Training New Professionals in Service Engineering: Towards a Transdisciplinary Curriculum for Sustainable Businesses

Abstract

The service sector provides employment for more than 70% of the active population in developed countries, in areas as varied as tourism, commerce, logistics, finances, services, and personnel, amongst others. Despite the fact that society increasingly needs more professionals who are oriented towards this sector, there are hardly any specific plans that will provide them with appropriate training. The appearance of service science, management, and engineering (SSME) has led to a significant advance as regards understanding the skills required by a service professional. It is a transdisciplinary field that integrates aspects of business management, along with information and communication technologies and engineering, and social sciences, in addition to providing the foundations for the growth of sustainable business. This paper presents a curriculum for the training of professionals in service engineering, which has been designed and taught at a Spanish public university. This curriculum, which the university created in collaboration with SSME experts and service sector companies, stands out for two reasons: the transdisciplinary approach employed, which is one of the features of this emerging and integrative knowledge discipline, and the fact that it is providing a response to the need for higher education curricula for sustainable business development. The paper describes the method followed to create the curriculum for the Bachelor’s Degree in Service Engineering, a comparative study with other related degrees, and the results of the deployment of the degree in terms of employability.