IT Service Well-Being: A Service Ecosystem Approach
Maryam Heidari, Geraldine Torrisi and Sebastian Binnewies
School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Keywords: Enterprise Information Technology, S-D Logic, Qualitative Research, Information Systems.
Abstract: This research aims to explore the complex and dynamic nature of IT service well-being from a multi-level
perspective of the service ecosystem. Most research in the IT service area focuses on individual and micro-
level interactions and practices and overlooks the importance of a holistic and systematic view of
understanding service well-being. This research addresses these limitations by exploring IT service well-being
from a “service ecosystem” perspective. The research follows an interpretive approach to build a middle-
range theory based on a case study and grounded theory technique in an educational institution. The findings
reveal well-being drivers, determinants, and outcomes at the micro, meso and macro levels of the IT service
ecosystem. This study contributes to research on well-being in the context of IT service by providing the well-
being characteristics and conceptualisation in the IT service context, which has been barely investigated. This
research is in progress.
1 INTRODUCTION
IT service can be defined as: “a service provided by
an IT service provider that is made up of a
combination of information, technology, people and
processes” (Global Best Practice, 2011). IT services
create and support information systems that integrate
with people and processes to provide business
services. IT services can help organisations to cut
costs, generate customer value and support
organisational goals (Winkler & Wulf, 2019).
Buffeted by unpredictable economic and social
forces, organisations are under extreme pressure to
deliver IT services effectively and efficiently to
support their strategic goals. (Cusick, 2020).The
challenge is that IT service is highly complex and
dynamic and more research in this area is needed
(Lempinen & Rajala, 2014).
A topic gaining attention in the general service
research area is the concept of well-being (Frow,
McColl-Kennedy, Payne, & Govind, 2019; Laud,
Chou, & Leo, 2022; Ostrom, Parasuraman, Bowen,
Patrício, & Voss, 2015). Well-being is an important
indicator of “system betterment” (Leo, Laud, &
Chou, 2019) and “shared value creation” (Frow et al.,
2019) of services and is a significant area of
investigation for understanding complex systems.
Despite the calls for more investigation on the well-
being in service systems (Anderson & Ostrom, 2015;
Ostrom et al., 2015), scholars believe that there is still
a huge gap in the ‘conceptualization’ of the
phenomenon of well-being (Frow et al., 2019).Most
of the research in service well-being has been
undertaken in the micro-perspective, that is, focusing
on individual-level processes, behaviours and
perceptions of customers and service providers in
creating value and improving well-being
consequences (Budrionis et al., 2020; Islam,
Muhamad, & Sumardi, 2022; Tikkanen, 2020).
Despite the importance of micro perspectives on well-
being, there is a strong need for adapting a broader
context, such as a Service Ecosystem in which
individuals are nested, interrelated, and
interdependent. This is in line with the fact that as
enterprises grow in size and complexity, the emphasis
shifts from a primary focus on the micro level to a
focus on the meso and the macro levels (Stephen L
Vargo & Lusch, 2019). Researchers point out to need
for more understanding of the collective and
systematic aspects of well-being that could better
explain the complexity and dynamism of service
interactions and service delivery (Leo et al., 2019;
Ranjan & Friend, 2020). Based on such perspective,
Leo et al. (2019) interpret system well-being as “a
condition that … considers the fulfilment of the needs
and betterment of the system and its actors,” while
Frow et al. (2019) define service ecosystem well-
being as “a holistic, dynamic and positive state that
Heidari, M., Torrisi, G. and Binnewies, S.
IT Service Well-Being: A Service Ecosystem Approach.
DOI: 10.5220/0011972000003467
In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Enterpr ise Information Systems (ICEIS 2023) - Volume 2, pages 631-641
ISBN: 978-989-758-648-4; ISSN: 2184-4992
Copyright
c
 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
631

contextually determined ... guided by a shared
worldview and levels of the ecosystem … that result
in shared value co-creation.” The concept of Service
Ecosystem is rooted in Service-Dominant logic (S-D
logic). The evolution of S-D logic underlines the
importance of the “service ecosystem” approach as
the main unit of analysis for the theoretical
explanations (Akaka & Vargo, 2015; Stephen L.
Vargo & Lusch, 2017). The service ecosystem
consists of three levels of aggregation: micro, meso
and macro. These levels embed in each other and
dynamic interactions between actors shape the
ecosystem and co-create value for the whole
organisation (Stephen L. Vargo, Maglio, & Akaka,
2008). Extant discussions of service ecosystems
identify the need to understand the nature of
interactions and how value co-creation practices
contribute to well-being (Dam, Le Dinh, &
Menvielle, 2020; Stephen L. Vargo et al., 2008). IT
service ecosystem comprises of various actors such as
customers, service providers, employees, and
communities. Among these actors,
different levels of
interactions and relationships make the IT service a
complex service. Given the importance of well-being
as an indicator of “system betterment” and “shared
value creation” and recognizing that well-being is a
contextual, multi-level phenomenon, we aim to
conceptualise well-being in IT services within the
frame of “Service Ecosystem”.
The study revolves around the question: How can
well-being be conceptualized in an IT service
ecosystem? The aim of this explanatory research
(Gregor, 2006) is to build a theory (Rowlands, 2005)
that characterises and conceptualizes well-being in an
IT service ecosystem. The findings identify broader
levels of well-being drivers, determinants and
outcomes at the various ecosystem levels and
enhanced understanding of the interrelationships
between levels to enhance well-being. We follow a 2-
phases approach to our qualitative study. In the first
phase that already completed we focus on IT
directors, IT managers and IT supervisors for
understanding the perceptions and viewpoints of
service provider side. In the next phase we plan to
investigate the IT service users and customers to
reach to the comprehensive perspective of the well-
being phenomenon.
We chose a large educational sector as the case
study as understanding dimensions of well-being in
this sector is critical from both theory and practice.
McCallum and Price (2016) suggest that there needs
to be a positive and holistic approach to promoting
and describing well-being within a whole educational
context as a central focus (Carter & Andersen, 2019).
The present study contributes to both theory and
practice of IT service. The research is focused on
well-being in the context of IT service and explores
the well-being characteristics (drivers, determinants,
and outcomes) and conceptualization (multi-level) in
IT service context which previously have not been
investigated. Also, it offers an ecosystem approach
for understanding the dynamics of multiple actors’
interactions in micro level of individual and dyadic
interactions, meso level of IT teams and IT
department and macro level of focal firm that provide
a holistic approach to well-being in IT service. The
study also contributes to the development of middle-
range theory (Hassan & Lowry, 2015) as do Brodie,
Saren, and Pels (2011), who bridge the S-D logic
high-level conceptual perspective, by bridging
metatheory of S-D logic with empirical findings in a
specific IT service context.
The practical contribution of the work relates to
the potential for improvement of the well-being of the
service ecosystem that goes beyond individual levels
to broader levels of collective and holistic well-being
(meso and macro levels). Decision makers are made
more aware of the interconnections between and
across layers of IT service and the impact of each
ecosystem layer on other layers that result in
improving or destructing well-being of the IT service.
Furthermore, by understanding and applying well-
being drivers and determinants, decision makers
could expect positive well-being outcomes for their
IT service. Prior to discussing study results and
insights gained, a background to well-being and IT
services is provided, and the theoretical frame for the
study is discussed.
2 BACKGROUND
2.1 Well-Being
Well-being has different meanings across disciplines
(Smith, Case, Smith, Harwell, & Summers, 2013) and
in most domains, the well-being concept relates to the
experience of individuals. For example, in
psychology, well-being refers to cognitive and
affective evaluations of an individual’s life (Diener,
Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). In organizational
behaviour research, well-being reflects in the health
of employees and the organization (Wilson, Dejoy,
Vandenberg, Richardson, & Mcgrath, 2004), while in
economics the effects of income and unemployment
on well-being is the main focus (Frow et al., 2019).
McCallum and Price (2016) propose an even more
holistic definition of wellbeing in education sector,
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highlighting the environmental, collective, and
individual elements that interact across a lifespan. In
service research, the focus of well-being is mostly on
service consumer (Tikkanen, 2020) and service
employee well-being (Rosenbaum, 2015). There is a
paucity of research focused on well-being as a
characteristic at a more collective and holistic level
(Anderson & Ostrom, 2015). While some research at
the collective level exists in service domains such as
finance (Brüggen, Hogreve, Holmlund, Kabadayi, &
Löfgren, 2017), health (Budrionis et al., 2020) and
social services (Feng, Altinay, & Olya, 2019), there
is a deficit in IT services. In IT services, the notion of
well-being at a collective level is especially important
as services, although co-created individually, are
rather designed for the collective or segment
(Anderson et al., 2013).
2.2 Service Ecosystem
A holistic perspective on well-being is facilitated by
the concept of service ecosystems. Service ecosystem
as one major theoretical orientation of S-D logic
attracts attention within scholars due to its
protentional to capture the dynamic and
multidimensional structure of changing world. The
network view in S-D logic is not simply a static
connection of resources, people, and products, but has
a dynamic structure of service provision and service
exchange (Barile, Lusch, Reynoso, Saviano, &
Spohrer, 2016) that follows a purpose in the sense of
individual well-being, as a partial function of
collective well-being (Stephen L. Vargo & Lusch,
2017). A service ecosystem is defined as a ‘relatively
self-contained, self-adjusting system of resource-
integrating actors connected by shared institutional
arrangements and mutual value creation through
service exchange’. Service ecosystem’s structure are
multi-level, that means higher level structures emerge
from lower-level interactions (Stephen L. Vargo,
2019). For reaching to a better understanding of how
value and well-being is cocreated, researchers should
investigate value or well-being determination at and
from multiple levels, as well as the relationships
among those levels (Chandler & Vargo, 2011).
2.3 Well-Being in Service Systems and
Ecosystems
Adopting the holistic view of service ecosystems
facilitates an understanding of well-being as a
characteristic of the system rather than only of the
individual actors. Service system well-being (Laud et
al., 2022; Leo et al., 2019) shows “the aggregate
perception of actor assessments of the system in terms
of the fulfilment of their collective, and by
implication, the satisfaction of their individual
needs”. Thus, the system-based conceptualisation
represents how collective well-being emerges in a
service system. Leo et al. (2019) introduced various
domains of well-being namely strategic, governance,
leadership, resource, community, social,
collaborative, cultural, existential, and
transformational, among service stakeholders that
emerge at different levels of the service system. They
claimed that over time, these levels have bidirectional
influences on each other and contribute to sustainable
overall service system well-being.
In ecosystems perspective, value can be defined
as an improvement in system well-being and can be
measured in terms of system adaptability (Stephen L.
Vargo et al., 2008). Service ecosystem perspective
focuses on contextual value as an increase in the
viability or well-being of a system (Stephen L. Vargo
et al., 2008). This interpretation means well-being has
a dynamic nature and can be changed depending on
the change in well-being of an individual or social
system over time (Akaka, Vargo, & Schau, 2015).
Hence, there are significant challenges related to
identifying the characteristics of service ecosystem
well-being. Some researchers believe well-being is an
optimal end state that allows the whole system to
collaborate (Mazzara, 2014), whereas others argue it
has multiple goals across different layers of the
ecosystem (Leo et al., 2019). Based on S-D logic,
Frow et al. (2019) propose the conceptualization of
service ecosystem well-being as “a holistic, dynamic,
positive state that is contextually determined and is
characterized by: practices that achieve aligned
configurational fit; institutional arrangements that are
purposefully guided by a shared worldview; levels of
the ecosystem that are iteratively reinforcing, co-
evolving and self-adjusting; resilience and an ability
for the ecosystem to adapt to disruptions; emergence
through the adoption of flexible, resource integrating
practices; and resulting in shared value co-creation”.
Researchers call for more study to better understand
aspects of well-being in service ecosystems (Dam et
al., 2020).
3 METHOD
The study is qualitative and is based on Grounded
Theory (Charmaz, 2006; Gioia, Corley, & Hamilton,
2013) as the explanatory generation of theory based
on peoples understanding and experience is a desired
outcome (Birks & Mills, 2015) of current research.
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To enable the study of well-being at the different
levels, an interpretive case study approach was used
to define the units of analysis (Walsham, 1995).
3.1 Study Setting and Data Collection
Given the complexity of service ecosystem, it should
be examined in a specific context (Voss, Perks,
Sousa, Witell, & Wünderlich, 2016). For the purpose
of our study, we chose a higher educational context
because of two main reasons. First, improving IT
service is evidently a top priority for the organisation:
According to the strategy plan 2020-2025 of our
setting, university made a major investment around
350 million dollars on digital infrastructure including
20 million dollars on educational technologies such
as virtual learning and digital research infrastructure
to support major functions of learning and teaching,
research, and engagement. It is clear that improving
IT service is a priority for the organization and
investigating dimensions of well-being in this context
is extremely relevant and shows the practical
significance of current research. The second, higher
education sector is a large-scale organization, and its
IT service has a complex and multi-level nature that
suits the purpose of current study. This is consistent
with the fact that as enterprises grow in size and
complexity, the emphasis shifts from the micro level
to the meso and macro levels (Stephen L Vargo &
Lusch, 2019).
The research is set in the IT department (~ 320
workers) within a large Australian educational
institution (~50,000 enrolments). The IT department
has a complex structure with various internal and
external stakeholders with 7 main IT domains: IT
foundations, IT learning and teaching, IT research, IT
service centre, IT operations and IT value
management. Eac h IT domain comprises of different
levels of IT directors, IT managers, IT supervisors
and IT engineers who are dealing with variety of users
(such as students, researchers, staff, and academics).
As such, this empirical ground is suitable for the
purpose of our study. Figure 1 shows the actor2actor
ecosystem and the focus of current research which is
in progress.
We sent our request for participation on a random
basis through emails to potential candidates.
Following snowball sampling approach, we find
other stakeholders who are involved in IT service
process as we went through open-ended interviews,
and we get to know the ecosystem step by step. As the
first phase of current study, we interviewed 14 IT
decision makers including 5 business-focused IT
directors, 3 IT heads, 4 IT managers and 2 IT
Figure 1: IT service ecosystem (actor2actor map) and the
focus of current study (in yellow).
supervisors. We will conduct the second phase of the
study based on the service user perspective. This 2-
phases approach will also provide the opportunity to
elaborate on the possible similarities and differences
between service user and service provider
perspectives. To ensure the validity of our interview
guidelines we have conducted 4 pilot interviews to
obtain feedback on questions and adjust our interview
questions. The researchers managed potential
informant bias by promising anonymity to the
organization and informants and using open-ended
questioning to give the informants wide scope to
relate a question as they chose. The interview
protocol aims to comprehend the perspectives of IT
service ecosystem participants.
3.2 Data Analysis
Following the inductive principles of grounded
theory, the first phase of data analysis began with
open coding process considering perception of
respondents of IT service well-being (using NVivo
software). In this bottom-up approach we conduct a
thematic coding procedure to identify, analyze and
report themes emerging from our data,
acknowledging the data’s contextual focus. The
themes emerged through a multi-step process
(Charmaz, 2006), starting with an initial coding phase
we identified micro-level, meso-level, macro-level,
and inter-level codes in relation to IT service
ecosystem well-being characteristics. The first order
codes were raised to second order themes reflecting
research centric categorizations of well-being.
Throughout, we iterated between the data and
extensive memo writing about emerging ideas. As
new findings were uncovered in data analysis, more
data were gathered to confirm the theoretical
interpretations and final framework constructs. In an
iterative process, relevant patterns of well-being
drivers, determinants and outcomes identified in
preliminary data analysis.
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4 FINDINGS
Chandler and Vargo (2011) three-level
conceptualization of context (micro, meso, and
macro) was used to analyze IT service ecosystem
well-being and the results bring to the fore well-being
drivers, determinants, and outcomes at each of the
three levels. Table 1 elaborates on definitions of
levels and their interpretations in current study.
Table 1: IT service ecosystem levels of current research and
related framework constructs.
levels
Definition
(Chandler & Vargo,
2011)
Definition
in IT service context
Micro
Service exchange among
actors as dyads
IT user-service provider
dyadic exchange
Meso
Service exchange among
dyads as triads
Indirect service exchange
through IT teams incl:
engineers, supervisors,
managers
Macro
Service exchange among
triads as ecosystems
Indirect exchange through
IT directors, business
partners, external entities
Figure 2 shows the static data structure (Gioia et
al., 2013) that provides an overview of the first order
codes(informant-centric), second order codes
(researcher-centric) and aggregated dimensions that
represents the fundamental constructs of our
framework. In the 1st-order analysis, we adhere to
informant terms, while after considering similarities
and differences to make categories, we treat ourselves
as knowledgeable agents that provide 2
nd
-order
theoretical level of themes. Then, we refine the
emergent 2nd-order themes further into aggregate
dimensions. The resulting grounded framework
should be one that shows the dynamic relationships
among the emergent concepts that explain the
phenomenon and makes clear all relevant data-to-
theory connections (Gioia et al., 2013).Study results
enabled multilevel identification of IT service well-
being drivers, determinants and outcomes (Figure 3).
4.1 IT Service Well-Being Drivers
4.1.1 Value-Driven Approach and Resources
(Macro to Meso)
Interviewees agreed that value and value creation
approach is a key factor for a well-functioning IT
service. Hence, activity that does not create value is a
waste of resources of IT department and the
organization: “I think a well-functioning IT service
has a few critical elements, but really it all does tie
back to value. and any kind of adjustment or change
that you would make to that service, if doesn't tie into
that value proposition, then it's kind of like a pointless
exercise in some ways.” Access to the adequate
tangible (e.g., human resources) and intangible
resources (e.g., expertise) was also raised. An IT
supervisor noted: “Well-functioning IT service is
happy people with adequate resources and an
adequate number of staff on deck. With the tools
necessary to do the job. That’s about it really. If we
kept it to that, we wouldn't have a problem.
particularly resource is important”.The value
mindset must be user-centred to directs resources to
value creative practices and processes and decreases
the risk of wasting resources.
4.1.2 “In-depth” Understanding of Actors’
Needs (Micro to Meso)
Traditionally IT service decisions are top-down
decisions and do not necessarily reflect on the actual
needs of IT service actors. But it is the IT users and
customers who are in direct contact with the
technology and IT service are key to the success of
implementing those decisions. Decisions should then
be based on the bottom-up approach from micro level
of users to meso level of IT department and macro
level. This user-centric approach is vital for value-
based decisions in macro and meso levels. “Having
the energy and driving within the tier zero and tier
one (directors and top managers) to talk to the Level
3 engineers and make sure that all the teams work
together to resolve that incident to make sure that the
customers’ needs are fulfilled.” Well-being is more
than identifying needs. It is about understanding the
roots of the needs and uncovering present and future
needs of the users. “…you might be coming in and
saying: I want this to happen, or I wanted something
particular, but that will only meet part of your need
and it's kind of understanding the whole how we
actually solve the problem.”
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635

Figure 2: Data Structure.
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Figure 3: Empirically grounded framework for IT service ecosystem well-being.
4.2 IT Service Well-Being
Determinants
4.2.1 Smart Decision Making (Macro to
Meso)
Smart decisions assure the organization that they
invest time and capital on the right choices. Smart
managers not only consider the current requirement
of the IT service but also, they will cover the future
and probable requirement for that IT service to make
sure that their plans have enough flexibility for the
uncertain future and ever-changing user
requirements. “Decisions that will support not just
the immediate requirement, but they support the
future as well. It gives you room to move if you need
to, with what the future might hold. So, to me it's also
just constantly evolving.” Being future facing means
being adaptable. Rigid, complex, overly bureaucratic
systems can limit the ability to flex with change and
are therefore a barrier to well-being: “A lot of IT
traditional frameworks and systems are overly
complex, overly bureaucratic, overly governed, and it
makes some very rigid and that's the problem when it
comes to the real world and us needing to be agile
and things change so often, but our processes and
systems don't seem to flex with what's needed.”
4.2.2 Collaborative Structure (Macro to
Meso)
Almost all informants believe collaboration and
effective relationship within and across all levels
(meso and macro) of ecosystem is substantial to well-
being. The important role of good relationships
among stakeholders was emphasised by respondents
since relationships foster deep conversation is
important for understanding the needs and wants of
users and even finding the root cause of the problem
so its essential foundation for in-depth understanding
of their needs. “A healthy IT service is when you
really having a lot of contact with my business users
and having regular contacts and building that
relationship so they can pick up the phone or attend
regular catchups to share their concerns and needs.”
Relationships should happen between IT department
actors and across IT teams to connect the different
types of expertise and IT tasks through sharing of
information, expertise and experiences: “A well-
functioning IT service requires that collaboration
with other teams and need to be able to provide that
knowledge to us because at the end of the day, it's
about providing value to the client, so the more
information that other teams can provide us is the
more the value that we can provide to a client.” The
relationship with focal firm actors such as business
actors in broader level of macro level plays an
important role for creating value in micro level of
users.
4.2.3 Actor Engagement (Micro)
Respondents identified sharing ideas, collaboration
and proactivity of IT actors as the first sign of actor
engagement. When people share and want to
improve, they are motivated to contribute to the
ecosystem: “What I realized going in there, it's a sign
of different health. How do people respond? Are
needing to be agile and things change so often, but
our processes and systems don't seem to flex with
what's needed they putting new ideas out there? Are
they trying to improve their processes? Are they
engaged?” Receiving continuous feedback from
actors whether IT staff or IT service users, could be
also an effective strategy to monitor contribution and
engagement. Engagement is supported by a culture of
ongoing and up-to-date training and learning to make
sure that all actors are ready to participate to the
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637

problem-solving process. This training is not limited
to the technical and IT skills, but also should cover
soft skills that are necessary for building effective
relationships and co-creating value and well-being:
“We provide our team members with soft skill
training such as customer relationship type of
training. Because there is a human element that
whether on the phone, face to face or other ways of
dealing with the customer, they need there…” This
training is especially important in terms of new
technologies and IT services and IT users need to
receive adequate training and support until they feel
comfortable with using the new system.
4.3 IT Service Well-Being Outcomes
4.3.1 It Service as a Strategic Partner
(Macro and Meso)
In macro and meso levels, IT service could be a
strategic partner for the organization. This happens by
first meeting the requirement that is set for IT service
to accomplish: “If I was using well-being in the
context of systems, then well- being for me would be
providing a service at the level that is required by the
organization”. IT service “intertwined” with the
organization service, and we see IT service strategy
as critical part of the of organizational strategy. On
the other words, in a well-stablished IT service, IT
service decisions and efforts are not only aligned with
organizational strategy but most importantly are seen
as an integrated part of the organization service. For
example, one interviewee noted that: “Well-being is
about understanding what the impacts of a service on
other services of organization are. It’s all going well.
It's not going well. This is why I'm advocate of that
overall well-being” or “I think additionally good IT
service should be helping build that strategy, not just
delivering on whatever they the company strategy is”.
Modern IT service as our participants believe, is not
an isolated silo that is a cost factor for the
organization, but it’s a competitive advantage that is
capable to outstand the organization and co-create
value in a strategic level: “it's not sufficient for an
organization to just continue what it was doing and
bolt on IT on the side and they really need to be
leading or having information technology lead the
organization …”.
4.3.2 IT Service as an Actor Partner (Meso
and Micro)
In micro level, well-being means IT service is being
seen as a partner that represent how individual actors
feel and experience the IT service at the end of the
day. Access to a modern and high-quality IT service
is one aspect of this partnership i.e., an effortless
service that is easy to learn and easy to understand is
the ultimate expectation of such experience: “To me
it's about being seamless. So, I think it seamless and
easy to navigate and you don't need to actually
understand who does what.” It is fast and straight
forward in resolving incidents that provides an agile
and modern IT service ecosystem: “The wait time
should be very low…”. Actor empowerment through
learning and training is also important to the
partnership. “Learning is a curve. Because one
technology phases out and new technology comes
in”. Such experience with IT service will enhance the
user satisfaction and happiness. It is also important
that the satisfaction and happiness of IT workers: “it's
about staff well-being as well, staff morale, staff
turnover. So that's one side of the coin and you got to
have a happy team to deliver a good service” Well-
being outcome in IT service is not only about
customer and end users’ happiness, but also is about
having an ecosystem that facilitate the happiness and
satisfaction of all actors within different levels of that
ecosystem.
4.4 Well-Being Continuous
Improvement (Micro-Meso-Macro)
Respondents believe that continuous improvement is
a must for every part of the IT service: “Everything
that is working, we always have to constantly review.
our processes, our procedures, our knowledge,
documentation, our way of doing things now.” This
helps IT service providers to find deviations quickly
and adjust them in a timely basis. In doing so, they
need to track all practices, processes, documentations
and importantly performance of the service actors to
assure that they achieve the milestones and meet the
requirements based on defined measures and metrics.
An important and effective way of monitoring and
assessing is receiving feedback whether from IT users
or business actors to check their satisfaction and
continuously receiving their ideas about the service
and get advice on how they can be changed and
improved based on the up-to-date need and
expectations: “anything which does come back as any
sort of feedback, we can improve on. We then
acknowledge, accept, and actually work on those, so
we reach out to people and say OK, what did we do
wrong? How can we improve it?”. A formal process
for getting systematic feedback could facilitates the
process.
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5 DISCUSSION AND FUTURE
RESEARCH
The current study guided by the main question of
“How can well-being be conceptualized in an IT
service ecosystem?” The emergent characteristics of
IT service well-being: drivers, determinants and
outcomes, occur at multiple levels. Based on the
grounded framework, within and across each level,
well-being drivers and determinants influence each
other; enabling well-being outcomes and contributing
to IT service quality, agility, and robustness. Value-
driven approach in macro and meso levels with the
deep understanding of needs in micro level are the
well-being drivers. While smart decision making and
collaborative structure in macro and meso levels
besides actor engagement in micro levels are the
major determinants of well-being in IT service
ecosystem. One outcome of such well-functioning,
well-structured and well-defined IT service is the
experience of IT service as a strategic partner in
macro and meso levels, for the organization. The
other outcome is the partnership experience for IT
user in meso and macro levels, which means that IT
users benefit from IT service as a reliable and friendly
partner to fulfill their needs and experience a better
life with the help of such IT service. The continuous
improvement in micro, meso and macro levels assure
the sustainability and quality of the IT service
overtime.
Our observations change the way we think about
well-being concept as an individual characteristic to
a holistic and multi-level phenomenon. This novel
approach is especially significant for understanding
the complex context of IT service that has critical
priority in strategic goals of the organizations.
The disaggregation of the ecosystem levels
enables the investigation of well-being factors within
each level. There are interrelations and influences
across levels that is evident in data analysis; the
deeply interconnected levels influence and form each
other as multiple actors (individuals, IT teams, IT
department, business actors and external entities)
engage in dynamic, interdependent interactions
shaping and improving the ecosystem well-being.
This is in line with previous research stating that the
understanding of service ecosystems requires a
multilevel perspective, considering an interplay
between micro, meso, and macro levels of the
ecosystem (Chandler and Vargo, 2011). We also
extend on the understanding that well-being emerges
within each level and among the levels influences and
shapes the ecosystem (Frow et al., 2019; Leo et al.,
2019) for the specific IT service context. Most
research in the IT service area are focusing on value
creation aspects of such ecosystems as (Lempinen &
Rajala, 2014) explored the value creation of multi-
actor IT service processes but the well-being aspects
of such services rarely being considered and
explored.
Bringing together study results, the lens of service
ecosystem (Stephen L. Vargo & Lusch, 2017) and the
reference to the notion that “well-being is a holistic,
positive and dynamic state that is contextually
determined” (Frow et al., 2019), we propose the
following conceptualization to IT service ecosystem
well-being:
IT service ecosystem well-being is a holistic,
positive, and dynamic state that is driven by value-
based approach and in-depth understanding of IT
actors’ needs and determined by smart decision
making, collaborative structure and actor engagement
while continuously improved within and across
micro, meso and macro levels of IT service
ecosystem. Such well-defined, well-structured, and
well-functioning IT service is not only a strategic
partner for the organization but also is a reliable and
sustainable partner for the IT users.
This study contributes to research on well-being
in the context of IT service by providing the well-
being characteristics and conceptualization in IT
service context which has been barely investigated.
Align with the increasing attention and expectation
for taking midrange theoretical approach to enable
being more prescriptive and conductive to empirical
evidence (Stephen L Vargo & Lusch, 2019), this
work contributes to the development of empirically
grounded middle range theories (Brodie et al., 2011),
bridging the S-D logic high-level conceptual
perspective with empirical findings in a specific IT
service context.
The multi-level understanding of IT service well-
being provided by the study has practical and
managerial implications for IT service decision
makers. It highlights to decision makers that well-
being is dependent on relationships within and among
levels. As driver of well-being, business actors, IT
directors and managers, IT supervisors should have a
value-driven approach to have proper focus and
direction in their mindset for decision making that
create value and save time and money for the
organization. Following that approach, increases the
reliability of IT decisions and investments and gives
a more strategic position to IT decision makers. This
mindset is not complete without the determination to
in-depth understanding of actors needs and wants in a
micro level. Then IT decision makers needs to make
smart decisions based on the right measures and
IT Service Well-Being: A Service Ecosystem Approach
639

metrics and implement a collaborative structure that
all actors can easily collaborate, share and contribute
to the ecosystem and its well-being. Actor
engagement is a critical determinant for IT managers
to not only try to involve and activate all actors but
also evaluate the collaboration and implementation of
decisions. If managers and directors have the
commitment to define, structure and implement the
IT service considering well-being drivers and
determinants, they will acquire significant strategic
outcomes for the organization in general and the
valuable and sustainable outcomes for the users and
all of these outcomes will result in the betterment of
the IT service as a whole.
It could be argued that this research relies on the
data from only one educational institution. This focus
enabled an in-depth analysis of the ecosystem well-
being which is a context-specific phenomenon (Frow
et al., 2019). Studying other diverse settings may
provide new insights into how the nature of sector
influence the well-being drivers, determinants and
outcomes in different levels. It might be interesting to
conduct a comparative study of education and other
settings. We also refer to the thoughts around
generalizability from the grounded theory approach
and case study. Generalizability is achievable through
grounded theory approach as the purpose of the
grounded theory is to inductively construct a general
theory in the absence or incompleteness of alternative
existing frameworks (Carminati, 2018). And it is also
possible to generalize from a case study if the case
generates concepts with obvious relevance to other
domain (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999).The above
claims are relevant to current study as IT service in
any different organizational setting, has lots of
similarities in terms of IT processes, practices,
designs, and tools. For example, majority of
organizations uses ITIL framework for the purpose of
directing and managing IT service practices and
processes. It is also important to emphasize that our
intention is to generalize to theory (Bansal & Corley,
2011). This research deliberately focused on the IT
decision makers’ perspective when it comes to
decision making for betterment of the system and
enhancing the well-being in IT service. We will
include other stakeholders (i.e., IT help desk, IT
users) to reveal their values and pain points in the next
phase of the study. Given that well-being can vary
over time, a longitudinal study of well-being
dynamics may provide further insights.
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