Service systems and the social enterprise

Service science is an emerging multidisciplinary field concerned with the study of service systems and value cocreation. In recent years, the field has expanded considerably, growing to encompass a community of researchers and practitioners from a range of backgrounds and knowledge domains. However, very little research has focused on the study of service systems within the context of social-purpose organizations (SPOs), such as a nonprofit charitable organization or an academic institution. We contend that SPOs represent a class of service systems that are understudied in service science. The goal of this study is to contribute to the ongoing development of the discipline's theoretical foundations through an empirical study of a special type of SPO, the social enterprise. Through case-study research, we analyzed five social enterprise organizations. Our findings point to a number of areas that suggest a bias in service science concepts toward economically motivated and profit-driven service systems. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.