Abstract:

Service science is an emerging discipline that aims to understand service production (Spohrer et al., 2007). It recognizes that maintaining service growth and service excellence in the long run is not trivial. Through comprehensive and holistic examination, it documents and explains service production and offers recommendations on how to manage service provision. Unlike traditional disciplines such as economics, service science differentiates service production and manufacturing of physical goods (Spohrer et al., 2008).

The service science literature suggests that provision of higher education can be viewed as service production by colleges and universities (Spohrer et al., 2007; Lella et al., 2012). Universities and colleges around the world differ in governance, faculty contracts, funding and budgeting processes yet they all resemble each other because fundamentally they deal with very similar issues. All institutions of higher learning have faculty who teach students and students become alumni upon graduation. Teaching is organized as academic programs that lead to degrees. Academic programs consist of courses. All colleagues and universities are concerned with funding, even though they may rely on different funding sources.

This article systematically looks at education provision. As an example, we examine academic programs in entrepreneurship. Among academic programs, university programs in entrepreneurship are ideal for our analysis. Entrepreneurship and small business education programs have gained popularity globally. Nevertheless, many face difficulty in gaining campus-wide acceptance and sustainability.

This paper applies a service science framework, presenting academic programs as complex educational service systems that co-produce value for a variety of stakeholders. Access to funding, the presence of enthusiastic champions, trust among stakeholders, coordination and support from constituents are required for academic programs to succeed.

Service science is a useful analytical approach that allows comparing diverse academic programs (Maglio et al., 2009). We highlight common elements and themes in a diverse universe of academic programs. The service science framework can also be used for designing a multidisciplinary entrepreneurship education program. An implementation of the framework at a technology university is described. This article is a step towards an understanding of the forces behind the emergence, growth and decline of academic programs.

Keywords:

Entrepreneurship education, service system, service science, academic program management, higher education.