Service Science, Management and Engineering Education: A Unified Model for University

Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) is an emerging discipline which studies service industry under an integrated framework. SSME education trains scientists and skilled service workers to promote innovation and productivity in service industry. Although quite a number of universities started SSME programs years ago, most of them are still in the stage of experiment, and only address a small portion of the total subject. This paper first discusses the objectives of SSME education program—the abilities that service workers and scientists should have. Then, three types of foundation courses of the current programs are discussed in depth; the bachelor, master and PhD degree programs offered currently are analyzed, which include the course contents and teaching methods. Based on the inspirations from these practical programs, a unified model for SSME education is developed and presented, which proposes to unify bachelor, master and PhD programs, and establishes a new service science department comprising areas of service management, service engineering and design, service arts and humanities.