A systems approach to hybrid service: authors' response to commentary

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences Revue canadienne des sciences de l'administration 27: 85–89 (2010) Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). In her commentary, Professor Irene Ng offers a per-spicacious assessment of the strengths and limitations of our article in the last issue of CJAS, " Seven Challenges In that article, we offered a conceptual framework for managing hybrid service (combining employee delivery, automated delivery, and self-service) and described seven management challenges arising from that framework. Professor Ng does not take issue with our conceptual framework or with the seven challenges that we identify, but instead suggests that our treatment of the topic could be deeper in two primary ways (which we list in reverse order). Firstly, a systems approach should be used to proactively achieve interdepartmental and interdiscipli-nary coordination. Secondly, one should understand the sources of value created in a system and distinguish between co-production of value in a larger community and value co-creation (which occurs for all services) from a dyad consisting of a fi rm's service system and a single consumer. In a nutshell, Ng argues that combining human and automated services requires both a systems perspective and a value perspective. We completely agree. Indeed, we see Ng's various suggestions regarding our seven challenges as revolving around her call for a coherent systems approach to hybrid service delivery. For example, Ng's second point above (the need for a value perspective) can be seen to fl ow from the fi rst point (the need for a systems perspective). That is, understanding the sources of value (i.e., a value perspective) is essential to setting congruent incentives for all system participants, and having congruent incentives is a key underpinning of a balanced systems approach. Building on this line of thinking, we briefl y outline, throughout this response to Ng's commentary, what is required for a coherent systems approach to hybrid service delivery and how Ng's other suggestions are subsumed by this overarching issue. We then suggest directions for future research. What makes a coherent functioning hybrid service delivery system? In our earlier paper, we developed the attached Table 11 and suggested that as a company goes through the steps of the proposed management process (strategize/plan/deliver/measure), there should be coordination among the various departments and disciplines.