Reshaping mental models – enabling innovation through service design

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation. Mental models are actors’ assumptions and beliefs that guide their behavior and interpretation of their environment. Design/methodology/approach This paper offers a conceptual framework for innovation in service ecosystems through service design that connects the macro view of innovation as changing institutional arrangements with the micro view of innovation as reshaping actors’ mental models. Furthermore, through an 18-month ethnographic study of service design practices in the context of healthcare, how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation is investigated. Findings This research highlights that service design reshapes mental models through the practices of sensing surprise, perceiving multiples and embodying alternatives. This paper delineates the enabling conditions for these practices to occur, such as coaching, diverse participation and supportive physical materials. Research limitations/implications This study brings forward the underappreciated role of actors’ mental models in innovation. It highlights that innovation in service ecosystems is not simply about actors making changes to their external context but also actors shifting their own assumptions and beliefs. Practical implications This paper offers insights for service managers and service designers interested in supporting innovation on how to catalyze shifts in actors’ mental models by creating the conditions for specific service design practices. Originality/value This paper is the first to shed light on the central role of actors’ mental models in innovation and identify the service design practices that reshape mental models.

Leveraging service design for healthcare transformation: toward people-centered, integrated, and technology-enabled healthcare systems

“…Complexity in healthcare systems is pronounced through the large number of actors and interactions, but also through their multilevel structure, from individuals to healthcare organizations, networks, and the national healthcare system. Service design offers an integrative multilevel approach (Patrício et al, 2011), enabling zooming in and out from designing interactions and touchpoints at the micro-level (Sangiorgi, 2009) to designing service concepts within value constellations (Patrício et al, 2018) to designing for institutional change in service ecosystems (Vink et al, 2019). This multilevel approach can help in addressing the interdependencies across healthcare system levels, creating solutions that balance individual, organizational, network, and societal wellbeing (Beirão et al, 2017).…”

Service design as an innovation approach in technology startups: a longitudinal multiple case study

“…This study also investigates how a service design approach may become embedded in technology startups, focusing on the extent to which the change was understood to be beneficial. Current empirical studies exploring service design as a service innovation approach are often focused on large public service systems or established organizations where processes, resources, and capabilities entailing service innovation are more established (Kurtmollaiev et al, 2018; Vink et al, 2019). Service design in technology startups, although recognized as a key research area that can drive technology‐enabled service innovation, still relies on anecdotal cases (Müller & Thoring, 2012).…”

“…Service design entails understanding that customer experience is idiosyncratic, and that the value of that experience emerges in the interaction of people, organizations, and technology (Sangiorgi & Prendiville, 2014). With its design practice and service outlook, service design has addressed innovation challenges in many complex service systems, such as healthcare and the public sector (Deserti & Rizzo, 2014; Vink et al, 2019).…”

“…However, service design as an innovation approach has been explored primarily in established service companies with consultancy‐led service design projects and in contexts such as healthcare, public service, or policy‐making (Antons & Breidbach, 2018). These studies bring much‐needed empirical evidence on the impact of service design to service innovation‐related questions (Kurtmollaiev, Fjuk, Pedersen, Clatworthy, & Kvale, 2018; Vink, Edvardsson, Wetter‐Edman, & Tronvoll, 2019; Yu & Sangiorgi, 2018). However, these are also service‐oriented contexts that are more likely to adopt a focus on value cocreation during the innovation process, and that have available organizational resources for embedding service design.…”

Investigating Modular Reuse as an Underlying Mechanism of Conceptualization during Service Design – the Case of Key Activity Orchestration

“…Avdiji et al [3] argue that the success of these tools is largely due to their ability to outline the underlying problem by using an ontology to abstractly represent the context in order to eliminate conceptual ambiguities and reduce complexity. Similarly, Vink et al [42] stress that framing, i.e. creating a point of view from which, for example, a service can be perceived, is a crucial activity of service design in the conceptualization of services.…”