=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-1821/W1_paper5
|storemode=property
|title=Tackling Knowledge Gaps in Digital Service Delivery
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1821/W1_paper5.pdf
|volume=Vol-1821
|authors=Florian Bär
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/wm/Bar17
}}
==Tackling Knowledge Gaps in Digital Service Delivery==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1821/W1_paper5.pdf
WM1017 - 9te Konferenz Professionelles Wissensmanagement
5.-7. April 2017 in Karlsruhe, Deutschland
Tackling Knowledge Gaps in Digital Service Delivery
Insights from a Case Study and Literature Review
Florian Bär1,2
1 University of Rostock, Albert-Einstein-Str. 22, 18059 Rostock, Germany
Florian.Baer@uni-rostock.de
2 Munich University of Applied Sciences, Lothstr. 64, 80335 Munich, Germany
Florian.Baer@hm.edu
Abstract. Today, in more and more enterprises digital services are offered to
employees. An inherent characteristic of digital service is the self-service con-
cept. Based on findings from a case study and academic literature, it is argued for
the importance of employee knowledge when designing digital services. It is re-
vealed that existing service blueprinting approach are not capable of adequately
reflecting knowledge gaps. To fill this research gap, the paper proposes an agenda
for future research.
Keywords: Digital service, e-service, service blueprinting, knowledge, skills
1 Introduction
Rapid advances in information technology (IT) have paved the way for internal ser-
vice organizations (e.g., departments like IT, human resources and procurement) to of-
fer e-services (digital services) to their internal customers (employees of other depart-
ments) [1, 2]. Such a digital service can be defined as a process of providing any service
through technology-mediated delivery channels, including the internet, intranet and
mobile devices [3].
Technology-mediation as the defining characteristic of digital services generates the
inherent characteristic of digital service as self-service contributing to the digital ser-
vice experience [4]. Self-service channels enable internal customers to perform the ma-
jority of tasks of a service process by themselves and independent of direct involvement
yees [5]. Transferring task-performance to
internal customers, the internal service organization is able to reduce its workload per
service production and delivery and thereby increase its efficiency/productivity [6, 7].
However, not all internal customers are equally capable of performing the transferred
process tasks due to their high complexity and/or a lack of knowledge and skills [8].
Hence, service designers need to be aware of knowledge gaps: knowledge and skills
required to perform devolved process tasks, but which are not possessed by the involved
actors [9, 10]. While knowledge gaps can cause unnecessary costs in internal self-ser-
vice contexts, when offering external self-service they can lead to a loss of income.
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So far, a wide range of approaches for designing and analyzing digital services has
been introduced by academic literature [11]. However, as discussed in a later section of
this paper, these approaches fall short in highlighting potential knowledge gaps (re-
quired knowledge and skills not possessed by involved actors) causing process failures
and employee intervention. Drawing upon case study evidence and literature findings,
it is argued that this information is fundamental when designing digital services and
deciding to whether transferring task-performance to internal customers. The present
position paper argues for a research agenda that aims to stimulate future research on
this topic to fill this research gap.
2 Importance of Employee Knowledge in Digital Self-Service
An exploratory case study approach is applied to analyze the design of a digital ser-
vice offer that is provided by the IT department of a medium-sized German IT-service
provider to its internal customers (software developers, system engineers and IT con-
sultants). The digital service offer was designed in the form of a self-service portal,
which enables the internal customers to deploy Infrastruce-as-a-Services (e.g., virtual
machines) on their own. The main rationale of this portal was to reduce the IT depart-
provisioning and increase the speed of service delivery.
However, regarding the former anticipated benefit, the digital service offer failed to
succeed. Virtual machines deployed by the internal customers were often excessively
customized (regarding CPU, storage and memory) and misused for undesired purposes
and use cases. In consequence, decision makers of the IT department had to intervene
and perform recovery tasks, such as the reconfiguration of oversized virtual machines
and migration of misused virtual machines into separate cloud environments, differing
from traditional service delivery tasks. These interventions were necessary to prevent a
rapid decrease of limited IT resources and violations of agreed software license terms.
Source Evidence
IT Consultant f view, but for end
users it is too much to handle users should
not have control over the amount of memory [of the virtual ma-
chine] and so on
CIO [ ] they request testing environments, which they should pro-
vide through the self-service portal, and after two weeks we rec-
develop [software] on them [virtual ma-
chines] ecause they provide the vir-
tual machines [replacement for colloquial term] on their own [ ]
and are able to make these faults .
Table 1. Evidence from the case study.
It is argued by the interviewed decision makers that, among other contextual factors,
the lack of the internal customers
ware license restrictions lead to the occurred problems (see Table 1). The IT department
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plans to redesign the digital service offer and to consider task requirements and char-
acteristics of the internal customers, in terms of establishing control mechanisms for
the service process and providing adequate training and support for employees of other
departments.
Source Evidence
[8] Organizations will need to articulate exactly what knowledge, skills and
capabilities customers require; how they will acquire them, i.e. from where
or who; and what the associated learning curve will involve
[10] Finally, low-value, high-volume standard transactions that require the
least customer effort and knowledge are the ones most suitable for self-
services
[9] Taken together, the above reasoning highlights the notion that the value
customers can cocreate in a particular service channel (i.e., the value-in-
context) differs markedly, when considering the differences between cus-
ces (i.e., ability, motivation, knowledge) and unique service
circumstances (e.g., complexity of the service task)
Table 2. Evidence from academic literature.
Academic literature also highlights the importance of customer knowledge and skills
for the success of digital service offers (see Table 2). In [10] it is identified that the
service process characteristics (characteristics of the co-production tasks and customer
characteristics) moderate the service provider s cost reduction when offering web-
based self-service channels. are effective for simple,
unambiguous tasks but not so for comprehensive and ambiguous tasks [10]. Based on
Media Richness Theory and Channel Expansion Theory, in [9] it is argued that custom-
ers create most value from self-service offers when they are used for simple and recur-
rent tasks. The authors of [9] further claim that customers are also able to derive value
from complex tasks, in case they are confident in their own knowledge and skills. Over-
all, service organizations need to be aware of what knowledge and skills their customers
require and whether they already acquired it [8].
3 Lack of Knowledge Consideration in Service Blueprinting
In [11] a number of approaches for service process specification and analysis has
been identified and examined. In the present paper, those approaches that allow for the
specification and analysis of the customer more
detail to analyze whether they support the identification of potential knowledge gaps.
Table 3 depicts the resulting list of relevant approaches.
Approach Consideration of customer knowledge
Adapted Service Blueprint [13] -
Customer Experience Modeling [14] -
Flexible Service Systems [15] Competence propositions and matches
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Resource Mapping Framework [16] Required resources for boundary shifts
Structured Analysis and Design Actor roles; job descriptions
Technique [17]
Public Value Process Mapping [18] Affecting actions and strategies
i* [19] -
Table 3. Examined approaches and level of customer knowledge consideration.
Though the approaches described in [13, 14, 19] do allow for the specification and
assignment of individual actor roles, it is not possible to describe these roles in terms
of their possessed knowledge and skills. Also, the complexity of the tasks comprised
by a modeled service process cannot be described when making use of these tools.
The approach in [15] introduces the concept of competence propositions presented
by service providers and evaluated by service customers in a given market. In this con-
text, a competence is defined as knowledge and skills that either can be applied by the
service provider and/or is required by the customer. The matching of two competence
propositions results in the happening of a service episode. Although the concepts of
competence propositions and matches are promising, they do not hold for individual
service processes, but only for service systems and their interactions.
In [16] a Resource Mapping Framework is introduced, which aims to support service
designers in identifying changes in resource requirements for the service provider and
customer when shifting the service boundary towards either self-service or super-ser-
vice. However, the framework is very abstract and general in the sense that it does not
provide concrete methods or tools to describe such required knowledge and skills as
well as changes in these.
The Structured Analysis and Design Technique allows for the assignment of actor
roles to specific process tasks. Actor roles that are assigned to process tasks can be
incorporated into job descriptions, depicted through separate models. Such job descrip-
tion models portray the service personnel
As such, the focus of these models is not on the knowledge and skills possessed by the
employees of the service organization, but on tasks performed by individual roles
jointly or separately.
Adopting Public Value Process Mapping [18], decision makers are able to derive
key actions relevant for the realization of public value. For each of these key actions,
contribution to the intended outcome. Such associated actions can involve the estab-
lishment of specific knowledge and skills for the involved actors. Nevertheless, result-
ing models rather reflect means-end chains instead of service processes. Also, the ap-
proach does not support the specification of the current actors
4 Discussion and Future Research Agenda
In this section an agenda for future research is presented, which guides scholar in
addressing the identified shortcomings.
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Identification and clustering of knowledge and skills relevant for digital service
delivery. Future research should aim to identify specific knowledge and skills that are
of importance for the production and delivery of digital services. It should be investi-
gated whether this knowledge and skills could be clustered along different service cat-
egories, types of process tasks and involved employee roles. Further, research is re-
quired to determine how employees can acquire such required knowledge and skills
and service providers can ensure the adequate performance of service process tasks.
Scholars are encouraged to identify themes of knowledge and skills relevant to digital
service delivery.
Design of meta-models allowing for the representation of co-production task and
employee characteristics. Scholars should elaborate on how to represent the
knowledge and skills required by service process tasks and/or possessed by involved
process actors in service blueprints. Therefore, meta-models should be designed de-
scribing the necessary constructs for knowledge and skill representation and their in-
terrelations. The meta-models of the approaches in [16, 18] could serve as a basis for
the design of appropriate meta-models. For instance, they could be combined with the
meta-model of the well-accepted Service Blueprinting approach.
Development and evaluation of service blueprinting approaches supporting the
identification of knowledge gaps. Based on designed meta-models, new service blue-
printing approaches should be developed and evaluated. Such approaches should enable
decision makers to design digital service offers, identify potential knowledge gaps of
involved employees and derive training and support programs to ensure task-perfor-
mance and effectiveness. Evaluations in the form of case studies or illustrative scenar-
ios should be performed to demonstrate the theoretical and managerial contributions of
the approaches.
In this paper, the importance of employee (internal customer) knowledge for the
success and design of digital service offers is presented. Evidence were collected from
a case study and self-service literature. It is further presented that current service blue-
printing approaches do not adequately allow for the identification of knowledge gaps.
To tackle these shortfalls, we present a research agenda.
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