Integrating Sociotechnical and Technical Views of e-Services

Abstract

Discussions of e-services sometimes bounce schizophrenically between discussing “e” (operating through the Internet), discussing IT infrastructures (e.g., service-oriented architectures and web services) and discussing services in the sociotechnical world (using the Internet or other networks while performing work for the benefit of someone else). This paper integrates sociotechnical and technical views of e-service by using an e-service domain framework that is a revision of a previously published service domain framework (). It clarifies the scope of different interpretations of e-services and shows relationships between disparate perspectives for understanding and analyzing e-services. It covers topics including synergies between the various perspectives, links between the layers of the framework, the location of service-dominant logic, self-service, and software as a service (SaaS), and the conceptual and practical gap between sociotechnical and technical views of e-services.