SERVICE, ICT, VALUE A value based framework to support the preliminary design and planning of ICT enabled services

In this dissertation we analyze the relationships between services, ICT, and value, and we propose a framework to deal with the complexity related to the theoretical background of these three concepts. Indeed, they are complex concepts used with different meanings and from different disciplinary perspectives, due also to their historical paths. To clarify the stratified meanings of these concepts and their relationships is a first research objective of the present dissertation. Due to these issues, the present dissertation aims to provide a contribution to the emerging field of service science by discussing a value model for services and a methodology supporting service preliminary design and planning. A major challenge in fact is to provide tools that under a multidisciplinary perspective support communication, knowledge sharing and alignment in planning activity of services. Planning activity is the critical step for the development of valuable services. Secondary goals are (i) to exploit semantic repositories in order to provide access to a value based knowledge on services; (i) to support with the proposed framework the reuse of existing services and information for the design and the implementation of new services.