Can J Adm Sci Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 81 27(1), 81–84 (2010) Value and Systems Perspectives in Combining Human and Automated Services: Commentary on “Seven Challenges to Combining Human and Automated Service” Irene C L Ng* University of Exeter Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration 27: 81–84 (2010) Published online in Wiley Interscience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.141 The article “Seven Challenges to Combining Human and Automated Service” (Messinger, Li, Stroulia, Gal- letta, Ge, & Choi, 2009) in the last issue of CJAS is an admirable effort to build on the knowledge required for service organizations in the modern economy. Taking a value and systems perspective, my purpose for the current commentary is to offer some reflections on each of the seven challenges, to acknowledge strengths in organization and content of this article, and also to suggest additional related issues to help service organiza- tions better meet the seven challenges noted in this article. To put things in context, it is useful to begin by considering the definition of “value.” The traditional understanding of value is that of exchange value that underpins the traditional customer-producer relation- ships, where each party exchanges one kind of value for another (Bagozzi, 1975). Today, the discussion of value has veered away from this understanding to the concept of value-in-use (Schneider & Bowen, 1995; Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2008), evaluated by the customer rather than the currency for the transfer of ownership of a par- ticular good. As Marx described it, value refers to “value only in use, and is realized only in the process of con- sumption” (Marx, 2001, p. 88). Based on such an under- standing, all value is therefore co-created (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2008) and co-creation is the realization of the firm’s value proposition, be that a good (e.g., a car) or an activity (e.g., repair). This realization of value by the customer means that the value derived by the cus- tomer is the combinational outcome of the firm’s propo- sition (car, repair, etc.) and the customer’s realization of it (consumption) with both parties expending their own resources to achieve the outcomes at a time and place (context) appropriate from the customer’s point of view (Ballantyne & Varey, 2006). Hence, a firm’s product offerings, be they goods or activities, are merely value unrealized, that is, a “store of potential value”(Ballantyne & Varey, p. 344), until the customer realizes it through co-creation and gains the benefit. This can be thought of as customer experience (Payne, Storbacka, & Pennie Frow, 2008) but it must be understood that co-creation is situated at the point of consumption and customer experience is an emergent outcome of it. This is in contrast to co-production, where the customers assist the firm in achieving a better value proposition (e.g., users helping Toyota or Apple design a better car or computer). Co-Production and Value Co-creation in Hybrid Service Turning to the first two challenges, an important distinction should be acknowledged: customer resources can be employed in both co-creation and co-production. Co-creation is always served by the self, since the cus- tomer has to sleep and wake up refreshed to enjoy the Professor Irene C L Ng is a Professor of Marketing Science at the University of Exeter Business School (U.K.), ESRC/AIM Service Fellow and Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. *Please address correspondence to: Irene C L Ng, University of Cam- bridge, Alan Reece Building, 17 Charles Babbage Road, Cambridge CB3 0FS, UK. Email:irene.ng@exeter.ac.uk or cln36@cam.ac.uk.