Abstract
Smart service integrates digital and physical competencies for automated service delivery in smart service systems to co-create value. Smart services envelop digital services delivered through smart products. The latter act as boundary objects to the consumer. Smart services are capable of learning, adapting, and decision-making based on communicated data through self-controlled functions. Due to the multidisciplinary discourse, there is a knowledge gap concerning common ground for central concepts, the transformative potential of smart products as well as evidence-based design knowledge derived from real-world services. In this paper, we apply conceptual research and data analysis to construct a taxonomy that supplies this common ground for smart service. The resulting taxonomy comprises 8 dimensions with 20 characteristics. Based on an empirical analysis of 100 smart services from the smart living sector, we performed a cluster analysis to derive five archetypes that classifies smart service as either monitor, command execution, diagnostics and automation, personal tracker, or trainable assistant using smart products as boundary objects for distinct purposes.
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Fischer, M., Heim, D., Hofmann, A. et al. A taxonomy and archetypes of smart services for smart living. Electron Markets 30, 131–149 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-019-00384-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-019-00384-5