'Participatory Practice in Space, Place, and Service Design' is premised on a belief in the importance of participatory practices in finding creative solutions to the plethora of problems we face today. It argues that engaging professions with the public in mutual exploration, analysis, and creative thinking is essential. It not only ensures better quality products, places, services, and a greater sense of civic agency but also facilitates fuller access to them and the life opportunities they can unleash. This book offers a uniquely varied perspective of the myriad ways in which participatory practices operate across disciplines and how they impact the worlds and communities we create and inhabit. This book suggests that participatory practices are multi-disciplinary and relevant in fields as diverse as design, architecture, education, health care, sustainability, and community activism, to name a few of those discussed here. How do designed objects and environments affect wellness, creativity, learning, and a sense of belonging? How do products and services affect everyday experience and attitudes towards issues such as sustainability? How does giving people a creative voice in their own education, services, and built environments open up their potential and strengthen identity and civic agency? Addressing these questions requires a rethinking of relations between people, objects, and environments; it demands attention to space, place, and services.

Big Questions and Great Answers in Entrepreneurship Research underscores the progress that has been made and the challenges that remain within the field of entrepreneurship research by considering the field’s rapid expansion over the last thirty years.

This book explores the application of service design to urban commons. It originates from a project developed by the research group of POLIMI DESIS Lab of Politecnico di Milano, aimed at imagining the future of the Reggio Emilia Ducal Palace and its park - the Reggia di Rivalta. The peculiarity of the project lays in the idea that the design of a (public) space should be informed by the design of its services, because the development of specific activities actually builds a fundamental part of the identity of a place, conceiving both the tangible and intangible dimensions as part of a single creative process. The combination of a participatory process and the integration of spatial and service design led to infrastructuring a multi-stakeholder participatory action research of envisioning the future of a public good. This effort has been thus framed into a working methodology, specific tools and progressive outputs, which are defined as Service Master Planning (the process), and Service Master Plan (the product), allowing service design professionals to expand their knowledge and develop skills for a new field of application connected to urban planning.

The Civic Space Review of Portugal provides an in-depth analysis of the national legal frameworks, policies, institutions, and practices relevant to civic space protection, with an emphasis on harnessing user input to facilitate people-centred public service reforms.

Society faces many challenges in workplaces, everyday life situations, and education contexts. Within information behavior research, there are often calls to bridge inclusiveness and for greater collaboration, with user-centered design approaches and, more specifically, participatory design practices. Collaboration and participation are essential in addressing contemporary societal challenges, designing creative information objects and processes, as well as developing spaces for learning, and information and research interventions. The intention is to improve access to information and the benefits to be gained from that. This also applies to bridging the digital divide and for embracing artificial intelligence. With regard to research and practices within information behavior, it is crucial to consider that all users should be involved. Many information activities (i.e., activities falling under the umbrella terms of information behavior and information practices) manifest through participation, and thus, methods such as participatory design may help unfold both information behavior and practices as well as the creation of information objects, new models, and theories. Information sharing is one of its core activities. For participatory design with its value set of democratic, inclusive, and open participation towards innovative practices in a diversity of contexts, it is essential to understand how information activities such as sharing manifest itself. For information behavior studies it is essential to deepen understanding of how information sharing manifests in order to improve access to information and the use of information. Third Space is a physical, virtual, cognitive, and conceptual space where participants may negotiate, reflect, and form new knowledge and worldviews working toward creative, practical and applicable solutions, finding innovative, appropriate research methods, interpreting findings, proposing new theories, recommending next steps, and even designing solutions such as new information objects or services. Information sharing in participatory design manifests in tandem with many other information interaction activities and especially information and cognitive processing. Although there are practices of individual information sharing and information encountering, information sharing mostly relates to collaborative information behavior practices, creativity, and collective decision-making. Our purpose with this book is to enable students, researchers, and practitioners within a multi-disciplinary research field, including information studies and Human–Computer Interaction approaches, to gain a deeper understanding of how the core activity of information sharing in participatory design, in which Third Space may be a platform for information interaction, is taking place when using methods utilized in participatory design to address contemporary societal challenges. This could also apply for information behavior studies using participatory design as methodology. We elaborate interpretations of core concepts such as participatory design, Third Space, information sharing, and collaborative information behavior, before discussing participatory design methods and processes in more depth. We also touch on information behavior, information practice, and other important concepts. Third Space, information sharing, and information interaction are discussed in some detail. A framework, with Third Space as a core intersecting zone, platform, and adaptive and creative space to study information sharing and other information behavior and interactions are suggested. As a tool to envision information behavior and suggest future practices, participatory design serves as a set of methods and tools in which new interpretations of the design of information behavior studies and eventually new information objects are being initiated involving multiple stakeholders in future information landscapes. For this purpose, we argue that Third Space can be used as an intersection zone to study information sharing and other information activities, but more importantly it can serve as a Third Space Information Behavior (TSIB) study framework where participatory design methodology and processes are applied to information behavior research studies and applications such as information objects, systems, and services with recognition of the importance of situated awareness.

This open access book explores the nexus between knowledge and space with a particular emphasis on the role of educational settings that are, both, shaping and being reshaped by socio-economic and political processes. It gives insight into the complex interplay of educational inequalities and practices of educational governance in the neighborhood and at larger geographical scales. The book adopts quantitative and qualitative methodologies and explores a wide range of theoretical perspectives by drawing upon empirical cases and examples from France, Germany, Italy, the UK and North America, and presents and reflects ongoing research of international scholars from various disciplinary backgrounds such as education, human geography, public policy, sociology, and urban and regional planning. As such, it provides an interesting read for scholars, students and professionals in the broader field of social, cultural and educational studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners in the fields of education, pedagogy, social work, and urban and regional planning.

This book explores the use of human-centered service design. Through a variety of case studies and best practices, it highlights ways to systematically improve the provision of healthcare services to different target and age groups in order to understand customer expectations and needs. The book also offers new insights into the dyadic relationship between service provider and customer, each of which has their own set of goals, purposes, and benefits and must cope with a scarcity of resources and opportunities to optimize and design. Written by recognized experts, scholars, and practitioners, this book demonstrates how, where, and when to successfully apply human-centered service design at multiple levels, including corporate, departmental, and product/service. Value-added services are not only assessed in terms of their effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity, but also bearing in mind human emotions, interactions, and communication techniques as an important part of service provision. Accordingly, the book will appeal to scholars and practitioners in the hospital and healthcare sector, and to anyone interested in organizational development, service business model innovation, customer involvement and perceptions, and the service experience.

The Civic Space Review of Romania provides an in-depth analysis of national legal frameworks, policies, institutions, and practices relevant to civic space protection. It reviews strengths and areas for improvement, and providing guidance on a wide range of issues. The Review assesses four key dimensions of civic space: civic freedoms, media freedoms and online civic space, the enabling environment for civil society organisations, and citizen participation in policy and decision making.

This book explores theories of space and place in relation to autonomy in language learning. Encompassing a wide range of linguistically and culturally diverse learning contexts, this edited collection brings together research papers from academics working in fourteen countries. In their studies, these researchers examine physical, virtual and metaphorical learning spaces from a wide range of theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives (semiotic, ecological, complexity, human geography, linguistic landscapes, mediated discourse analysis, sociocultural, constructivist and social constructivist) and methodological approaches. The book traces its origins to the first-ever symposium on space, place and autonomy, which was held at the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) 2014 World Congress in Brisbane. The final chapter, which presents a thematic analysis of the papers in this volume, discusses the implications for theory development, further enquiry, and pedagogical practice.

This book examines the nature of service design and service thinking in healthcare and hospital management. By adopting both a service-based provider perspective and a consumer-oriented perspective, the book highlights various healthcare services, methods and tools that are desirable for customers and effective for healthcare providers. In addition, readers will learn about new research directions, as well as strategies and innovations to develop service solutions that are affordable, sustainable, and consumer-oriented. Lastly, the book discusses policy options to improve the service delivery process and customer satisfaction in the healthcare and hospital sector. The contributors cover various aspects and fields of application of service design and service thinking, including service design processes, tools and methods; service blueprints and service delivery; creation and implementation of services; interaction design and user experience; design of service touchpoints and service interfaces; service excellence and service innovation. The book will appeal to all scholars and practitioners in the hospital and healthcare sector who are interested in organizational development, service business model innovation, customer involvement and perceptions, and service experience.