Service science: Catalyst for change in business school curricula

For a service delivery system to produce optimal solutions to service-related business problems, it must be based on an approach that involves many of the traditional functional areas in an organization. Unfortunately, most business school curricula mirror the older traditional organizational structure that dominated businesses throughout most of the twentieth century. This structure typically consisted of vertically organized functions (or silos), such as production, marketing, and finance, with each silo operating largely independently of the others. Similarly, business schools today are usually organized by functional departments—such as marketing, finance, accounting, and operations management—with little interaction among them. Within this traditional silo-structured environment, it is very difficult to properly develop a curriculum, or even a course, in service management. Consequently, a significant gap exists between the education received by business school graduates and the skills that they need to succeed in today's service-intense environment. This paper explores the underlying causes of this gap and suggests ways in which the emerging field of service science can facilitate the changes in business school curricula that will make them more relevant in meeting the needs of today's businesses and organizations. INTRODUCTION Richard Chase of the University of Southern California, an early pioneer who has conducted research in services and introduced service operations as a business school course, has asked: ''Why is it that 80 percent of the economy in the United States is service yet 80 percent of the required operations management courses in business schools still focus primarily on manufacturing?'' 1 The answer, unfortunately, is very simple: Because that is the way it has always been. This issue is not limited only to the field of operations management; for example, the core marketing course typically focuses on product marketing, not service marketing. If we extend our search to other disciplines, we find that the situation can be even worse. For instance, at the vast majority of business schools, no Ó Copyright 2008 by International Business Machines Corporation. Copying in printed form for private use is permitted without payment of royalty provided that (1) each reproduction is done without alteration and (2) the Journal reference and IBM copyright notice are included on the first page. The title and abstract, but no other portions, of this paper may be copied or distributed royalty free without further permission by computer-based and other information-service systems. Permission to republish any other portion of the paper must be obtained …