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Technology is revolutionizing the management logic of service systems. The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, is challenging interaction between humans and machines changing the service systems’ value co-creation configurations and logic. To envision possible future scenarios, this paper aims to reflect upon how the humans’ use of AI technology can impact value co-creation.

The study is developed, at a conceptual level, using selected elements from managerial and marketing theoretical frameworks interested in value co-creation – Service-Dominant Logic, Service Science and Viable Systems Approach (VSA) – used as interpretative tools to reframe value co-creation in the digital age.

The interpretative approach adopted and, in particular, the new VSA notion of Intelligence Augmentation (IA), in the perspective of the information variety model, shed new light on value co-creation in the digital age framing a possible “IA effect” that can empower value co-creation in complex decision-making contexts.

The study provides insights useful in the design and management of service systems suggesting a rethinking of the view of AI as a means for mainly increasing the smartness of service systems and a new focus on the enhancement of the human resources contribution to make the service systems wiser.

The paper provides a refocused interpretative view of the interaction between humans and AI that looks at a possible positive impact of the use of AI on humans in terms of augmented decision-making capabilities in conditions of complexity.

The aim of the chapter is to highlight the limits and opportunities linked to the use of tools such as interactive marketing and communication in small creative businesses comprising Italian jewellery districts to achieve greater competitiveness of local systems on global markets.

From secondary data and the analysis of district websites, the specificity of Italian jewellery districts is analysed in terms of relational and learning differences. Starting from a circumscribed (isolated), experience of hands-on learning, it is suggested that systemic progress can be made within a collective local system of learning (i.e. a virtuous and widespread knowledge of the district system) by virtue of internet-based technologies (IBT). In this respect, the chapter evidences how the productive and creative specificity of Italian jewellery district systems can gain impetus, in terms of greater competitiveness, from the use of IBT.

This chapter aims to qualify Local Area as Smart Tourism Local Service Systems (S-TLSS), whose competitiveness and reputation depend on sharing strategies and processes of cohesion based on equifinality among/for stakeholder. The methodology envisages the integration of Service Science Management Engineering and Design (SSME+D) and the Viable Systems Approach (VSA). Thus it describes a S-TLSS in terms of local service system, whose viability requires a ‘smart governmentality’, able to guarantee the management of equity, sustainability and resilience. Referring to human resources coherent with value co-creation processes, S-TLSS implies T-shaped professionals: new kind of individuals who have proficiency in a specific field/discipline (deep professionality) and, at the same time, show capacity to understand and participate in complex projects/systems (broad professionality). Finally, the authors will show a practical application of the system attempting to enhance an Italian territory that is not very attractive to tourists and local residents.

This paper aims to explore the current state of website environmental communications in Latin American universities through a benchmarking operational tool. The study considers how these universities communicate their environmental policies as an act of corporate social responsibility and to improve their public image.

A sample of 80 top-ranked Latin American universities was considered. Environmental websites were evaluated in terms of information quality, multimodal design and stakeholder engagement. The research method follows the theoretical foundations of critical discourse analysis, multimodal studies and ecolinguistics.

A total of 59% of the universities have opened environmental websites. However, many of them have poor content and interactivity. Latin American universities obtain low scores in several objective criteria which measure the efficiency of website environmental communications.

The findings can help university administrators to improve the quality and effectiveness of online environmental communications. Some practical recommendations are given and examples of good practice can be emulated.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that analyses the situation of website environmental communications in a large sample of Latin American universities. The development of an operational benchmarking tool invites further comparative studies, which may contribute to a wider picture of environmental communications.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key factors for successful creation of social value using the social business model (SBM) as an explanatory framework.

This study follows the Krippendorff and Gioia’s methodology seeking the rigor while examining the selected case study – a social cooperative named La Paranza, in the city of Naples in the south of Italy. In doing so, the SBM canvas is used to present the research’s results in a systematic way.

The existence of a strong “identity” with the local context, the “enthusiasm and the wish to change things”, the presence of a “visionary”, acting as an orchestrator and the ability to provide for responses to the local needs were identified as key factors in the successful creation of social value in the examined case.

The main research limits stem from the single case study methodology approach, which embodies the researchers’ subjectivity. A comparative study based on the collection of multiple successful case studies is therefore suggested to develop a generalization of the key drivers underlying the process of social value creation.

The study’s originality results from its use of the SBM framework in presenting a successful example of social value creation. The examined empirical evidence is also original in itself, mainly because of its inner uniqueness as a new and innovative formula: this allows an in-depth investigation and the inspiration for new ideas in the ground of SBM and, in a broader sense, in the field of social innovation and social value creation.