Conference article

Over the past two decades, there has been growing discussion about the relationship between service design and culture. However, these discussions are often fragmented and ambiguous, limiting the nuance in how culture is understood in service design. As such, the purpose of this paper is to build a more comprehensive understanding of the role of service design in relation to culture by drawing together discussions from existing literature. What emerges from our literature analysis is a framework presenting four different views on the role of service design in relation to culture, each with distinct interpretations of culture and its connection to service design. Furthermore, we present the emerging issues related to each of these four views, highlighting the overall necessity of attending to cultural pluralities in service design. We propose that a dynamic movement between these different views can provide service design practitioners and researchers with a decentralized perspective that can help them get unstuck from perpetuating a single, static understanding of culture.

culture, plurality, service design, design