This list represents a summary of the past forty years of service design literature. The citations were compiled from the Emergence conference at Carnegie Mellon University as well as the Designing for Services project in the UK, service design syllabi at CMU and independent research. I've included the abstracts and introductions to the papers and cross-referenced examples and concepts so that it's easy to follow the development of ideas such as "service blueprinting" across multiple papers.

Select any underlined term to filter the list, showing only papers that share that particular concept, example, author, journal or decade. If you'd like to help fill in the gaps by suggesting other canonical papers, e-mail the citations to service at howardesign.com. Thanks!

Filter: Papers authored by Ranjay Gulati | View all papers

Mr. Gulati is the Michael L. Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Technology and E-Commerce at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. A specialist in strategic and organizational issues in dynamic markets, Professor Gulati has published research in the Harvard Business Review, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal and Sloan Management Review.

The Barista Principle: Starbucks and the Rise of Relational Capital
Strategy + Business, 2002
Ranjay Gulati
From the article: "From coffee bar to caffeine kingdom, Starbucks proves relationships are as important as physical assets."

Example: Starbucks