Fuzzy Modeling of Service System Engagements

This paper presents a conceptual model of client epistemology and decision making in service engagements through the use of fuzzy variables and fuzzy relations, and it proposes a fuzzy system as a general mechanism for service innovation. A fuzzy systems approach to modeling service processes is shown to be a robust way to represent the abductive, inductive, and deductive stages of service development. Motivating examples include, but are not limited to, service in education, consulting, healthcare, government services, knowledge-intensive business service, and online intelligent services. The paper's modeling framework is based on the view of agents as fuzzy controllers and fuzzy modelers. Fuzzy representations of variables represent vagueness through the mathematical representations of possibility and necessity instead of probability, and fuzzy relations capture incomplete specification of the relationships between the inputs and outputs of the processes of a service network. Cocreation of knowledge, with the specific intent of reducing client ambiguity and vagueness about a proposed service process, improves the cocreation of value by that process. This research responds to the challenge of endemic ambiguity and vagueness in the interactions of service clients and providers in a service system by providing robust and flexible models that can be applied to the design and management of service systems.