This paper is a first exploration of the relationship between service science and Grid computing. Service science is the study of value cocreation interactions among entities, known as service systems. Within the emerging service science community, service is often defined as the application of competences (resources) for the benefit of another. Grid computing is the study of resource sharing among entities, known as virtual organizations, which solve complex business, societal, scientific, and engineering problems. Within the Grid computing community, service is sometimes defined as protocols plus behavior. Both Grid computing and service science are connecting academic, industry, government, and volunteer sector collaborators on a range of projects including eScience, healthcare, environmental sustainability, and more. This paper compares and contrasts the notions of resource, entity, service, interaction, and success criteria for the two areas of study. In conclusion, new areas for collaborative inquiry are proposed.

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Abstraction is a powerful thing. During the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as mass, energy, work, and power. During the twentieth century, the information revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as binary digit or bit, binary coding, and algorithmic complexity. Here, we propose an abstraction for the twenty-first century, in which there is an emerging revolution in thinking about business and economics based on a service-dominant logic. The worldview of service-dominant logic stands in sharp contrast to the worldview of the goods-dominant logic of the past, as it holds service-the application of competences for benefit of othersrather than goods to be the fundamental basis of economic exchange. Within this new worldview, we suggest the basic abstraction is the service system, a configuration of people, technologies, and other resources that interact with other service systems to create mutual value. Many systems can be viewed as service systems, including families, cities, and companies, among many others. In this paper, we show how the service-system abstraction can be used to understand how value is co-created, in the process laying the foundation for an integrated science of service.

The services sector has grown over the last 50 years to dominate economic activity in most advanced industrial economies, yet scientific understanding of modern services is rudimentary. Here, we argue for a services science discipline to integrate across academic silos and advance service innovation more rapidly.

T he current growth of the service sector in global economies is unparalleled in human history-by scale and speed of labor migration. Even large manufacturing firms are seeing dramatic shifts in percent revenue derived from services. The need for service innovations to fuel further economic growth and to raise the quality and productivity levels of services has never been greater. Services are moving to center stage in the global arena, especially knowledge-intensive business services aimed at business performance transformation. One challenge to systematic service innovation is the interdisciplinary nature of service, integrating technology, business, social, and client (demand) innovations. This paper describes the emergence of service science, a new interdisciplinary area of study that aims to address the challenge of becoming more systematic about innovating in service.