Service Innovation & Sustainability Flashcards

Question

How are individual and structural reforms connected in climate action?

Answer 1

*Individual and structural reforms are interdependent. Structural reforms: Encourage and enable individuals to adopt sustainable behaviors. Individual actions: Help drive and support broader systemic changes. (Both must work together for effective climate solutions).

Answer 2

The debate is part of a long-standing discussion on individual agency versus structural factors in shaping society. It appears in political ideologies, social science theories, and environmental activism.

Answer 3

- Having fewer children. - Living car-free. - Flying less. - Adopting a plant-based diet. - Recycling. - Conserving water. - Repairing instead of replacing items.

Answer 4

Focus on: - Changing institutions. - Economic system. - Policies to create large-scale impact.

Answer 5

Climate change is a systemic issue embedded in economic and social structures. Claiming concepts like “personal carbon footprint” were promoted by corporations to shift responsibility away from major polluters and onto individuals.

Answer 6

The duck-rabbit illusion is an image that can be seen as either a duck or a rabbit but not both at the same time. People tend to see either individual actions or structural changes as the solution, rather than recognizing that both are necessary and interconnected.

Answer 7

People find it difficult to hold both perspectives at once, just like in the duck-rabbit illusion. Discussions or the media often emphasizes one side over the other rather looking at it interconnected.

Answer 8

The authors argue that treating individual and structural actions as opposing forces slows progress. It creates false debates, divides activists, and prevents collaboration. Instead of choosing one over the other, solutions should integrate both perspectives.

Answer 9

The perception depends on what aspect is emphasized. Fx, a policy promoting electric vehicles can be seen as individualist (people choosing to buy EVs) or structuralist (government incentives and infrastructure changes encouraging adoption).

Answer 10

Addressing both ensures more effective change. Structural reforms (like policies and regulations) make sustainable choices easier for individuals, while individual actions (like advocacy and lifestyle changes) help push for broader systemic reforms. They work together rather than separately.

Answer 11

Critics argue that individual choices have little impact on overall greenhouse gas emissions and that it is unfair to place the burden on ordinary people instead of major polluters and policymakers.

Answer 12

They believe that while some individual choices may be ineffective, it is wrong to generalize that all individual actions are useless. Instead, the focus should be on actions that contribute to structural change.

Answer 13

Actions like voting for green policies, joining environmental campaigns, lobbying, protesting, and helping create alternative social systems can push for larger systemic reforms.

Answer 14

Clearer communication can help people understand which actions are most effective in supporting structural reforms, making climate activism more impactful.

Answer 15

Being "carbon-capable" means going beyond personal lifestyle changes and actively engaging in actions that influence policy and societal structures, such as advocacy and collective activism.

Answer 16

It’s the tendency to assume that big problems require equally big causes and solutions. This can lead people to dismiss individual actions as too small to matter in solving climate change.

Answer 17

Describing structural solutions as “big,” “deep,” or “durable” can make them seem more important while making individual actions seem insignificant, even if both are necessary.

Answer 18

There is no fixed rule for what counts as structural. For example, people might debate whether Walmart switching to LED bulbs is a structural change, depending on their views of Walmart.

Answer 19

While it might inspire participation, it could also discourage people by making them feel their personal efforts are too small to matter.

Answer 20

Some arguments favoring “big” structural solutions may unconsciously reflect traditional masculine ideals, similar to how meat-eating has been linked to masculinity in advertising.

Answer 21

Zero-sum thinking assumes that actions like recycling take away from more important actions, like holding corporations accountable for pollution. But not all actions are zero-sum; sometimes individual efforts support larger structural changes.

Answer 22

Yes, research suggests that when individuals adopt sustainable behaviors, they are often more likely to support structural changes, like policy changes, as well.

Answer 23

People who practice green consumer behaviors, such as going car-free, might be more likely to engage in political actions that support climate-friendly policies.

Answer 24

Instead of choosing between individual or structural change, the focus should be on what specific systems (like government or economy) need to change, and how individuals can play a role in those changes.

Answer 25

They are interconnected. Structural reforms need people’s support to succeed, and individual behaviors are influenced by social structures. Both need to work together for meaningful change.

Answer 26

Symbiotic thinking sees individual and structural reforms as mutually reinforcing, not opposing. They should work together to effectively address the climate crisis.

Answer 27

Carbon taxes are a structural reform to reduce emissions, but they face political resistance, requiring support from individual attitudes and beliefs.

Answer 28

Individual psychology influences public support for policies, so framing policies to appeal to fairness and gain is crucial for success.

Answer 29

Structural forces shape individual choices by making certain behaviors easier or more appealing, influencing climate strategies that rely on those choices.

Answer 30

Individual actions can be framed as contributing to larger structural transformations, like supporting green policies or participating in activism.

Answer 31

The article suggests that individual actions and structural interventions are connected and should complement each other.

Answer 32

Persuasion strategies should focus on the specific roles, constraints, and motivations of different individuals to effectively inspire action.

Answer 33

Combining both approaches creates a more comprehensive and effective strategy for achieving climate goals.

Answer 34

Social norms influence individual behavior by shaping expectations within a community. They can be leveraged to disseminate climate information and motivate pro-environmental actions.

Answer 35

Individual actions, like going car-free, send signals that influence perceptions of what is normal, shaping community expectations about climate-friendly behaviors.

Answer 36

Individuals with social prestige can influence others by setting norms, and their visible commitment to climate action can have a larger impact on shaping societal behavior

Answer 37

Public figures risk being seen as hypocritical if their personal choices don’t reflect their advocacy for climate action, reducing the effectiveness of their influence.

Answer 38

Factors like an individual's social location, visibility, and geographic context determine how much influence they have in shaping social norms.

Answer 39

It refers to what individuals can realistically do given political, economic, and cultural constraints, as well as what policies leaders can implement based on public opinion and interest group influence.

Answer 40

It assesses whether an action will spread or backfire, considering political divisions, long-term durability, and potential unintended consequences.

Answer 41

It evaluates how predictable the effects of climate actions are, such as when consumer choices reach tipping points or whether past policies can be generalized to new contexts.

Answer 42

It moves the debate beyond choosing between individual or structural change, focusing instead on how they interact to create effective interventions.

Answer 43

It can make individual actions seem ineffective and structural change feel overwhelming, leading to inaction.

Answer 44

These are roles where individuals start change based on their position fx. scientists conduct research, lawmakers create policies, activists mobilize support, and businesses innovate.

Answer 45

These roles ensure long-term success by guiding policies through implementation, correcting misperceptions, and maintaining public support.

Answer 46

By communicating the benefits of policies, countering misinformation, and reinforcing positive feedback loops like the "green vortex."

Answer 47

By creating a strong climate-focused social identity and mobilizing voters around it.

Answer 48

They built a committed identity-based movement, ensuring consistent political pressure.

Answer 49

It mobilizes mass support, translating individual actions into structural change.

Answer 50

Uniting diverse social groups and maintaining long-term engagement.

Answer 51

By linking climate action to shared identities, social roles, and timely events.

Answer 52

SD was introduced in Our Common Future (1987) by the UN, promoting long-term environmental strategies through global cooperation.

Answer 53

Initially a government-led initiative, SD now actively involves private businesses in driving sustainability.

Answer 54

Hybrid organizations balance profit with socio-ecological impact, tackling global challenges sustainably.

Answer 55

TBL integrates economic, environmental, and social goals, guiding sustainability-oriented hybrid organizations.

Answer 56

B Corps exemplify businesses that blend profit with sustainability, aiding SD transitions.

Answer 57

They follow TBL principles, balancing profit with environmental and social impact.

Answer 58

It prioritizes all stakeholders, not just shareholders, fostering inclusive growth.

Answer 59

Empirical insights on their real-world sustainability impact are lacking.

Answer 60

ST shows how B Corps interact with and reshape social structures.

Answer 61

It explores B Corps’ role in SD across four key areas: 1. Future generations. 2. Human development. 3. New mindsets. 4. Socio-political engagement.

Answer 62

When it maintains sufficient liquidity for long-term profitability.

Answer 63

Using resources at a rate lower than their natural regeneration or substitutes.

Answer 64

By adding value to communities and supporting their development.

Answer 65

They integrate economic, environmental, and social goals, promoting net positive sustainability.

Answer 66

They address SD challenges and consider both present and future generations.

Answer 67

They are entities that pursue a social mission while engaging in commercial activities to sustain operations.

Answer 68

They combine commercial and charitable activities to address social problems.

Answer 69

They are linked to work integration, environmental protection, employment, and local development.

Answer 70

A type of hybrid organization that aligns profit with social and environmental impact while prioritizing transparency and accountability.

Answer 71

The Benefit Impact Assessment (BIA), scoring at least 80 out of 200 points in communities, workers, environment, customers, and governance.

Answer 72

They aim to be “The Best Enterprises for the World” rather than just “The World’s Best Companies.”

Answer 73

They integrate the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) dimensions (into their business models): 1. Economic. 2. Social. 3. Environmental.

Answer 74

1. Considering future generations. 2. Enhancing human development. 3. Encouraging new mindsets and behaviors. 4. Promoting socio-political engagement.

Answer 75

A theory by Anthony Giddens that explains the interaction between agency (individual actions) and structure (social systems).

Answer 76

Structures shape human actions, but human actions also reproduce and reshape structures.

Answer 77

1. Signification (meaning and communication). 2. Legitimation (norms and values). 3. Domination (power and resources).

Answer 78

Agents use their knowledge, resources, and actions to reinforce or transform social systems.

Answer 79

It helps analyze how B Corps impact sustainable development by shaping and being shaped by social structures.

Answer 80

1. Social enterprises in the UK. 2. Minority-led businesses. 3. Sustainable entrepreneurship in Latin America.

Answer 81

Practitioners should critically reflect on their SD practices, and policymakers should support hybrid organizations to enhance sustainable business models.

Answer 82

It explains how cultural behaviors are shaped by shared rules and resources within a society, impacting sustainability.

Answer 83

It's based on Giddens’s structuration theory, where individuals' actions are influenced by social structures of meaning, norms, and power.

Answer 84

It helps analyze how cultural behaviors, including sustainability, are influenced by shared social structures, which can be reshaped to promote change.

Answer 85

1. Signification (interpretation). 2. Legitimation (norms/values). 3. Domination (resources/power).

Answer 86

Sustainability requires a shift in cultural norms, not just technology, to change behaviors and priorities.

Answer 87

It focuses only on market transactions, neglecting non-market behaviors that are essential for sustainability.

Answer 88

By understanding the structures of signification, legitimation, and domination, we can redesign cultural rules to promote sustainability.

Answer 89

Power and domination relate to an actor’s ability to influence change and resource allocation, not an unequal distribution.

Answer 90

Action aims for change, balancing between past experience and future possibilities.

Answer 91

Cultural patterns become routine through repeated action, eventually becoming invisible to those involved.

Answer 92

Societies resist change due to embedded structures, leading to a continuation of existing behaviors.

Answer 93

Language helps coordinate activities, with meanings becoming embedded through repeated use.

Answer 94

Both Giddens and Heidegger emphasize cultural norms over individual internal processes as the basis for action.

Answer 95

Change occurs when any part of the structure (norms, resources, etc.) is altered, leading to new routines and patterns.

Answer 96

New technologies often shift norms and power dynamics, impacting behavior and creating new cultural practices.

Answer 97

Like therapy, achieving sustainability requires recognizing ineffective behaviors and changing underlying rules.

Answer 98

The cultural structure is shown as a circular flow between beliefs, norms, authority/power, and tools, with action moving clockwise from one to the next.

Answer 99

Beliefs: How people perceive the world. Norms: Actions considered appropriate. Authority/Power: The power to make decisions. Tools: Resources used to act.

Answer 100

Action starts with the real world, which is filtered through beliefs before guiding behavior.

Answer 101

Reflexive monitoring involves observing outcomes, comparing them to expectations, and adjusting actions accordingly.

Answer 102

Disruptions lead to reflection and can prompt changes in beliefs, norms, or tools.

Answer 103

They are deeply rooted in culture and tradition, making them resistant to change.

Answer 104

Tools can guide new behaviors, making it easier to shift practices towards sustainability.

Answer 105

Power structures control resources, influencing sustainability efforts. Changes in power are needed for greater sustainability.

Answer 106

Focus on tools and technology to change behaviors, rather than directly altering beliefs and norms.

Answer 107

The approach values direct experience over theory, aiming to learn from real-world observation.

Answer 108

They believe it increases costs and reduces competitiveness.

Answer 109

They think competitors in developing countries face fewer environmental pressures.

Answer 110

Many executives consider it a corporate social responsibility rather than a business strategy.

Answer 111

They believe voluntary actions are insufficient to drive real change.

Answer 112

They face supplier limitations, high costs of new equipment, and consumer unwillingness to pay more.

Answer 113

It reduces costs, improves product quality, and creates new business opportunities.

Answer 114

Early adopters develop unique capabilities that rivals struggle to match.

Answer 115

It gives them a head start on innovation and regulatory changes.

Answer 116

They anticipated future regulations and gained a competitive advantage.

Answer 117

It simplifies operations, reduces costs, and optimizes supply chains.

Answer 118

It increases the risk of cancer in people exposed to it.

Answer 119

It needed more time to test alternative coatings.

Answer 120

To encourage competition and lower costs.

Answer 121

To reduce the high costs of government recycling programs.

Answer 122

It reduced recycling costs by 55% and improved HP’s reputation.

Answer 123

To reduce costs, improve efficiency, and build a greener image.

Answer 124

Incentives help suppliers adopt sustainable practices.

Answer 125

To cut waste, reduce emissions, and improve product efficiency.

Answer 126

To analyze environmental impact across the entire supply chain.

Answer 127

Vendors use up to 80% of the resources in a supply chain.

Answer 128

To reduce fuel consumption by 36% while increasing capacity by 20%.

Answer 129

To improve energy efficiency and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Answer 130

To create a new revenue stream from sustainability solutions.

Answer 131

1. Viewing Compliance as Opportunity. 2. Making value chains sustainable. 3. Designing sustainable products and services. 4. Dvopling new business models. 5. Creating next-practice platforms.

Answer 132

Turning regulatory compliance into an opportunity for innovation.

Answer 133

Anticipating regulations and collaborating with other companies for solutions.

Answer 134

By encouraging companies to experiment with sustainable technologies, materials, and processes.

Answer 135

Increasing efficiency throughout the value chain.

Answer 136

Expertise in carbon management, life-cycle assessment, and eco-friendly operations.

Answer 137

- Developing sustainable raw materials. - Increasing clean energy use. - Repurposing returned products.

Answer 138

Creating eco-friendly products and services or redesigning existing ones.

Answer 139

- Identifying environmentally harmful products. - Avoiding "greenwashing". - Scaling green materials.

Answer 140

Using biomimicry and creating compact, eco-friendly packaging.

Answer 141

Finding new ways to deliver and capture value, changing the basis of competition.

Answer 142

Understanding consumer needs and leveraging partnerships to enhance value.

Answer 143

- Developing new delivery technologies. - Creating service-based monetization models. - Combining digital and physical infrastructures.

Answer 144

To reduce: - Travel time. - Travel cost. - Energy use. ....Partly due to environmental concerns.

Answer 145

Job satisfaction increases when employees work remotely up to three days a week.

Answer 146

To rethink the dominant business logic through a sustainability lens.

Answer 147

Because they impact business ecosystems and industries.

Answer 148

The ability to synthesize business models, technologies, and regulations across industries.

Answer 149

By building innovative business platforms.

Answer 150

Developing cleaning products that don’t require water.

Answer 151

By designing technologies that allow them to use energy produced as a by-product.

Answer 152

To cut waste and recapture lost value instead of scrapping returned products.

Answer 153

It can turn a cost center into a profitable business while reducing waste and environmental damage.

Answer 154

Because 80% of the returned equipment was still in working condition.

Answer 155

Cisco’s customer service organization (for warranty claims and service contracts) and technical support/training labs.

Answer 156

Equipment reuse increased, and recycling costs decreased.

Answer 157

Sustainability efforts can improve financial performance and embed environmental concerns into business strategy.

Answer 158

Because they realize that many consumers prefer eco-friendly offerings, creating a competitive advantage.

Answer 159

By using competencies and tools developed in earlier sustainability stages.

Answer 160

Companies rethink materials, processes, and energy use, leading to more efficient and eco-friendly products.

Answer 161

Consumers increasingly prefer sustainable products, encouraging companies to innovate and adapt.

Answer 162

They expand market opportunities, attract eco-conscious customers, and drive industry-wide shifts.

Answer 163

They can lower production costs, increase brand loyalty, and create new revenue streams.

Answer 164

By securing third-party endorsements, partnering with environmental organizations, and maintaining transparency.

Answer 165

Companies must optimize supply chains, source sustainable materials, and redesign production processes.

Answer 166

It encourages innovation, resilience, and adaptability, positioning businesses for future success.

Answer 167

Higher production costs, consumer skepticism, and the need to balance sustainability with profitability.

Answer 168

By continuously improving products, expanding eco-friendly offerings, and aligning with global sustainability trends.

Answer 169

Traditional models often overlook resource efficiency, waste reduction, and new revenue opportunities.

Answer 170

They reduce costs, improve efficiency, and generate new revenue streams by rethinking service delivery.

Answer 171

It enables companies to develop innovative solutions, such as digital logistics or waste-to-value processes.

Answer 172

Collaborating with other businesses helps companies share resources, expand capabilities, and reduce environmental impact.

Answer 173

They can lower operational costs, attract eco-conscious customers, and create profitable new service lines.

Answer 174

They encourage businesses to question existing processes and explore alternative ways to deliver value.

Answer 175

Adoption barriers include customer skepticism, regulatory hurdles, and initial investment costs.

Answer 176

Companies that innovate early can shape market trends, gain first-mover advantages, and future-proof their businesses.

Answer 177

By integrating sustainability into core operations rather than treating it as an add-on, ensuring both environmental and financial returns.

Answer 178

Markets, technologies, and regulations evolve, so companies must remain flexible to stay ahead.

Answer 179

They are innovations that fundamentally change industry paradigms by challenging existing assumptions.

Answer 180

Best practices improve current models, while next-practices redefine industries and create entirely new ways of doing business.

Answer 181

It drives breakthroughs, such as automobiles replacing horse-drawn carriages or digital grids transforming energy management.

Answer 182

It enables new solutions, like smart grids that optimize energy use and cross-industry platforms that improve efficiency.

Answer 183

It pushes companies to rethink resource use, develop eco-friendly solutions, and create new business opportunities.

Answer 184

Smart grids reduce costs, improve energy efficiency, and create opportunities for digital energy management platforms.

Answer 185

Strong leadership commitment, strategic investments, and a workforce that values environmental responsibility.

Answer 186

Companies with strong environmental commitments attract and retain employees who prioritize social responsibility.

Answer 187

Rising global consumption will strain traditional models, forcing companies to develop sustainable, scalable solutions.

Answer 188

The future of business will be driven by sustainability, making innovation the foundation of long-term success.

Answer 189

Companies focus too narrowly on short-term profits, overlooking broader societal needs and long-term success factors like sustainability and community well-being.

Answer 190

Businesses have failed to address larger social challenges, and political leaders, in response, implement policies that undermine economic competitiveness.

Answer 191

Shared value involves creating economic value in ways that also create value for society by addressing its needs and challenges, rather than just maximizing profits.

Answer 192

Shared value integrates societal impact into the core business strategy, while social responsibility and philanthropy are peripheral activities.

Answer 193

A narrow conception of capitalism has prevented businesses from fully utilizing their potential to solve social challenges and contribute to societal progress.

Answer 194

By reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and enabling local cluster development to benefit society and boost economic performance.

Answer 195

Societal needs, not just economic ones, define markets, and addressing social problems can help reduce internal costs for businesses, making it a win-win situation.

Answer 196

Fair trade redistributes existing value by paying farmers higher prices, while shared value improves productivity and creates new value, benefiting both farmers and companies.

Answer 197

Businesses can innovate through new technologies, methods, and management approaches to reduce costs and expand markets, leading to greater productivity and social impact.

Answer 198

A business relies on a successful community for demand and public support, while a community depends on businesses for jobs and wealth creation. This interdependence makes policies that hurt business productivity self-defeating.

Answer 199

In the old view, businesses simply made profits, which indirectly benefited society through jobs and taxes. Social or community issues were seen as outside a business's scope, limiting its broader impact.

Answer 200

Shared value refers to policies and practices that enhance a company's competitiveness while also improving the economic and social conditions in the communities where it operates, recognizing the connection between societal and economic progress.

Answer 201

Managers focused on increasing sales and profits without addressing deeper societal needs, leading to inefficiency, lack of innovation, and missed opportunities for broader value creation.

Answer 202

Companies have often ignored the impact of the broader business environment and the importance of their location on productivity and innovation, leading to missed opportunities for strategic advantage.

Answer 203

By reconceiving products and markets, redefining productivity in the value chain, and developing supportive industry clusters around company locations.

Answer 204

It connects company success with societal progress, opening new opportunities to serve unmet needs, gain efficiency, and differentiate, while expanding markets.

Answer 205

GE's Ecomagination products, which focus on environmentally friendly solutions, have generated significant revenue and contribute to societal benefits, showing how business innovation can meet societal needs.

Answer 206

Shared value encourages hybrid enterprises that combine for-profit goals with social missions, like WaterHealth International, which provides affordable clean water, and Revolution Foods, offering nutritious meals while maintaining profitability.

Answer 207

WaterHealth International and Revolution Foods are examples of businesses that blend profit and social good, demonstrating that companies can create societal benefits while being economically successful.

Answer 208

Addressing societal issues like employee wellness can reduce absenteeism and boost productivity, benefiting both the firm and society.

Answer 209

Companies can serve disadvantaged communities, such as providing mobile banking services in Kenya or agricultural advice to farmers in India, creating both societal benefits and company profits.

Answer 210

The starting point is identifying societal needs, benefits, and harms that can be embedded in the company’s products, and continuously exploring these opportunities.

Answer 211

Companies can create innovative products and distribution methods for underserved markets, leading to fundamental innovations that can be applied in traditional markets as well.

Answer 212

Societal issues, like environmental concerns and worker safety, affect a company’s value chain and can create opportunities to reduce costs and improve productivity.

Answer 213

Addressing externalities like excess packaging and greenhouse gas emissions can reduce costs, as shown by Wal-Mart’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint while saving millions.

Answer 214

Shared value thinking promotes improvements in areas like energy use, resource utilization, logistics, and safety, which can lead to long-term productivity gains.

Answer 215

Companies are reexamining energy use throughout their value chains, improving technology, recycling, and reworking logistics to reduce energy consumption and costs, benefiting both the company and the environment.

Answer 216

Through better technology and resource management, companies like Jain Irrigation have driven growth and helped save valuable resources like water, proving that sustainability can be profitable.

Answer 217

Traditional procurement focuses on driving down prices, which can hurt small businesses or subsistence-level farmers. However, increasing access to inputs, sharing technology, and providing financing can improve productivity and create shared value.

Answer 218

Employee wellness programs, like those at Johnson & Johnson, reduce health-related costs and increase productivity, offering a high return on investment and a more present workforce.

Answer 219

Nespresso worked with small coffee farmers by offering advice, bank loans, and access to inputs, improving their productivity, environmental impact, and income while securing a reliable coffee supply.

Answer 220

Buying locally avoids inefficiencies like transaction costs and increases flexibility, innovation, and community prosperity, creating shared value for both businesses and local suppliers.

Answer 221

Companies like iTunes and Hindustan Unilever are adopting new distribution models that reduce environmental impact and reach underserved communities, such as Unilever’s Project Shakti, which empowers women and extends market reach in rural India.

Answer 222

Companies are rethinking their global strategies, realizing that local sourcing and production can reduce costs, improve flexibility, and build stronger community ties, as seen with Wal-Mart and Olam International.

Answer 223

By establishing deeper roots in important communities, companies can create long-term value through local employment, reduced logistical costs, and stronger supplier relationships, which benefits both the company and the community.

Answer 224

Reimagining value chains with shared value in mind leads to new innovations, cost savings, improved environmental impact, and stronger relationships with communities, unlocking significant economic opportunities.

Answer 225

By shifting to models that focus on collaboration, local empowerment, and sustainability, companies can drive long-term profitability and community growth, which benefits both the firm and society.

Answer 226

Clusters are geographic concentrations of related businesses, suppliers, service providers, and infrastructure. They drive productivity, innovation, and competitiveness by fostering collaboration and increasing efficiency in related industries.

Answer 227

Deficiencies like poor education, inadequate transportation, and discrimination can increase costs for companies, reduce productivity, and hinder development, limiting the benefits of the cluster.

Answer 228

Firms build clusters to improve their productivity and address gaps in surrounding infrastructure, which benefits both the company and the community by attracting capable suppliers, improving working conditions, and boosting local economies.

Answer 229

Governments and NGOs can improve productivity and create shared value by focusing on measurable results and reducing trade-offs between economic and social benefits. They should work to foster open markets, transparency, and fair competition.

Answer 230

NGOs help develop competitive agricultural clusters by supporting farmers with financing, education, and access to markets, improving both social and economic outcomes in developing regions.

Answer 231

As companies grow, they create jobs, stimulate demand for services, and strengthen local economies. Companies also improve framework conditions like education, transportation, and infrastructure, which benefits the community and strengthens the cluster.

Answer 232

Nestlé worked to build agricultural, technical, financial, and logistical firms in coffee-growing regions, improving productivity, quality, and sustainability through partnerships with local farmers and organizations like the Rainforest Alliance.

Answer 233

Partnerships between businesses, NGOs, and governments help build strong, sustainable clusters by pooling resources, sharing knowledge, and improving supply chains. These collaborations create long-term economic and social benefits.

Answer 234

The foundation partners with businesses and NGOs to create agricultural clusters in developing countries, improving the value chain, increasing farmers' yields, and strengthening the local economy by ensuring markets, infrastructure, and support systems are in place.

Answer 235

Effective collaboration ensures that all parties work together to solve precompetitive issues, improve the cluster, and upgrade value chains, leading to sustainable and mutually beneficial outcomes for both businesses and communities.

Answer 236

Proper regulation sets clear social goals, stimulates innovation, and creates a level playing field, encouraging companies to pursue shared value rather than just short-term profit. These regulations set performance standards, allow flexibility, and promote continuous improvement.

Answer 237

Regulations that force companies to comply with specific practices, rather than focusing on measurable social improvement, block innovation and often impose high costs, thus hindering progress and resistance from businesses.

Answer 238

The right regulations help ensure businesses operate in a way that aligns with both economic goals and societal benefits, promoting a more sustainable and ethical approach to business operations.

Answer 239

Companies can identify gaps in infrastructure and resources and collaborate with governments to address these weaknesses. By focusing on issues that affect both their business and the broader community, they can improve productivity and drive growth in the region.

Answer 240

The Research Triangle is a successful example of public-private collaboration that developed clusters in IT and life sciences. It created shared value through consistent investment, leading to growth in employment, company performance, and local economy resilience.

Answer 241

Companies need to identify and prioritize areas that constrain their productivity, such as logistics or training. They should focus on areas where they can directly influence or collaborate with other stakeholders for greater impact.

Answer 242

Shared value focuses on addressing the root causes of societal problems that directly impact business, while CSR often addresses issues without a clear link to business success. Shared value aims for long-term, sustainable impact through alignment of business and societal goals.

Answer 243

Infrastructure development often requires collective action. Collaboration between businesses, governments, NGOs, and trade associations helps share costs, leverage expertise, and create sustainable growth that benefits both the company and the community.

Answer 244

Profits with a social purpose refer to the idea of generating economic value while also creating societal value. This form of capitalism leads to a cycle of shared prosperity, where both the company and the community thrive.

Answer 245

By aligning business strategies with social goals, companies can create long-term competitive advantages and contribute to solving societal issues. For example, Urbi's rent-to-own mortgage plan helped increase access to homeownership, demonstrating how shared value can drive innovation.

Answer 246

Shared value will become central to business strategy as companies recognize its potential to create economic value while solving societal problems. Businesses are increasingly incorporating shared value into their core operations, blurring the lines between for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Answer 247

The essence of strategy in the context of shared value is choosing a unique positioning and a distinctive value chain to deliver on that positioning. Shared value allows companies to meet new needs, offer new products and services, serve new customers, and configure their value chains in innovative ways.

Answer 248

Shared value creates competitive advantages that are often more sustainable than conventional cost and quality improvements. It breaks the cycle of zero-sum competition, where one company's gain is another's loss, and instead focuses on mutual benefits for both businesses and society.

Answer 249

Companies can apply a shared value lens by asking questions such as: Can product design incorporate greater social benefits? Are we serving all the communities that could benefit from our products? Do our processes maximize efficiencies in energy and water use? How can our new plant create greater community impact?

Answer 250

When companies improve societal conditions, they often also improve their own business conditions. This mutual improvement triggers positive feedback loops, where business success and societal benefits reinforce each other, leading to greater innovation and growth.

Answer 251

The primary difference is that CSR is typically focused on reputation and has limited connection to the company’s business goals. It is often discretionary or a response to external pressures. In contrast, CSV is integral to a company’s profitability and competitive positioning, creating economic value by addressing social issues directly tied to the business.

Answer 252

Companies should prioritize shared value over CSR because CSV is linked to profitability and sustainability. It allows businesses to create long-term value by addressing societal needs that also benefit their own operations. CSR, however, tends to be more about reputation and lacks a direct connection to the business's core goals.

Answer 253

CSR typically focuses on reputation, philanthropy, and citizenship, while CSV focuses on generating joint economic and societal benefits. CSR impacts are often limited by the company's budget and footprint, whereas CSV realigns the entire company's operations to maximize both economic and societal value.

Answer 254

Shared value represents an evolution in capitalism by focusing on profits that also create societal benefits. It moves beyond short-term profit motives that harm society, promoting long-term sustainability and mutual benefit for both business and community.

Answer 255

Business schools will need to broaden their curricula to include topics such as resource efficiency, understanding deeper human needs, economic development, and the intersection of social and environmental factors with business strategy. This will help prepare students for roles in both the private and social sectors.

Answer 256

Shared value is considered more effective because it is integrated into a company's core business strategy, driving profitability while also addressing social challenges. CSR, in contrast, often focuses on reputation-building and is disconnected from the company’s bottom line, making it harder to sustain long-term.

Answer 257

In the shared value approach, competition is not zero-sum. Instead of one company’s success coming at the expense of others, the shared value model allows businesses to compete in ways that also benefit society, fostering collaboration on issues that can create a positive impact for all.

Answer 258

Creating shared value leads to business growth by identifying and capitalizing on new opportunities that meet societal needs. This approach not only drives innovation and efficiency but also strengthens the company’s relationship with the communities it serves, creating long-term sustainability and profitability.

Answer 259

The ultimate goal of creating shared value is to generate profits that also create societal benefits. By aligning business success with societal well-being, companies can achieve long-term growth and positive societal impact, making their success sustainable and widely supported.

Answer 260

1. Servitization. 2. Digitalization.

Answer 261

They had a direct positive effect on firm financial performance.

Answer 262

Revenue generation, profit, and market value.

Answer 263

It enables firms and their customers to operate radically better than before.

Answer 264

Servitization.

Answer 265

It can transform a manufacturer's competitive landscape by providing product-service systems rather than standalone products.

Answer 266

An increase in business investment to enhance service offerings leading to higher expenditures and lower returns.

Answer 267

These firms often fell short in terms of revenue growth, profit margins, and returns on equity.c

Answer 268

The innovation of an organization’s capabilities and processes to create mutual value through a shift from selling products to selling product-service systems (PSS).

Answer 269

It enhances manufacturing productivity and efficiency.

Answer 270

The restructuring of various domains of social life around digital communication and media infrastructures.

Answer 271

Digitalization refers to restructuring around digital media, while digitization refers to converting analogue information into digital bits.

Answer 272

An operational backbone for efficiency and reliability, and a digital service platform supporting IoT and Cyber-Physical Systems.

Answer 273

They allow companies to design and provide new smart and connected products and services, transforming their competitive advantage.

Answer 274

Through big data, predictive analytics, sensor data for predictive maintenance, and process automation.

Answer 275

It helps in predictive maintenance, increasing uptime and ensuring smoother operations.

Answer 276

Blockchain enhances collaboration by tracking the flow of goods and services across borders.

Answer 277

By improving repetitive processes like procurement, invoicing, and aspects of customer service.

Answer 278

Firms advanced in combining digital and leadership capabilities significantly outperformed counterparts in revenue, profitability, and productivity.

Answer 279

Digital servitization provides benefits such as customer-centric and data-driven business models, leading to competitive advantage and superior financial performance.

Answer 280

They can lead to superior financial performance by increasing a firm's strategic fit with ongoing contextual changes.

Answer 281

The lack of large-scale empirical evidence on the relationships between services, digital capabilities, and firm financial performance.

Answer 282

Developing a measurement scale for the servitization construct and proposing a more detailed empirical model of the interdependencies between servitization, digitalization, and financial performance.

Answer 283

The model links servitization with financial performance and digitalization with both servitization and financial performance.

Answer 284

By controlling for company size, age, slack resources, and industry.

Answer 285

Servitization is the innovation of an organization’s capabilities and processes to create mutual value by shifting from selling products to selling Product-Service Systems.

Answer 286

Digitalization is the exploitation of digital opportunities through technologies like cloud, sensors, big data, and 3D printing to develop new products, digital services, and business models.

Answer 287

It refers to the increase in business investment in services that leads to higher expenditures but lower corresponding returns, making the expected benefits of servitization not materialize.

Answer 288

They found a U-shaped relationship, where market value improves when service sales exceed 15-20% of total revenue.

Answer 289

It confirms that the combination of servitization and digitalization positively impacts profitability.

Answer 290

It enhances service quality, fosters cost-efficient operations, and improves resource allocation, transparency, and information flow within inter-organizational networks.

Answer 291

Digital servitization.

Answer 292

Digitalization enhances the success of servitization, facilitates complex service offerings, and improves customer experience.

Answer 293

By enabling better resource allocation and more accurate information sharing within and outside the firm.

Answer 294

Big data enhances servitization by providing sustained competitive advantages and improving supply chain effectiveness.

Answer 295

The digital component, built on information modules, and the physical component, which represents the actual product.

Answer 296

By helping manufacturers deliver co-created, mass-customized integrated solutions and enhancing business model innovation.

Answer 297

As a two-dimensional construct: IT-enabled digital services embedded in physical products, and digital capabilities embedded in operational processes.

Answer 298

These include data-driven networks, IoT, cloud technology, advanced analytics, robotics, 3D printing, and various technologies like augmented reality, RFID, and blockchain.

Answer 299

It leads to a higher value of product-service system offerings and long-term profitable relationships with customers.

Answer 300

Companies that pursue a digitalization strategy experience a significant increase in profitability and generate more revenue with their employees and physical assets compared to their industry competitors.

Answer 301

1. Internationalization. 2. Digitalization. 3. Sustainability.

Answer 302

AI readiness refers to an SME’s preparedness to implement artificial intelligence technologies, which includes awareness, skills, and capabilities to use AI to improve performance, especially in international markets.

Answer 303

AI readiness is positively associated with improved international performance, specifically through increased export intensity.

Answer 304

Sustainability readiness moderates the relationship, making digitalization and sustainability competing growth paths when firms expand internationally, meaning sustainability goals can conflict with the opportunities provided by digitalization.

Answer 305

AI readiness enhances international performance. While AI and sustainability are positively correlated individually, they become competing growth paths when firms internationalize due to the conflicting priorities of sustainability and digital transformation.

Answer 306

Digitalization offers significant growth opportunities, including productivity and innovation, but sustainability pressures can sometimes conflict with digital transformation, especially when SMEs are expanding into international markets.

Answer 307

SMEs in Western economies face a recession in domestic markets and are encouraged to internationalize in order to find new customers and expand beyond limited domestic demand.

Answer 308

SMEs often face challenges such as lack of resources, limited awareness of technological changes, and perceived uncertainty about the impact of new technologies like AI.

Answer 309

Digitalization allows SMEs to join global digitized value chains, connect in integrated business networks, and target global customers with personalized offers.

Answer 310

AI is a key digital technology reshaping how SMEs innovate, offering potential for better decision-making, automation, and improved business processes.

Answer 311

Internal barriers, such as lower environmental awareness, limited resources, and lack of dedicated environmental managers, can limit SMEs' ability to adopt sustainability practices.

Answer 312

External pressures, including customer demands, investor preferences, and regulatory requirements, often push SMEs to adopt more sustainable practices.

Answer 313

Balancing digitalization and sustainability is critical for SMEs to avoid conflicting priorities that could hinder their ability to thrive in international markets while also addressing environmental impacts.

Answer 314

The digital divide refers to the gap between large firms and SMEs in terms of digital technology adoption, with larger firms generally having higher rates of adoption and awareness of digital tools.

Answer 315

Digital technologies offer SMEs new instruments and approaches to reach and serve global customers, organize economic activities, and operate businesses more effectively, helping them expand internationally.

Answer 316

Digital infrastructures are crucial for SMEs, as they allow these companies, which generally face resource constraints, to leverage cost-effective resources for growth and international expansion.

Answer 317

The internet functions as a communication and sales channel that can facilitate early and fast global growth for SMEs, enabling them to enter international markets.

Answer 318

Platform organizations, which operate in the digital space, allow users to co-create content and face unique challenges in internationalization compared to traditional SMEs.

Answer 319

Kim's study found that platform and web capabilities are positively related to export marketing capabilities and export performance in SMEs.

Answer 320

Mature SMEs face challenges in adapting to new technologies and paradigms, as opposed to younger, digital-native firms, which can rapidly develop new foreign markets due to digitalization.

Answer 321

Their study found that digitalization does not have a direct effect on global competitive advantage but does have indirect effects on product and service advantages.

Answer 322

Digital technologies can support international growth when embedded within process and organizational innovations, and when SMEs invest in digital skills and awareness.

Answer 323

Industry 4.0 refers to the development of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and dynamic data processes that use large amounts of data to drive smart machines and innovations in manufacturing and other industries.

Answer 324

AI is significant because it spans a wide range of applications, including smart process automation and cognitive technologies, which can optimize decision-making and help SMEs improve their growth strategies.

Answer 325

AI, as a cognitive technology, may lead to greater detachment of humans from decision-making processes, potentially enabling more rational decision-making but also introducing challenges related to cognitive displacement.

Answer 326

AI enables organizational ambidexterity by allowing firms to pursue multiple growth strategies simultaneously, improving adaptability and resource allocation.

Answer 327

The global AI market is growing exponentially, and AI adoption can significantly boost SME performance and competitiveness, especially in international markets.

Answer 328

AI can enhance resource optimization, reduce waste, and support circular modes of production, playing a crucial role in SMEs’ sustainability efforts despite their smaller individual environmental impact.

Answer 329

Despite the smaller individual impact of each SME, they collectively account for 70% of pollution caused by industry and 60% of global carbon emissions.c

Answer 330

A comprehensive approach that combines digital technologies like AI with sustainability issues can enhance SMEs' international performance and align growth with environmental responsibility.

Answer 331

Eco-efficient services, or sustainable product-service systems, refer to business models where services replace or complement traditional product-based systems to improve sustainability and reduce resource use.

Answer 332

1) The role of the service sector in the economy. 2) A business strategy to offer sustainable solutions. 3) The utility provided by a product.

Answer 333

Services can reduce material use, shift focus from product ownership to product use, and provide sustainable solutions, potentially leading to significant reductions in natural resource dependence.

Answer 334

Some claims suggest that eco-efficient services could drastically reduce material use, while others suggest more modest environmental benefits, such as improving product management and reducing waste.

Answer 335

1) Non-material services. 2) Result-oriented services. 3) Product-based services. 4) Eco-design with a service approach.

Answer 336

Eco-efficient services are part of macro-economic concepts such as ecological restructuring, which aim to reduce the overall environmental impact of economic activities.

Answer 337

The customized economy emphasizes tailored solutions for consumers, where services play a role in meeting specific needs, potentially leading to more sustainable consumption patterns.

Answer 338

The challenge lies in determining whether the proposed services truly deliver eco-efficiency and how broadly they can be applied across different sectors.

Answer 339

To explore whether and how services can significantly reduce the economy’s dependence on natural resources, ultimately contributing to long-term sustainability.

Answer 340

It is difficult to sharply divide products and services since products include service components (e.g., delivery) and services often require products (e.g., premises).

Answer 341

A service includes a repeatable, standard component with a singular component per transaction, often involving human labor individually for each customer.

Answer 342

A service is an economic activity that replaces the customer’s own labor with activities conducted by the service provider, either personally, automatically, or through planning and design.

Answer 343

These are services where material artifacts are not the primary objects of market transactions, such as medical care, training, and IT-based services, which may contribute to dematerialization and ecological restructuring.

Answer 344

These services focus on achieving a desired result (e.g., energy efficiency) with fewer materials, energy, or products, emphasizing eco-efficient solutions through planning, training, and redesigning customer activities.

Answer 345

Energy services where a utility provides the required temperature or other needs through more eco-efficient methods without focusing on the quantity of the product or service delivered.

Answer 346

These services are related to the use of a product but focus on the use, rather than ownership. Examples include repair, maintenance, leasing, rental services, and product use management.

Answer 347

1) Repair, maintenance, and take-back services. 2) Leasing and rental services. 3) Product use management services, such as chemicals management.

Answer 348

Product use management involves using labor and expertise to maximize the benefits of a product for the customer, rather than focusing on selling the product itself.

Answer 349

Eco-design with a service approach focuses on the utility provided by products, aiming to redesign products to use less material while still fulfilling the same function, often resulting in innovative solutions like eco-efficient substitutes.

Answer 350

The FRIA cold-storage chamber is an eco-efficient substitute for a refrigerator, redesigned to use significantly less material while providing the same function.

Answer 351

The focus on the efficiency of services gained from products (service yield), rather than on the efficiency of producing those products.

Answer 352

Largely technical arguments.

Answer 353

Eco-design with a service approach often lacks organizational and economic incentives for manufacturing companies to invest in radical changes, whereas non-material services depend on shifts in consumer preferences.

Answer 354

Arguments related to the structure of the economy, such as the potential for economic output to be decoupled from material throughput.

Answer 355

They involve changes in the division of labor, with suppliers or service providers taking on tasks previously performed by the customer, which can lead to eco-efficiency in resource use.

Answer 356

These services can lead to structural changes in existing industries and improve eco-efficiency through shared product use, better recovery, and reuse.

Answer 357

The product becomes a cost factor for the service provider, creating an incentive for more efficient use and potential reuse.

Answer 358

Achieving eco-efficiency by sharing products or using them more intensively, reducing the need to manufacture new products and optimizing their use.

Answer 359

It can solve trade-offs between product life extension and technological obsolescence, ensuring products are used more effectively before being replaced by newer technologies.

Answer 360

Shared use reduces the need to purchase and manufacture individual products, thus reducing environmental impacts, and enables users to select the most suitable product for their needs.

Answer 361

It allows for better maintenance, which can prolong the life of products, and facilitates end-of-life recovery and reuse by keeping the product under professional management.

Answer 362

Car-sharing reduces the average user's environmental impact by 30% compared to car owners.

Answer 363

The assumption is that car-sharing does not reduce the manufacture of new cars.

Answer 364

Sports equipment, household products, and public libraries (books) are examples of shared-use products.

Answer 365

Shared electric drills in a pool of households can reduce material intensity by a factor of ten per hole drilled.

Answer 366

Product-based services can conserve space, such as reducing parking space or storage space at home.

Answer 367

Rental companies have an incentive to minimize manufacturing costs, whereas product sales depend on repeat purchases and planned obsolescence.

Answer 368

Goering and Boyce (1993) found that companies like IBM and Xerox reduced R&D expenditures when they rented products more frequently.

Answer 369

Energy services like counseling and promotion of energy-saving equipment contribute to energy conservation.

Answer 370

It is difficult to quantify the material flows associated with water services, such as leasing water-conserving devices or equipment for rainwater utilization.

Answer 371

The integrated pest control service by Ciba-Geigy reduced the use of agricultural chemicals by a factor of four.

Answer 372

It prolonged the lifetime of customers' IT equipment by approximately 3 years.

Answer 373

It reduces natural resource use by a factor of five.

Answer 374

Professional service providers' superior proficiency, cost-awareness, managerial capabilities, and economies of scale contribute to efficiency.

Answer 375

Service providers may not be committed to specific technologies or production equipment, as they gain revenue from selling results rather than product ownership.

Answer 376

Result-oriented services are most effective in situations where the technological and managerial capabilities of professional service providers are crucial, such as complex technical systems.

Answer 377

Developments include saturated markets, the information economy, post-material lifestyles, and customer orientation.

Answer 378

There is a trend toward companies positioning themselves as providers of services or solutions, and business customers may prefer services to product ownership.

Answer 379

Surveys show that especially young, urban consumers may be less interested in owning products and more interested in using them.

Answer 380

Critics argue that many eco-efficient services may be clever business ideas but do not transform how value is delivered to customers or focus on environmental benefits.

Answer 381

Innovation in services is less disciplined and less creative than in the manufacturing and technology sectors.

Answer 382

The historical fascination with tangible products and hard technologies, as well as the belief that services have no tangible value.

Answer 383

Services are fluid, dynamic, and frequently co-produced in real time by customers, employees, and technology, often with few static physical properties.

Answer 384

The focus is on process and experience innovation, particularly due to the human and interactive nature of services.?

Answer 385

Firms must create long-term emotional bonds with customers through memorable experiences, not just by providing superior value through products.

Answer 386

Service blueprinting is a customer-focused approach for service innovation and improvement, helping firms visualize service processes, customer touchpoints, and supporting processes.

Answer 387

Service blueprinting is customer-focused and connects customer touchpoints with underlying support processes, making it highly effective for designing customer experiences.

Answer 388

Service blueprinting can be used for service innovation, quality improvement, customer experience design, and strategic change, applicable across industries and at various organizational levels.

Answer 389

Services refer to offerings provided for and/or co-created with customers, such as professional services, retail, financial, telecommunication, healthcare, and services offered in conjunction with goods.

Answer 390

Services are dynamic processes that unfold over time through a sequence of events and steps, unlike static physical goods.

Answer 391

The entire service process, including activities that may be invisible to the client, must be coordinated and managed as a whole to produce value for the customer.

Answer 392

Customers evaluate the entire service process, considering all steps and encounters, rather than just individual interactions with service providers.

Answer 393

Service blueprinting is a flexible approach that helps managers refine individual steps or create a comprehensive visual overview of the entire service process.

Answer 394

The "experience economy" refers to the idea that businesses can differentiate themselves by orchestrating memorable, transformational events for customers, moving beyond traditional goods and services.

Answer 395

A customer experience is the internal and subjective response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with a company, encompassing cognitive, affective, and behavioral reactions.

Answer 396

Managing the customer experience systematically ensures that it meets or exceeds expectations, which influences perceptions of service quality, value, and brand loyalty.

Answer 397

Service blueprinting allows organizations to visualize the entire service and its support processes, helping to orchestrate key customer touchpoints and emotional experience clues.

Answer 398

The goal is to deliver customer value through distinctive, memorable service experiences, leading to improved customer satisfaction and organizational outcomes.

Answer 399

They have systematic service development processes, progressing through stages such as objective setting, idea generation, concept development, design, prototyping, launch, and customer feedback.

Answer 400

Service design requires an understanding of the customer outcome, customer process, and how the customer experience unfolds over time through multiple touchpoints.

Answer 401

A well-designed service can differentiate a company from competitors, improve service quality and brand image, and influence customer loyalty.

Answer 402

They often result from poor service design.

Answer 403

These stages are often imprecise, characterized by impromptu decision-making and low levels of formalization, which are critical to the development process.

Answer 404

Service blueprinting provides an objective and precise way to present activities, relationships, and interdependencies of a service process, allowing flexibility while ensuring structured development.

Answer 405

In this stage, the service idea is made concrete through descriptions, roles clarification, and the development of rough prototypes, with service process characteristics outlined for all involved parties.

Answer 406

It helps refine the service concept through iterations and provides a common reference point for all parties involved, guiding them to translate the blueprint into detailed implementation plans.

Answer 407

Departmental sub-processes can be magnified and rendered in fine detail, serving as sub-documents to the main blueprint to ensure smooth implementation.

Answer 408

Service blueprinting has evolved from a process control technique to include distinctions between onstage and backstage activities, physical evidence, and visual elements like photos and videos. It is now used in combination with other methods like critical incident technique for better service design.

Answer 409

Service blueprinting is simpler and less formal than tools like UML or BPMN, making it easier for all stakeholders (customers, managers, and employees) to learn and modify it to fit a specific service innovation.

Answer 410

Service blueprinting focuses on human-to-human and human-to-technology interfaces, ensuring that the connection between the service process and customer actions is maintained.

Answer 411

1. Customer actions. 2. Onstage/visible contact employee actions. 3. Backstage/invisible contact employee actions. 4. Support processes. 5. Physical evidence.

Answer 412

What is the role of "customer actions" in a service blueprint? A: Customer actions include all steps taken by the customer as part of the service process, depicted chronologically across the top of the blueprint, with customer actions central to the blueprint creation.

Answer 413

These actions are performed by frontline employees and occur during face-to-face interactions with customers, separated by the line of interaction.

Answer 414

These are activities by employees that occur behind the scenes, either without direct customer interaction or in preparation for customer-facing tasks. They are separated from onstage actions by the line of visibility.

Answer 415

Support processes involve activities by individuals or units within the company, who are not in direct contact with the customer but are essential for delivering the service. These are shown below the internal line of interaction.

Answer 416

Physical evidence includes tangible elements that customers encounter, which can influence their quality perceptions. These are typically shown at the top of the blueprint.

Answer 417

The first step is to clearly articulate the service process or sub-process and decide which segment of customers the blueprint will focus on.

Answer 418

The first step is to clearly articulate the service process or sub-process and decide which segment of customers the blueprint will focus on.

Answer 419

It can be difficult to determine when the service starts and ends from the customer's point of view, requiring careful discussion and agreement.

Answer 420

Customer actions are defined first, followed by onstage and backstage contact employee actions, support processes, and finally physical evidence.

Answer 421

A concept blueprint is a simplified version of a blueprint that shows only the basic steps in the service process. More detailed sub-process diagrams can be added as needed.

Answer 422

The example of a one-night hotel stay, showing customer actions like check-in, room service delivery, and sleeping, as well as onstage and backstage employee actions, and support processes.

Answer 423

Service blueprinting is versatile and can be adapted to various uses, including identifying service issues, designing innovative solutions, and improving customer experiences. It can be particularly useful for brainstorming in workshops.

Answer 424

Service blueprinting can lead to service improvements, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, cost savings, and innovative revenue-producing opportunities.

Answer 425

Service blueprinting was used to design new services, improve existing services, and drive customer-focused change across the company, impacting sales, operations, and customer service functions.

Answer 426

Yellow developed Exact Express, a premium service guaranteeing on-time delivery within a specified time window. It became the company’s most profitable service and was highly valued by customers.

Answer 427

Blueprinting helped Yellow examine and improve its core ground transportation service, particularly focusing on the “driver touch points” where drivers interacted with customers, leading to improvements in technology, training, and support.

Answer 428

The goal was to strengthen the company’s customer and service orientation by using blueprinting to inspire corporate-wide change and improve communication and cooperation across functions.

Answer 429

Yellow formalized blueprinting through executive training, where top management and employees participated in workshops to learn blueprinting and apply it to real challenges, such as addressing "missed pick-ups."

Answer 430

The workshops helped executives and managers understand the customer’s point of view, improved communication across functions, and led to significant service changes that reinforced the company’s customer-focused approach.

Answer 431

Blueprinting contributed to Yellow’s service innovations, service improvements, and customer-centric practices, which were key to its success, as evidenced by its financial growth, awards for innovation and service, and continued growth.

Answer 432

The innovation process was called "Tangible Culture," and blueprinting helped identify key steps, backstage processes, and the iterative nature of the work, clarifying the innovation’s adoption and exploitation.

Answer 433

The creation of the innovation was a small part of the process; the real challenge was adoption and exploitation. The blueprint provided a roadmap for future innovations.

Answer 434

It provides a common platform for everyone—customers, employees, and managers—to engage in service innovation, offering a clear overview of the service process and highlighting each role’s contribution.

Answer 435

It identifies key touchpoints where customers interact with the service, revealing potential service failure points and areas requiring improvement.

Answer 436

They can be applied at both strategic and tactical levels, helping managers address both macro and micro-level processes and solve specific cross-functional challenges.

Answer 437

It helped map out the customer experience and identify critical touchpoints like unionized drivers, improving customer orientation throughout the organization.

Answer 438

How can service blueprints be stored and shared for collaboration? A: Blueprints can be stored electronically on collaborative websites, allowing for remote or virtual development where participants can access, edit, and suggest changes.

Answer 439

Managers initially met face-to-face to start the blueprinting process, then continued to work virtually, sharing blueprints and recommendations electronically to accommodate geographically spread-out teams.

Answer 440

IBM is using service blueprinting to transfer knowledge not just across departments, but also over time, enabling future innovators to learn from past experiences.

Answer 441

Blueprinting helps in deciding what customers see and which employees should be in contact at critical touchpoints, ensuring the service process aligns with customer expectations

Answer 442

By mapping and comparing services with competitors, firms can identify service quality gaps and differentiate their offerings to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Answer 443

It allows market researchers to visualize and compare customers' ideal service, the firm's actual service, and competitors' offerings, overcoming limitations of traditional verbal descriptions.

Answer 444

Blueprinting is being applied to map self-service technologies, business-to-business services, and customer-to-customer interactions, particularly in industries like hospitality and education.

Answer 445

By offering a visual representation that requires researchers from different disciplines (e.g., marketing, operations, technology) to collaborate and gain holistic views of service issues.

Answer 446

It helps overcome language and conceptual barriers between disciplines, allowing for better communication and understanding of complex service phenomena.

Answer 447

Creating and comparing service blueprints from different perspectives helps researchers align their mental models, improving communication and progress on complex service projects.

Answer 448

Service blueprinting visually tracks the chronology of dynamic events, capturing the sequence of events in a service process, which is valuable for understanding the flow over time.

Answer 449

Creative uses include adding time perspectives from both the customer's experience of the service and the internal process time required to support the service.

Answer 450

Service blueprints can be applied to map out the research process, comparing methodologies, defining scope, and identifying potential barriers, while also clarifying who the "customer" is in the research context.

Answer 451

It helps researchers consider "who is the customer" for their research, whether it’s academic journals, funding agencies, peers, or business practitioners, and how to meet their expectations.

Answer 452

The unique benefit is its unrelenting focus on the customer, placing value to the customer at the center of innovation, service improvement, and experience design.

Answer 453

It is useful because it helps organizations focus on customer value while facilitating innovation, service improvement, and experience design, making it an essential tool for modern economies' service industries.

Answer 454

It examines how services and service innovation contribute to sustainability in its environmental dimension, particularly in economic greening.

Answer 455

The myth that services are naturally green due to their supposed immateriality.

Answer 456

While services may seem less harmful than goods, many service sectors (e.g., transportation) generate significant environmental impacts, and service economies are among the largest polluters.

Answer 457

Service innovation is essential for greening the economy, as it can lead to sustainable business models, eco-friendly practices, and reduced environmental footprints.

Answer 458

1. Assimilationist Perspective – Treats service innovation like goods innovation. 2. Demarcation Perspective – Distinguishes service innovation from goods innovation. 3. Integration Perspective – Reconciles goods and service innovation in one model. 4. Inversion Perspective – Focuses on the strategic role of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in driving customer innovation.

Answer 459

Research has traditionally focused on manufacturing's environmental impact, while services' role in sustainability has been understudied, except in cases like transport and tourism.

Answer 460

1. Service sectors like transport and tourism generate significant pollution. 2. Many services rely on material infrastructure and energy consumption. 3. The shift to service economies has not necessarily led to greener outcomes.

Answer 461

By identifying the material aspects of services, recognizing the social construction of service immateriality, and examining strategies that actively seek materiality in services.

Answer 462

The belief that services are inherently environmentally friendly due to their supposed immateriality.

Answer 463

Intangibility, Heterogeneity, Interactivity, Perishability.

Answer 464

He argued that services are immaterial but productive, as they create lasting effects, such as improved health and education.

Answer 465

Classical economists like Adam Smith and Jean-Baptiste Say argued that services do not produce tangible goods and their effects disappear instantly.

Answer 466

Productive labor creates tangible wealth, while unproductive labor (services) does not result in a permanent, vendible commodity.

Answer 467

What did Smith mean by "the work of all services perishes in the very instant of its production"? A: He suggested that services have no lasting material output, unlike goods.

Answer 468

Many services rely on material resources, infrastructure, and energy consumption.

Answer 469

Service medium (what is being changed, e.g., people, objects, information). Physical spaces (hotels, offices, factories). Production factors (equipment, IT systems, transportation). Interactivity & mobility (customer travel, logistics).

Answer 470

Transportation, catering, waste processing, repair services.

Answer 471

Consulting, education, psychotherapy.

Answer 472

Many services require travel or infrastructure (e.g., tourism, deliveries), leading to environmental impact.

Answer 473

Although services are often associated with the absence of factories, they require spaces like offices, hospitals, airports, and supermarkets, which have environmental impacts.

Answer 474

Use of space, energy consumption, waste generation, emissions, noise, and visual/olfactory disturbances.

Answer 475

He described services as a "stagnant sector" with low productivity growth due to weak mechanization.

Answer 476

Back office: Internal operations without customer interaction (e.g., restaurant kitchen, administrative departments). Front office: Customer-facing areas (e.g., restaurant floor, bank counter, hotel lobby).

Answer 477

The degree to which services rely on physical capital (e.g., infrastructure, equipment) rather than just labor.

Answer 478

Many services are now becoming more capital-intensive due to technological advancements (e.g., IT sector).

Answer 479

It requires physical encounters, which lead to travel, infrastructure use, and environmental impacts.

Answer 480

1. Customer travel to service location (e.g., restaurants, hospitals). 2. Service provider travel to customer (e.g., consultancy, home services). 3. Simultaneous travel of both (e.g., passenger transport). 4. Employee travel to workplace (e.g., office workers).

Answer 481

It depends on how service activities are defined in terms of boundaries, time frame, and impact measurement.

Answer 482

Official statistics often underestimate service energy use by excluding travel-related consumption.

Answer 483

1. Technical boundary (direct materiality of the service). 2. Life cycle perspective (indirect materiality over time). 3. Universality of service provision (whether goods also involve service-like aspects).

Answer 484

They are negative externalities that arise immediately within a service, such as material use in operations, conditioning, and travel.

Answer 485

These are material impacts that occur upstream or downstream in the economy due to a service, such as production, maintenance, and disposal.

Answer 486

The material impact of goods used in a service, including their design, production, maintenance, and disposal.

Answer 487

Services like cleaning and catering introduce their own direct and indirect materiality impacts through equipment, buildings, and energy use.

Answer 488

A theory that defines outputs by the function they provide and emphasizes sustainability (Stahel, 1997).

Answer 489

A concept that defines outputs by the experiences they create for consumers (Pine & Gilmore, 1999).

Answer 490

A framework that focuses on value-in-use and erases the distinction between goods and services (Vargo & Lusch, 2006).

Answer 491

What is service science? A: A field that studies both goods and services within a unified theoretical framework (Maglio & Spohrer, 2008).

Answer 492

A model explaining innovation in both goods and services based on their characteristics (Gallouj & Weinstein, 1997).

Answer 493

It creates challenges in evaluating performance, service quality, cost, and productivity.

Answer 494

The industrialization of services through increased materiality.

Answer 495

The introduction of material technical systems, such as ICTs, medical technologies, and transportation technologies.

Answer 496

High consumption of rare metals, energy use, and waste problems due to planned obsolescence.

Answer 497

The use of "soft" or immaterial technologies, such as standardized processes and service industrialization.

Answer 498

It creates quasi-products like standardized contracts, financial products, and fast-food menus.

Answer 499

The transformation of physical production and consumption spaces, such as shopping centers and transportation hubs.

Answer 500

The design, comfort, and functionality of service environments that impact customer experience.

Answer 501

It shifts service consumption to industrial goods, such as washing machines replacing laundry services.

Answer 502

(1) Greening services themselves through innovation. (2) using services to green goods.

Answer 503

By adopting dematerialization strategies focused on service medium, spaces, and production factors.

Answer 504

Material goods, individuals, codified information, and knowledge.

Answer 505

The shift from material-based service mediums to immaterial ones, such as information, knowledge, and relational services.

Answer 506

The economy shifts towards informational, cognitive, and relational services (e.g., health, culture, and public administration) over material services (e.g., retail, transport).

Answer 507

Daniel Bell’s (1973) post-industrial society, where higher-level services replace tangible goods processing.

Answer 508

Within organizations, material service activities (e.g., cleaning, transportation) are reduced or outsourced in favor of information, knowledge, and relational processes.

Answer 509

Information technologies (IT, telecommunications) and knowledge-processing technologies (soft methodologies) replace material technologies (robotics, mechanics).

Answer 510

Innovation trends favor immaterial aspects (e.g., software, cognitive methods) over material-based developments.

Answer 511

Immaterial services generally have a lower environmental footprint compared to material-based services.

Answer 512

The reduction of material resource use by shifting to service-based solutions.

Answer 513

A combination of goods and services designed to fulfill customer needs with less environmental impact.

Answer 514

1. Product-oriented PSS. 2. Use-oriented PSS.

Answer 515

The idea that everything is a service, and consumers purchase the utility or function of a product rather than the product itself.

Answer 516

By adding services to products, increasing the intangible component, and extending product lifespan through maintenance and recycling.

Answer 517

Gaining a competitive advantage through improved product quality, cost reduction, and customer retention.

Answer 518

Pre- and after-sales services, financial and insurance services, repair and maintenance, and recycling services.

Answer 519

KIBS, such as consulting and engineering services, help businesses innovate and implement sustainability strategies.

Answer 520

By reducing the consumption of durable goods, extending product lifespan, and promoting shared use models.

Answer 521

Companies sell the function or utility of a product rather than the product itself (e.g., leasing cars instead of selling them).

Answer 522

Renting, leasing, pay-per-service models, sharing, and pooling.

Answer 523

It requires new ways to measure performance, including environmental and social impacts, beyond traditional technical and industrial metrics.

Answer 524

The phenomenon where improved efficiency in resource use leads to increased overall consumption rather than reduction.

Answer 525

The process of replacing material products with digital information and services, potentially reducing energy and material use.

Answer 526

A way of reducing environmental impacts by consuming resources more efficiently and responsibly.

Answer 527

Energy consumption that occurs in the manufacturing and provision of goods and services, rather than direct consumer use.

Answer 528

Transport, information, and leisure.

Answer 529

No, because of rebound effects such as increased computer use and home heating.

Answer 530

The concept that time saved using ICTs does not always lead to lower energy use, as it might be spent on other energy-intensive activities.

Answer 531

By facilitating international trade and production, ICTs increase long-distance transport and energy consumption.

Answer 532

Frequent upgrades lead to the early disposal of devices, increasing electronic waste and resource consumption.

Answer 533

Voluntary simplicity or sufficiency, which means living with fewer material goods.

Answer 534

Values are deeply embedded in culture and take at least 100 years to change (Heiskanen & Pantzar, 1997).

Answer 535

Providing maximum useful services with minimum materials and energy use (Heiskanen & Pantzar, 1997).

Answer 536

It can transform services like education, insurance, and entertainment to reduce resource consumption.

Answer 537

Course-related travel, energy use for heating, computing, and printing materials.

Answer 538

Distance learning eliminated the need for daily commuting and campus energy use.

Answer 539

Student and staff travel, campus heating, computing, and printing materials.

Answer 540

Students stayed up late to access online materials, increasing home heating use.