Value Co-Creation in Smart Services: A Functional Affordances Perspective on Smart Personal Assistants

Abstract

In the realm of smart services, smart personal assistants (SPAs) have become a popular medium for value co-creation between service providers and users. The market success of SPAs is largely based on their innovative material properties, such as natural language user interfaces, machine learning-powered request handling and service provision, and anthropomorphism. In different combinations, these properties offer users entirely new ways to intuitively and interactively achieve their goals and thus co-create value with service providers. But how does the nature of the SPA shape value co-creation processes? In this paper, we look through a functional affordances lens to theorize about the effects of different types of SPAs (i.e., with different combinations of material properties) on users’ value co-creation processes. Specifically, we collected SPAs from research and practice by reviewing scientific literature and web resources, developed a taxonomy of SPAs’ material properties, and performed a cluster analysis to group SPAs of a similar nature. We then derived 2 general and 11 cluster-specific propositions on how different material properties of SPAs can yield different affordances for value co-creation. With our work, we point out that smart services require researchers and practitioners to fundamentally rethink value co-creation as well as revise affordances theory to address the dynamic nature of smart technology as a service counterpart.

Open innovation starts from home: the potentials of enterprise social media (ESM) in nurturing employee innovation

“…, 2018; Ng and Yee, 2020; Treem and Leonardi, 2013). This is in line with prior studies, which looked through an affordance lens to theorize the function and structure of different technology types (Knote et al. , 2021), including the use of social media in communication processes (Weber and Haseki, 2019).…”

“…Using functional affordances instead of features as a theoretical lens can aid us in studying a wide range of ESM applications-independent of their differences in implementation (Estell et al, 2021;Leidner et al, 2018;Ng and Yee, 2020;Treem and Leonardi, 2013). This is in line with prior studies, which looked through an affordance lens to theorize the function and structure of different technology types (Knote et al, 2021), including the use of social media in communication processes (Weber and Haseki, 2019). The affordance lens allowed us to capture the interplay between ESM as a technology artifact, and user attributes such as goals (Djamasbi and Strong, 2019) or capabilities (Abhari et al, 2018).…”

On the Usefulness of Online Review Valance

“…CAs include all software that allows people to have a conversation with a computer, for example chatbots, virtual agents, or artificial conversational entities. They can lead an intelligent conversation with a user via voice or textual methods (Knote et al, 2021). CAs have a long history, with memorable representatives like ELIZA, ALICE, Claude, and HeX.…”

Exploring the Potential of Smart Service Systems: A Multi-Actor View on Affordances and Their Actualization

“…When applying the theory of affordances in an IS context, several frameworks have been used (e.g., functional affordances (Knote et al 2021;Markus and Silver 2008;Seidel et al 2013) or technology affordances and constraints (Effah et al 2021;Leonardi 2011;Majchrzak and Markus 2012)). This is also reflected in an ongoing debate on a few conceptions of applying the theory (Fromm et al 2020;Ostern and Rosemann 2021;Pentland et al 2021;Volkoff and Strong 2017).…”