INFORMS Open Forum

A Vision for Service Science

  • 1.  A Vision for Service Science

    Posted 05-13-2019 01:09

    Dear colleagues,

    As the new Editor-in-Chief of Service Science (https://pubsonline.informs.org/page/serv/editorial-board), I am excited to share with you information about the major reorganization and repositioning of the journal that is underway. As detailed below, the ambition for the journal is to become the leading journal in the science and engineering of service, with a particular focus on innovative approaches to service design and management.

    The journal aims to embrace the full range of service applications, including healthcare, hospitality and entertainment, transportation, retail, banking, information, and professional services, among others, with an emphasis on emerging applications including sharing economy, digital markets, smart cities, and fintech.

    The journal also aims to embrace a variety of approaches to research (analytical, empirical, behavioral, and field-based) and a wide range of research perspectives, including those grounded in the fields of operations, marketing, information, economics, and psychology, among others.

    In doing so, the journal is committed to upholding the highest standards of rigor (regardless of the underlying methodological approach). The journal seeks to encourage papers that tackle important problems (relevance) and engage with problems that matter to society in health, transportation, and education, among others (impact).

    The journal will endeavor to become the intellectual home for innovation in service, encouraging submissions that reimagine how services should be (and not just study services as they are) and those that introduce services to application where there are currently none. In other words, the journal welcomes papers with ideas that can disrupt existing business models and promote service innovation (such papers would of course still need to be backed up by rigorous analysis or strong empirical evidence).

    To support these bold ambitions, we have assembled a world-class editorial board (https://pubsonline.informs.org/page/serv/editorial-board) consisting of foremost leaders in the field, drawing from multiple disciplines, including operations, marketing, information systems, finance, data science, and others. The board is diverse with representation from schools of management, engineering, computer science, and from industry. The board is international with significant representation from outside of North America. We are proud of the number of women who are on the board, including as department editors and which we seek to grow.  

    The editorial board has been organized along topical areas in service that cover the full range of service theory and applications as follows:

    Customer Experience, Behavior, & Decision Making

    Tony Cui Haitao, University of Minnesota
    Ozalp Ozer, University of Texas at Dallas

    Digital Services, Online Platforms, & Social Media

    Gad Allon, University of Pennsylvania
    Ravi Bapna, University of Minnesota

    Financial Services & Fintech
    Michael Pinedo, New York University
    Anna Chenobai, Syracuse Unversity

    Healthcare
    Pinar Keskinocak, Georgia Institute of Technology
    Andrew Schaeffer, Rice University 

    Marketing of Services & Revenue Management
    Guillermo Gallego, Hong Kong University of Science and TechnologyMing Hu, University of Toronto

    Retail, Hospitality, Tourism, and Entertainment
    Rohit Verma, Cornell University

     Service Analytics & Big Data
    Georgia Perakis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Francis de Vericourt, ESMT

    Service Design & Service Innovation
    Guillaume Roels, INSEAD
    Aleda Roth, Clemson University

     Service Operations
    Ger Koole, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
    Serhan Ziya, University of North Carolina

    Supply Chain Services & Logistics
    Geert-Jan van Houtum, Eindhoven University of Technology
    Jeannette Song, Duke University

    Urban Services & Mobility
    Karan Girotra, Cornell University
    Yafeng Yin, University of Michigan

    Other Topics in Service
    Saif Benjaafar, University of Minnesota

    A journal, as broad as Service Science, naturally intersects with many other INFORMS journals, including journals in operations, information systems, marketing, and transportation, among others. Service Science is not to compete with these journals but rather to complement them by allowing for a journal that is singularly focused on service and that embraces multi-disciplinarily as a constituting feature of its identity. The journal aims to coalesce a community around service and to ensure that the INFORMS community is at the forefront of the service revolution that is underway.

    The journal aims to be nimble and promises not only high quality reviews but reviews that are timely. To this purpose, we have adopted a review policy of 2+2, with each paper reviewed by two referees (in addition to a department editor and an associate editor) and a maximum of number of 2 revisions before a final decision on the paper is reached. Our goal is for 90% of the papers to be reviewed within 90 days.

     Several initiatives are being planned, including special issues on emerging topics and a series of reflection articles by leading scholars whose goal is to synthesize progress in target areas and articulate a vision for future research. However, more than anything, we need the rallying of the community behind the journal.

    So please help us spread the work about Service Science and consider it as an outlet for your best work!

    Saif Benjaafar
    Editor-in-Chief, Service Science
    https://pubsonline.informs.org/page/serv/editorial-board

     



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    Saif Benjaafar
    Distinguished McKnight University Professor
    Head, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
    University of Minnesota
    111 Church Street SE
    Minneapolis, MN 55455
    Phone: (612) 242-3159
    Email: saif@umn.edu
    Web:http://www.isye.umn.edu/faculty/Benjaafar.shtml
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