Framing design research for service orientation through PSS approaches

In order to respond to the industrial trend towards service design and delivery, design research must address a vast area partially related to value creation, marketing and network theories. However, compared to the space to be explored, there is little insight available. Thus, this paper, as a first step, proposes a way to frame such design research. First, an extensive literature review is performed of over 100 articles on not only PSS-design research but also on related research in fields as PSS in general, service design, innovation, and business models in a broad view. Based on the literature analysis, the authors present three crucial dimensions for service oriented design research, i.e. an offer dimension representing products and services, a provider dimension, and a customer/user dimension. In addition, three research targets are proposed; PSS-offer modelling, PSS development, and PSS potential. Furthermore, several promising future research directions are identified. These include evaluating economic consequences or environmental benefits, establishing terminology, organizational issues, and developing methods and tools to support designers. The boundaries to other research fields are getting blurry and many aspects of other professionalisms must be taken into account. Thus, there is especially need in future research to open towards other research areas.