FIRST-PRINCIPLES FOR SERVICES AND PRODUCT-SERVICES-SYSTEMS: AN R&D AGENDA

The inexorable and prodigious shift to services in macro-economies is driving a "servicization" in product development. Physical products and services are increasingly bundled as an integral offering to meet customer needs. These bundles are called Product-Service-Systems (PSS). Unexpectedly, the literature is silent on first-principles for services and PSS development. We argue that a parsimonious set of first-principles is fundamentally necessary for the maturation of services as a rigorous discipline for research, product development, and the practice. Using Qualitative Content Analysis Methods of the services literature, we derive a fresh and more complete definition for services. Then using this definition, we derive our set first-principles for services and PSS development. We show that these first-principles embody key learning and knowledge from research scholars. Salient features of our principles are: a multidisciplinary system perspective, conformance to the doctrine of the "sciences of the artificial", and a concentrated attention to future research, development, and operations. We close with a proposed meta-framework for research and development of services and PSS.