Establishing Advocacy Service from Service Thinking Perspective

Abstract

The objective of the thesis is to support the advocacy organization, representing one of the biggest Finnish export industries, to adapt to the continuously increasing policies related to the European Green Deal. A new expert role was established within the advocacy organization to support the product-specific advocacy. This situation gave a fantastic opportunity for the development task: to examine the best practices for providing advocacy service for the industry member companies. The knowledge base of the thesis consists of service thinking and network management.

The research-based development work is qualitative research and uses the service design process combined with foresight. The guiding questions directed the research to understand the expectations of the network actors for the advocacy service, to cocreate value with the network actors and to meet the future needs of the networks. In the first phase, preliminary research was conducted to specify the purpose, aim, objectives and guiding questions of the thesis. An effort was made to understand the customers and operating environment. Next, the innovative solutions for the product advocacy service and advocacy networks were ideated. Thirdly, novel working and network orchestrator practices and value cocreation methods were modelled and tested on the networks and stakeholders. The collected data were managed and analyzed according to inductive, content-based, principles. Finally, the product advocacy, advocacy networks and their operations were validated and conceptualized. Methods were applied widely: desk research, observations, discussions, interviews, workshops, prototypes, and continuous feedback collection. The customers and internal and external stakeholders were actively engaged in the service design process.

As an outcome of the development work, the advocacy service was established, and two product-specific networks formed as cocreation platforms. The importance of cocreating value in the joint value sphere, the network, but also in the other value spheres was highlighted according to the service logic. The network orchestrator needs to consider its specific roles and actions during the lifecycle of the network. The advocacy concept of network management, network orchestration, was created based on the development work and knowledge base. The substance, actors, interaction, structure, value cocreation and orchestrator of the network were summarized as the key elements. Also, the advocacy organization, advocacy, internal and external stakeholders, and operating environment were highlighted.

As a conclusion and future orientation, the network as a co-creation platform of the advocacy service is recommended to be used also more widely in the advocacy organization. The shift to service thinking requires time and perseverance from all the actors and individuals involved, both from the advocacy organization as well as the member companies. The network orchestrator needs to put effort into driving the concreate change in the network. Besides, the orchestrator needs to continue to facilitate the network towards self-organization and evaluate the network cocreation with the network actors continuously. The practical outcomes help the advocacy organization, other advocacy organizations and networks in general to apply service thinking in practice.