Seamless Service? On the Role and Impact of Service Orchestrators in Human-Centered Service Systems

How can value cocreation in complex human-centered service systems (HCSSs) like health care be facilitated? We address this question by introducing the novel role of service orchestrators as dedicated actors who facilitate and orchestrate resource integration, and thereby value cocreation, between other interdependent actors in HCSSs. Specifically, we draw on findings from four complementary studies that investigate the role and impact of case managers, an ideal-typical service orchestrator in health care, through the perspectives of HCSS actors (i.e., patients in Study 1 and clinical staff in Study 2) and structures (i.e., clinical departments in Studies 3 and 4). Our findings indicate that orchestrating value cocreation through case managers enhances patient satisfaction as well as the financial and operational performance of clinical departments. Service orchestration also increases the perception of clinical staff that patients are actively involved in the cocreation of their own health service but surprisingly not that of patients themselves. As such, introducing service orchestrators might contribute to reconciling the growing tension between the quality and cost of health care. We conclude by outlining how our work serves as a possible starting point for a novel research stream on effective coordination mechanisms for value cocreation in complex HCSSs.