The Application of a Service Ecosystems Lens to Public Policy Analysis and Design: Exploring the Frontiers

Abstract

The relevance of marketing for public policy has been questioned because its focus on dyadic exchanges does not consider the dynamism and complexity of public problems. Public service-dominant logic, as a new lens for public policy and management, does not address this limitation, because its focus remains on delivering services to the end user. Integrating recent developments in service-dominant logic and related research, this article proposes applying a service ecosystems lens to public policy. Five propositions guide the application of this lens to public policy analysis and design. Public policy is conceptualized as a means to enable service by coordinating multiple actors' value cocreation activities to address public problems. Inherent in this conceptualization is the multilevel nature of policy analysis, which includes the users' value creation process (micro level), the context (meso level), and the broader value constellation (macro level). Policy design, in turn, includes the identification and support of emergent solutions driven by different actors. Policy makers therefore need to consider problem-conditions-solution combinations across the value constellation and the effect of public interventions on these constellations. The article concludes by presenting policy makers with marketing and design practices that can assist in the analysis of service ecosystems and engage relevant stakeholders in change initiatives.

Following the yellow brick road? (Dis)enchantment with co-design, co-production and value co-creation in public services

“…While the view that public services are different in nature than services in the private sector is inevitably dominant in public management and public administration research, it is certainly not unanimous. In their recent article, Trischler and Charles (2019) argued precisely the opposite.…”

“…There are two key points in this assertion: first, that services are inherently different from goods in that production and consumption occur simultaneously (e.g. Osborne 2018) but both goods and services are resources which users integrate into their value creation process (Trischler and Charles 2019); second, that public value is different from the concept of economic, or private value (Bovaird and Loeffler 2012b), more often implied in connexion with the concept of 'value'.…”

“…However, not everyone subscribes to this, arguably dyadic, perspective of services (e.g. Trischler and Charles 2019). Newer conceptualizations of organizational configurations implicated in the delivery of public services are Trischler's and Charles's (2019) public service ecosystems, following Vargo and Lusch's (2016) service ecosystems, and Hodgkinson's public service network framework (Hodgkinson et al 2017).…”

“…While public service logic (PSL) was only recently formulated (Osborne 2018), the theory is rooted in the service-logic (SL) perspective developed some decade earlier (Grönroos 2006). Chronologically, the service logic (SL) extended 'service-dominant logic' (SDL) (Vargo and Lush 2004), only to then get incorporated into a more holistic perspective of SDL which is suitable to both actor-to-actor and ecosystem service lenses (Vargo and Lusch 2016;Trischler and Charles 2019), and was further extended by consumer-dominant logic (CDL) (Heinonen et al 2010), also incorporated into the newer SDL outlook. SDL has its equivalent in the public-service dominant logic (PSDL) in the public sector and no extension of the CDL framework is found in the public sector management literature as yet, but despite the newer SDL perspective of Vargo and Lusch (2016) not seeing a suitable translation into the public service literature, there are signs of progress towards public service value ecosystems (with which Lember and colleagues, as well as Petrescu, engage in this issue).…”

Leveraging service design as a multidisciplinary approach to service innovation

“…From a service research perspective, the emerging concern about service ecosystems focuses on social structures (Edvardsson and Tronvoll, 2013) and on breaking down existing institutional arrangements, reconfiguring new service ecosystems based on novel practices and beliefs (Koskela-Huotari et al, 2016). Public policies can also consolidate 705 Leveraging service design institutional change and shape the macro level of service ecosystem, as highlighted by Trischler and Charles (2019), since they coordinate the collective, multi-actor and systemic phenomenon of value co-creation between actors. Therefore, understanding users and their value co-creation processes are key to public policy design, in order to identify the most suitable configuration of resources to integrate and support emergent solutions within service ecosystems (Trischler and Charles, 2019).…”