight different service business units, FLEs are identified as having either of two sets of roles: (1) leading roles as idea creators, developers and implementers, or (2) supporting roles as problem reporters, advisors and executors. The analysis provides managers with guidelines which can help them to better utilize FLEs as contributors to service innovation, either as leading or supporting actors. These imply different management challenges, which are discussed. Advice on how to tackle these challenges is given on the basis of the findings.     

Value co-creation for digital innovation: An interorganizational boundary-spanning perspective

Despite the enthusiasm for engaging in interorganizational collaboration to enable digital product innovation, firms often face challenges in integrating knowledge across organizational boundaries. Our research examines how collaborating firms use Interorganizational Systems (IOS) tools and project coordinators to overcome knowledge boundaries in different types of ideation tasks. Drawing on boundary-spanning theory, we conceptualize IOS tools as boundary objects, project coordinators as boundary spanners, and the interdependence of ideation tasks as moderators of the impacts of boundary objects and spanners on knowledge integration. Our findings suggest that IOS tools help overcome syntax and semantic knowledge boundaries by transferring and sharing information when the interdependence of idea implementation tasks is high, and project coordinators help overcome pragmatic knowledge boundaries by building reciprocity of innovation participants when the interdependence of idea generation tasks is high. Our research contributes to value co-creation literature by developing a boundary-spanning mechanism to explain the roles of boundary objects and boundary spanners in overcoming different knowledge boundaries to enable digital product innovation at the inter-firm level.     

Intelligence evolution for service robot: An ADRC perspective

The strategy of active disturbance rejection control (ADRC) and its applications in intelligence evolution for service robot are summarized. It is also shown that the philosophy of ADRC is consistent with the essential characteristics of intelligence evolution. Most importantly, we concentrate on five core issues which will be encountered when applying ADRC to deal with intelligence evolution for service robot, that is, how to eliminate the impact of unknown composite disturbances, how to handle the nonholonomic constraints in uncalibrated visual servoing, how to realize eye hand torque coordination, how to deal with the disturbance in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and how to reject the imperfections induced by network in human robot interaction. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify the challenges encountered on intelligence evolution for service robot when one applies ADRC to, hoping that more and more researchers can give some suggestions or work together to deal with these problems, and flourishing results of ADRC from both theory and applications.     

A hybrid intelligence approach for sustainable service innovation of smart and connected product: A case study

Nowadays, smart and connected product (SCP) is gradually replacing the traditional functional products, which has attracted widespread attention from the industry and academia. Service innovation, as a crucial part of SCP iterative improvement, is a multi-criteria decision-making (DM) process facilitated by intelligent automation (IA) and cognitive technologies. However, product user’s intelligence (e.g. physiological feeling) that can intuitively reflect and evaluate the product service satisfaction is rarely considered in the process of service innovation. Hence, it is difficult to measure the product users’ preferences with precise numerical terms to make a strategic decision. In order to fill this gap, a hybrid intelligence approach is proposed to perform the service innovation for SCP. The product-user data (e.g. subjective data and physiological data) and product-sensor data are collected and used for the process of service innovation. A smart group spinning bicycle system is presented as an elaborated case study to illustrate the proposed architecture and approach. The service innovation of real-time and dynamic monitoring, user participation improvement and smart feedback manners are achieved. In addition, an ergonomic experiment is conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in implementing the service innovation for SCP.     

The impact of e-retail characteristics on initiating mobile retail services: A modular innovation perspective

The rise and challenges of m-commerce have led to an urgent need to examine how firms adopt the emerging sales channel. Early studies mainly discussed the differences between e-commerce and m-commerce. Our study shows the modular innovation from e-retailing to m-retailing, which changes the core component of service delivery but keeps the operations intact, provides more opportunities for well-entrenched firms. Using a dataset of e-retailers, we find e-retail characteristics have an impact on firm's migration to the mobile domain. Firms with online service competencies, economies of scale, and physical outlets are more inclined to exploit opportunities provided by mobile technologies.