Service Design for Immigrant Integration Support: improving services at Marhaban Center
Wang, Lianyi (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025122738943
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025122738943
Tiivistelmä
In recent years, a growing number of immigrants have moved to Finland. While immigrants face difficulties integrating into Finnish society due to language barriers, cultural differences, and so on. This thesis explored how an intercultural meeting place could support immigrant integration through service design. The aim was to understand the situation of immigrants at the Marhaban Center – part of the Evangelical Lutheran Parishes of Tampere – analyze the customer journey and develop human-centered services to facilitate integration between immigrants and the local community.
The theoretical framework covered immigrant integration, social capital, civil society, individual psychology, design thinking, and service design. Service design methods and tools were employed throughout the research. A customer satisfaction survey and in-depth interviews provided both quantitative and qualitative data. Personas, empathy maps, customer journey map helped empathize with the immigrants and Marhaban staff. PESTEL and benchmarking studies provided insight into the external environment. A co-design workshop generated ideas for improving operations. The outcome was a comprehensive service blueprint that addressed the service gaps at the Marhaban Center.
By exploring immigrants’ challenges and expectations, the research provided practical suggestions for improving services to support integration in Finland.
The theoretical framework covered immigrant integration, social capital, civil society, individual psychology, design thinking, and service design. Service design methods and tools were employed throughout the research. A customer satisfaction survey and in-depth interviews provided both quantitative and qualitative data. Personas, empathy maps, customer journey map helped empathize with the immigrants and Marhaban staff. PESTEL and benchmarking studies provided insight into the external environment. A co-design workshop generated ideas for improving operations. The outcome was a comprehensive service blueprint that addressed the service gaps at the Marhaban Center.
By exploring immigrants’ challenges and expectations, the research provided practical suggestions for improving services to support integration in Finland.