Bridging Service-Dominant Logic and anthropology: Exploring the Anthropology of Service Design in Medical Contexts

Abstract (English)

This paper attempts to connect Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) with cultural anthropology to pioneer a new direction that integrates service research and anthropology, called ‘anthropology of service design.’
An overview of SDL was presented at the 2019 IUAES conference (Ito 2019). SDL, alongside the Jobs-to-be-done theory (Christensen et al., 2016), which emphasises consumer experience and perceived value, has gained increasing prominence in the industry, particularly in the VUCA era. SDL theory regards all economic activities as services, and groups them into services which sell products and services without selling products. This stands in contrast to Goods-Dominant Logic (GDL), which primarily focuses on products and categorises economic activities strictly as either goods or services. Therefore, when companies provide services with the use of goods, even manufacturers are regarded as service providers. For instance, a shoe manufacturer can offer a service centred on “the joy of running in the city,” with the sale of shoes being only one component. This approach highlights the importance of the experience and value of consumers/recipients, as well as the significance of co-creation between providers and consumers/recipients.
This study examines the application of SDL within the field of anthropology. The case study focuses on medical care, specifically analysing approaches to patient treatment and care through the lens of SDL. In healthcare contexts, the distinction lies not between products(goods) and services, but rather between diagnostic/treatment techniques and the broader framework of care services. When we apply SDL in healthcare services, we assume the conventional medical perspective where medical professionals tend to distinguish between treatment techniques and other services required by patients, often focusing solely on the former and neglecting the latter.
However, by applying SDL (additionally incorporating an anthropological viewpoint that emphasises ‘patients as people living their lives’), a different perspective becomes possible. From the SDL perspective, which aligns with patients’ lived experiences and values, medical treatment represents only a part of what patients seek to achieve through the services that should be provided. We aim to explore how SDL facilitates this shift in perspective through case studies in medical contexts. By doing so, we seek to open up discussions that integrate service research and anthropology, with the aim of advancing the future of patient care services and improving patient care education.
This paper is supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP23K22042 entitled ‘Anthropology of Service Design in Collaboration with Medical Educators: A Case Study of Education for General Practitioners’.