Table 1 Emerging themes with empirical... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1

Emerging themes with empirical evidence

Themes	Subthemes	Key discussions with quotes
1) Materiality in Service Design – captures the evolving nature of what service design does, delivers and enables – its tangible and intangible “materials” and the shift in how designers frame, structure and scale their work within organizations	Inputs – “what service design shapes” vs Outputs – “what service design delivers” vs Outcomes – “results and benefits service design seeks to achieve”	This subtheme reflects the idea that service design is not just about outputs (e.g. blueprints, touchpoints, prototypes) but also about the inputs (skills, processes, mindsets) and the outcomes (transformation, learning, cultural shifts) it catalyzes Keeping the roots in design – the relevance of core design skills remains, such as visual language, knowledge creation, future foresight, nurturing collective imagination and the ability to concretize service concepts, use cases and processes “We make knowledge that supports co-creation and collaboration. That is what we design. This is a huge part of the job, to make the collaboration smooth”. (Design consultancy) Facilitate service designers’ and other collaborators’ “own” creativity. There is a need to find new angles to inspire and facilitate creativity (e.g. service designers need to “rewild themselves”) “Bringing radical creativity into culture and strategy”. (In-house design team)
	From project-based (output or solution-oriented) to program-based or programmatic (outcome-oriented) service design	To scale service design: moving away from focused, time-bound project-based work to continuous and broader development, program-based work “How to scale design without hiring 1000 designers?” (Design consultancy) From project-based outputs to outcome-based roadmaps requires a mindset shift from service designers used to working on projects and having complete control over the design process. There is a need to build ownership, which emphasizes the importance of engaging others (i.e. other functions critical to the business goals) in the design process, fostering a sense of investment and creating a shared connection to the design’s success “Designers need to lose control and build ownership”. (Design consultancy) Strong interest from all participants in developing customer journey management or customer journey ops; embedding customer journey as a way of working around the customer “Customer journey ops are a hot topic!” (both B2C and B2B in-house design teams)
	Transformation and optimization vs innovation	Design should be seen as a “transformative change capability” in organizations Company culture as the object/material of design “[Changing] the company culture is the radical creativity” (In-house design team) In times of crisis or economic constraint, service design’s materiality may shift – from enabling innovation to focusing on optimization. Still, its transformative capacity remains central, requiring designers to flex and adapt their practice to different business needs “[The consultancy started] selling optimization instead of innovation as a way to make designers less vulnerable and redundant”. (Design consultancy)
2) Organizational logics – captures the skillset and mindset needed by designers to engage meaningfully with the internal rationalities of institutions – translating design values into organizational language, and vice versa, to enable sustainable and strategic transformation	Anthropological inquiry and organizational literacy	Achieving strategic levels of change involves anthropological inquiry and a deep understanding of organizational ontology “It is important for designers to understand what animal the organization is”. (Design consultancy) Designers must be able to navigate between macro (strategic), meso (team) and micro (individual) levels, combining insights from sociology, change management and organizational theory
	Storytelling with numbers	The power of storytelling, but also demonstrating impact with facts and numbers, as skills to be practiced in achieving internal buy-in throughout the organization. Storytelling is something that people remember. You can stand out and create a greater impact “Facilitation and storytelling are top competencies for design. Change the narrative to inspire people”. (In-house design team) Integrating standardized business metrics as a common practice to effectively operate within the organizational logic. For example, working with the objectives and key results (OKRs) framework “OKRs should not be separated from design but rather integrated”. (In-house design team) “We are having data scientists teaching designers to use the quant language so they can mix the two”. (Design consultancy)
	Change management	Designers increasingly take on the roles of internal change agents. This includes not only shifting ways of working or designing services, but also advocating for cultural and mindset shifts, often requiring a deep understanding of how organizations resist or absorb change “Change management comprises changing “directions”, “mindsets”, “ways of working”, but also “change activism”. (In-house design team) “Customer maturity assessment is a great tool for management to get ideas on how to utilize design and activate the in-house team”. (In-house design team)\
3) Technological transformation –explores how emerging technologies – especially artificial intelligence (AI) – are reshaping the scope, methods and material of service design	AI as a tool vs material of service design	While “AI does not replace design and designers”, it can serve as a valuable tool in new service development. For instance, AI can be leveraged at various stages of the design process, from deepening customer understanding and facilitating idea generation, to prototyping and testing “AI does not replace design and designers”. (Design consultancy) Automation and overall understanding of the system are lacking. The lack of attention to system-wide integration of AI reveals a need for deeper organizational and technical literacy among service designers “Automation is neglected in our design. We are not designing the system”. (In-house design team) AI is not merely a support tool; it is also becoming part of the service experience itself, a material that designers shape and integrate into customer interactions “Designing with AI as an actor participating and influencing the customer experience”. (In-house design team)
	Humans–AI creativity and collaboration	Technological transformation calls for new forms of creativity, collaboration and criticality, ensuring that technology is integrated in ways that are ethical, purposeful and grounded in human values The emphasis is on the pivotal role of designers’ creativity in identifying innovative applications and business cases for AI in service contexts “The use cases are the role of design, not data scientists”. (Design consultancy)
4) Sustainable and inclusive futures – explores how service design can act as a catalyst for long-term ecological, social and systemic change, moving beyond short-term fixes toward more ethical, inclusive and regenerative service ecosystems	Systemic and regenerative initiatives	Designers are increasingly taking on roles as quiet activists or systemic changemakers, embedding sustainability and inclusion not just in final outputs, but throughout design processes and organizational practices. This activism may be subtle – working within structures – or emerge through more radical collectives and pioneering individual efforts Sustainability agendas should occur incrementally, guided by “gentle, empathetic, and systematic shifts”. Designers can integrate it into the design process “step by step”, e.g. embedded into the design process and deliverables. The emphasis is on embedding change at every stage, rather than treating it as an afterthought “It is the responsibility of the design community to push a preferred future; design for the future and make it tangible”. (In-house design team)
	Compliance and regulations	The push toward sustainability is increasingly shaped by external forces such as the corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) and digital accessibility regulations. Designers must be equipped to navigate these regulatory layers, understanding how compliance intersects with sustainability, privacy (e.g. GDPR), supply chains, and procurement practices. This calls for broader organizational and systemic literacy “We need to understand the different [regulatory] layers, e.g. accessibility, data GDPR, sustainability” (In-house design team)
5) Service Designer as a Professional Identity – surfaces critical reflections on what it means to be a service designer today, e.g. how identities are formed, negotiated and reshaped through practice, and how designers maintain relevance in complex, evolving organizational ecosystems	Fluid identity	Service designers operate across multiple levels of organizations, from hands-on implementation to high-level strategy, which adds fluidity and ambiguity to their professional identity. The term “service designer” itself can carry different meanings depending on the context and team composition “Everyone has a different understanding of what service design is. We all work on the same team in design and work with different business areas”. (In-house design team)
	Integration and repositioning	Integration: the impact of an in-house service design unit depends on the organizational structures and managerial models shaping the conditions for integrating service design capabilities. Designers must often work across silos and negotiate their role within non-design-centric environments Repositioning of service design: Dropping the service design term was unanimously mentioned as a good practice to re-position service design within the broader organizational strategy “We have dropped service design completely. It is more strategic, dealing with the business organization. Working in cross-functional teams, yoúll not be doing design as such” (Design consultancy)
	New competencies	As service design moves up the ladder, it is increasingly expected to contribute to organizational transformation with new competencies (e.g. related to change management, business strategy, systemic literacy and data fluency). Likewise, consultancies are exploring new frames of service design that highlight interdisciplinarity, collaboration, autonomy, and adaptability "Process design is replacing service design. To avoid getting more designers fired, we started selling for optimization instead of innovation to make designers less vulnerable and redundant”. (Design consultancy)

Themes	Subthemes	Key discussions with quotes
1) Materiality in Service Design – captures the evolving nature of what service design does, delivers and enables – its tangible and intangible “materials” and the shift in how designers frame, structure and scale their work within organizations	Inputs – “what service design shapes” vs Outputs – “what service design delivers” vs Outcomes – “results and benefits service design seeks to achieve”	This subtheme reflects the idea that service design is not just about outputs (e.g. blueprints, touchpoints, prototypes) but also about the inputs (skills, processes, mindsets) and the outcomes (transformation, learning, cultural shifts) it catalyzesKeeping the roots in design – the relevance of core design skills remains, such as visual language, knowledge creation, future foresight, nurturing collective imagination and the ability to concretize service concepts, use cases and processes“We make knowledge that supports co-creation and collaboration. That is what we design. This is a huge part of the job, to make the collaboration smooth”. (Design consultancy)Facilitate service designers’ and other collaborators’ “own” creativity. There is a need to find new angles to inspire and facilitate creativity (e.g. service designers need to “rewild themselves”)“Bringing radical creativity into culture and strategy”. (In-house design team)
	From project-based (output or solution-oriented) to program-based or programmatic (outcome-oriented) service design	To scale service design: moving away from focused, time-bound project-based work to continuous and broader development, program-based work“How to scale design without hiring 1000 designers?” (Design consultancy)From project-based outputs to outcome-based roadmaps requires a mindset shift from service designers used to working on projects and having complete control over the design process. There is a need to build ownership, which emphasizes the importance of engaging others (i.e. other functions critical to the business goals) in the design process, fostering a sense of investment and creating a shared connection to the design’s success“Designers need to lose control and build ownership”. (Design consultancy)Strong interest from all participants in developing customer journey management or customer journey ops; embedding customer journey as a way of working around the customer“Customer journey ops are a hot topic!” (both B2C and B2B in-house design teams)
	Transformation and optimization vs innovation	Design should be seen as a “transformative change capability” in organizationsCompany culture as the object/material of design“[Changing] the company culture is the radical creativity” (In-house design team)In times of crisis or economic constraint, service design’s materiality may shift – from enabling innovation to focusing on optimization. Still, its transformative capacity remains central, requiring designers to flex and adapt their practice to different business needs“[The consultancy started] selling optimization instead of innovation as a way to make designers less vulnerable and redundant”. (Design consultancy)
2) Organizational logics – captures the skillset and mindset needed by designers to engage meaningfully with the internal rationalities of institutions – translating design values into organizational language, and vice versa, to enable sustainable and strategic transformation	Anthropological inquiry and organizational literacy	Achieving strategic levels of change involves anthropological inquiry and a deep understanding of organizational ontology“It is important for designers to understand what animal the organization is”. (Design consultancy)Designers must be able to navigate between macro (strategic), meso (team) and micro (individual) levels, combining insights from sociology, change management and organizational theory
	Storytelling with numbers	The power of storytelling, but also demonstrating impact with facts and numbers, as skills to be practiced in achieving internal buy-in throughout the organization. Storytelling is something that people remember. You can stand out and create a greater impact“Facilitation and storytelling are top competencies for design. Change the narrative to inspire people”. (In-house design team)Integrating standardized business metrics as a common practice to effectively operate within the organizational logic. For example, working with the objectives and key results (OKRs) framework“OKRs should not be separated from design but rather integrated”. (In-house design team)“We are having data scientists teaching designers to use the quant language so they can mix the two”. (Design consultancy)
	Change management	Designers increasingly take on the roles of internal change agents. This includes not only shifting ways of working or designing services, but also advocating for cultural and mindset shifts, often requiring a deep understanding of how organizations resist or absorb change“Change management comprises changing “directions”, “mindsets”, “ways of working”, but also “change activism”. (In-house design team)“Customer maturity assessment is a great tool for management to get ideas on how to utilize design and activate the in-house team”. (In-house design team)\
3) Technological transformation –explores how emerging technologies – especially artificial intelligence (AI) – are reshaping the scope, methods and material of service design	AI as a tool vs material of service design	While “AI does not replace design and designers”, it can serve as a valuable tool in new service development. For instance, AI can be leveraged at various stages of the design process, from deepening customer understanding and facilitating idea generation, to prototyping and testing“AI does not replace design and designers”. (Design consultancy)Automation and overall understanding of the system are lacking. The lack of attention to system-wide integration of AI reveals a need for deeper organizational and technical literacy among service designers“Automation is neglected in our design. We are not designing the system”. (In-house design team)AI is not merely a support tool; it is also becoming part of the service experience itself, a material that designers shape and integrate into customer interactions“Designing with AI as an actor participating and influencing the customer experience”. (In-house design team)
	Humans–AI creativity and collaboration	Technological transformation calls for new forms of creativity, collaboration and criticality, ensuring that technology is integrated in ways that are ethical, purposeful and grounded in human valuesThe emphasis is on the pivotal role of designers’ creativity in identifying innovative applications and business cases for AI in service contexts“The use cases are the role of design, not data scientists”. (Design consultancy)
4) Sustainable and inclusive futures – explores how service design can act as a catalyst for long-term ecological, social and systemic change, moving beyond short-term fixes toward more ethical, inclusive and regenerative service ecosystems	Systemic and regenerative initiatives	Designers are increasingly taking on roles as quiet activists or systemic changemakers, embedding sustainability and inclusion not just in final outputs, but throughout design processes and organizational practices. This activism may be subtle – working within structures – or emerge through more radical collectives and pioneering individual effortsSustainability agendas should occur incrementally, guided by “gentle, empathetic, and systematic shifts”. Designers can integrate it into the design process “step by step”, e.g. embedded into the design process and deliverables. The emphasis is on embedding change at every stage, rather than treating it as an afterthought“It is the responsibility of the design community to push a preferred future; design for the future and make it tangible”. (In-house design team)
	Compliance and regulations	The push toward sustainability is increasingly shaped by external forces such as the corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) and digital accessibility regulations. Designers must be equipped to navigate these regulatory layers, understanding how compliance intersects with sustainability, privacy (e.g. GDPR), supply chains, and procurement practices. This calls for broader organizational and systemic literacy“We need to understand the different [regulatory] layers, e.g. accessibility, data GDPR, sustainability” (In-house design team)
5) Service Designer as a Professional Identity – surfaces critical reflections on what it means to be a service designer today, e.g. how identities are formed, negotiated and reshaped through practice, and how designers maintain relevance in complex, evolving organizational ecosystems	Fluid identity	Service designers operate across multiple levels of organizations, from hands-on implementation to high-level strategy, which adds fluidity and ambiguity to their professional identity. The term “service designer” itself can carry different meanings depending on the context and team composition“Everyone has a different understanding of what service design is. We all work on the same team in design and work with different business areas”. (In-house design team)
	Integration and repositioning	Integration: the impact of an in-house service design unit depends on the organizational structures and managerial models shaping the conditions for integrating service design capabilities. Designers must often work across silos and negotiate their role within non-design-centric environmentsRepositioning of service design: Dropping the service design term was unanimously mentioned as a good practice to re-position service design within the broader organizational strategy“We have dropped service design completely. It is more strategic, dealing with the business organization. Working in cross-functional teams, yoúll not be doing design as such” (Design consultancy)
	New competencies	As service design moves up the ladder, it is increasingly expected to contribute to organizational transformation with new competencies (e.g. related to change management, business strategy, systemic literacy and data fluency). Likewise, consultancies are exploring new frames of service design that highlight interdisciplinarity, collaboration, autonomy, and adaptability"Process design is replacing service design. To avoid getting more designers fired, we started selling for optimization instead of innovation to make designers less vulnerable and redundant”. (Design consultancy)

Source(s): Authors’ own work