Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to create awareness on the need for lifting up the level of analysis in service research by focusing on systems, networks, and ecosystems to contribute to the research expansion of the traditionally narrow view of service.Design/methodology/approach: – This conceptual paper is built upon three blocks. First, the viable systems approach is revised to highlight the survival, viability, and complexity of service systems. Second, the dynamics of service networks is discussed using an ecological view of service with a nested, networked configuration. Third, these two previous perspectives are integrated using the fundamentals of ecosystems thinking.Findings: – This paper outlines a novel, tri-level approach reorienting and reframing our thinking around systems, networks, and ecosystems. Some research challenges and directions that could expand the body of knowledge in service research are also discussed.Research limitations/implications: – The tri-level approach proposed in this conceptual paper could be enriched with other theoretical perspectives and empirical explorations.Practical implications: – Lifting the level of analysis by focussing on service systems, service networks, and service ecosystems would allow practitioners to expand their business perspective to better face the challenges of complex business settings, enabling them to co-create value for all their stakeholders.Originality/value: – The paper contributes to set the foundation for the next stage of service research by going beyond dyadic interactions to address dynamic systems, networks, and ecosystems across different interaction patterns in complex business configurations.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the understanding of key issues in service management.Design/methodology/approach: This paper proposes an interpretation of complexity in the context of service systems, which highlights the perspective change that occurs when a systems approach is adopted. The offered conceptual perspective is then brought to an operational level, in spite of the complexity of the decisions driving a viable system, by modelling a service system as a network of agents, resources, processes and decisions through the use of fuzzy logic. The paper reviews service management research streams, and takes a deeper look at the concepts of service systems and complex service systems. The paper then proceeds to discuss how systems thinking contributes to service management by proposing a systems interpretation of complexity.Findings: Service management theories and models may be enhanced by integrating prevailing approaches, based on a quantitative and mechanistic view of service systems dynamics, with systems thinking‐based meta‐models that can be used in better understanding service exchanges. The findings of the paper also show how the integration of an engineering approach can be insightful to the understanding of service systems; adopting a Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a meta‐model can be useful in fully comprehending market behaviour in uncertain conditions.Originality/value: The originality of this paper lies in exploring the contribution of systems thinking, in particular of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA), to service management and decision making.

Purpose: Poverty, hunger, inequalities, diseases, unsustainable use of resources, etc., in spite of scientific progress, still remains unsolved worldwide issues. All these issues relate to the challenges of sustainability and sustainable development that now call for urgent answers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the service research community can respond to this call and to identify key areas of potential contribution.Design/methodology/approach: After a brief review of selected service literature aimed at exploring its interest in the topics of sustainability and sustainable development, the authors develop the interpretative proposal identifying the key requirements of a global engagement in the challenge of sustainability and sustainable development and highlighting the potential contribution of service research.Findings: Findings highlight the potential contribution of service research to the global challenge of sustainability and suggest acting upon education by considering the “T-Shaped” professional model as a possible reference for embedding sustainability in the education of future managers and addressing the need of interdisciplinary thinking through the systems approach.Research limitations/implications: The proposed study of service literature is only an exploratory analysis of main contributions that does not aim to identify gaps but only to highlight the potential of a greater engagement of service research in the global call for a more sustainable and inclusive development.Practical implications: A trans-disciplinary approach is also required. This implies the involvement of the business and the social real world.Originality/value: This paper represents a novel call for engaging the service research community in a boundary-crossing collaboration with the aim of contributing to address the challenge of sustainability.

With the aim of addressing a gap in service research on co-creation in health care, this study discusses the problem of information asymmetry in the service provider–user relationship by adopting the Viable Systems Approach. We develop a three-step interpretative framework to support the understanding of the health service relationship by going beyond the traditional information asymmetry view towards a framework capable of examining the human side of service interaction. Using the case of the Italian Health System, we discuss whether and how the problem of information asymmetry affects the health care provider–user co-creation relationship. Our findings open up a wider view of information asymmetry, suggesting a shift in focus from information sharing to interpretation schemes sharing, all the way up to values sharing, offering new insights for co-creation in health care.