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Working Conference on IT and Change in the Service Economy:
Challenges and Possibilities for the 21st Century

10-13 August 2008
Toronto, Ontario Canada

sponsored by IFIP Working Group 8.2

Transformations to and within the service economy are happening on a global scale across public service sectors such as government, health care and education as well as market-based services including finance, biotechnology and telecommunications. The "servicitization" of business by converting products into services (as with leasing and outsourcing) and enhancing traditional products with informational service components further contributes to growth in the service economy. These transformations are enabled by – and often dependent on – information technologies (IT) and are fueled by processes of globalization. Transformational change enables opportunities for innovation in business models, collaborations and work practices but also challenges regulatory, normative, and socio-cultural institutions at all levels – societal, industry, profession, organizational, group and individual levels.

The nature of services activities is distinctive, involving a negotiated and often co-generated exchange between a provider and a supplier or customer in the provision of largely intangible assets. Services exchange often involves many complex combinations of both explicit and tacit knowledge as providers and customers attempt to collectively coordinate and integrate their knowledge in service delivery. For such purposes, ITs such as large-scale information infrastructures and new collaborative tools, including wikis or blogs, support service innovation efforts of the enterprise and often involve multi-disciplinary or cross-functional coordination of expertise and knowledge sharing.

In developing new knowledge from our research, we need to better understand the ways in which these new business models and their associated challenges are institutionally distinctive across professions and across a range of sectors globally. The conference aims to better understand the possibilities and challenges of these transformations, and to examine key implications for organizations, their employees, and IT professionals in the 21st century service economy.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Institutional theory and multi-level analyses of IT-related change in the service economy
• The development and use of IT for service sector innovation
• Industry-specific and industry-spanning transformations in the service economy, enabled by IT
• Redefinition of expertise and boundary roles in service economy work
• The nature of knowledge in services exchange and development
• Globalization of knowledge work and development of expertise in the service economy
• Expertise, apprenticeship and automation in the service economy
• The implications of service industry transformation for changes in skills mix and (re)skilling across professional and occupational groups
• IT-related change in professional fields such as medicine, education, law, and accounting
• Open and social innovation within firms and with customers/suppliers to enhance service offerings (so-called "co-creation" of value with customers)
• New organizational forms that are IT-enabled in the service economy
• Redefining customer service through IT and the self service economy
• Evolution of IT "products" into services (e.g., ASP models, utility and grid computing) and the organizational and market implications.
• Transformation of IT vendors into services providers; implications for IT professions.
• Use and implications of emerging technologies in the service sector, such as RFID in SCM, retailing
• Theoretic and analytic approaches for investigating service economy transformation
• Requirements analysis frameworks for service design and delivery
• Service innovation and organizational change
• Integrating IT Strategy and Enterprise Service Strategy
• Implementing IT Services management and governance
• The organizational perspective of the Services Oriented Approach

Conference Information 
 
Date: 10-13 August 2008
General Chair: Ojelanki Ngwenyama, Ryerson University
Organizing Chair: Catherine Middleton, Ryerson University
Program Co-Chairs: Michael Barrett, Cambridge University (mib1001@cam.ac.uk) and
Elizabeth Davidson, University of Hawaii (edavidso@hawaii.edu)

Location: Ryerson University, Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sponsor: Ryerson University / Ted Rogers School of Management

Key dates
Submissions due: 1 November 2007
Notification of acceptance: 15 February 2008
Final copy due: 1 April 2008
Conference: 10-13 August 2008

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