** PhD Position in Value Co-Creation at the **
** Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) **

As a key player in research and innovation in Luxembourg, the
Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST, www.list.lu)
covers with its 630 employees the domains of materials, environment
and IT. As an RTO (Research and Technology Organisation) and with
its interdisciplinary impact-driven approach, LIST contributes to
the development of Luxembourg’s economy and society.

** Position **
We currently have a position for a PhD Candidate in Business
Informatics,
in particular on the:
Development of a Reference Language for Value Co-creation

The PhD Candidate will be enrolled in the Doctoral School of the
Management Faculty of the University of St. Gallen, Europe’s leading
Management Schools, and upon successful completion of the Doctoral
Studies,
the degree would be awarded from this University.

** Profile of Candidates **
Education
– Master Degree in Computer Science, Business Informatics or Business
Engineering

Expected competences/knowledge:
– Information Systems and/or Business Engineering and/or Enterprise
Engineering
– Conceptual/Enterprise Modelling
– Basic Mathematical and/or Language Engineering skills

The candidates are required to meet the admission criteria for PhD
Candidates
at the Doctoral School of the University of St. Gallen.

Language
– Proficient spoken and written knowledge of English is mandatory.

** Duraction **
The position is for 3 years in total, and starts with a 1 year initial
contract, which would normally be followed by a 2 year extension.

** Location of work **
The primary location of work will be LIST at Belvaux in Luxembourg.
However, as this project involves a close collaboration with the
University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, the candidate is also expected
to make regular visits to St. Gallen.

** Work context **
The Luxembourg economy is strongly based on services, in particular on
services that are based on IT. In this context, the “IT for Innovative
Services” (ITIS) department at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and
Technology (LIST) aims to bolster this domain through
multi-disciplinary scientific and technological research leading to
the development of innovative IT services.

Its department “IT for Innovative Services” (ITIS) gathers about 140
highly skilled researchers and engineers from various disciplines to
address technological, organisational, human, and economic aspects of
innovative IT services. Research areas are based around the innovation
of services with a high level of information intensity and issued with
a level of quality allowing for trust to be gained in their use and
for generating value around new business models.

ITIS’s research programme focuses on the challenges involved in
exploiting massively interconnected systems of data, devices and
people to enable informed decision-making, use of information systems
in measuring and controlling the quality of services in networked
enterprises, and tools for IT services innovation processes.

** Background to PhD topic **
These days we are witness of a philosophical reorientation in
rethinking businesses and economies in a way where economies are
perceived as service economies following a service-dominant (S-D)
logic rather than a traditional goods-dominant (G-D) logic. The
cornerstone of this emergent S-D logic of economic exchange is the
(co-)creation of value among providers and customers that recognize
the value of a service in use rather than in the exchange of goods
among economic actors. For example, airlines are no longer buying jet
turbines but they buy airtime since they are not interested in owning
jet turbines.

Although this shift from a G-D to an S-D logic may seem like a
marginal change of pricing models, in fact this paradigm shift has a
fundamental impact on the definition and development of products and
services, on the underlying processes, on the interaction among
economic actors, etc. This shift entails the need to rethink what the
key processes are that need to be controlled from a value creation
perspective that in turn will and should impact the way of analyzing
and modeling economic exchanges.

This is where the proposed research project aims to contribute a value
co-creation language (ValCoLa). While process-oriented approaches
(based on the traditional G-D logic of economic exchange) are dominant
in the existing body of knowledge, ValCoLa aims to establish a value
co-creation centered reference language to enable the analysis,
modeling, and design of a new generation of information systems i.e.,
value-aware information systems (VAIS). Since the perception of
co-created value in use depends on the given situation/context and
since these situations/contexts can change quite rapidly, value
co-creation needs to deal with such dynamics. Therefore, the
innovation of the ValCoLa project lies not only on the need to
integrate the different underlying concepts of value co-creation; but
also on dealing with the dynamics of value co-creation processes. The
PhD candidate will be a part of the ValCoLa project team. Their main
focus will be the development of value co-creation reference language,
a default notation, a modeling prototype, as well as a number of use
cases and case studies applying the developed reference language.

** Contact **
Candidates interested in the above position can apply online on our
website: www.list.lu

The application file should include:
– Reference to: ITIS-2016-ValCoLa
– a CV
– a motivation letter
– references

** Further information **
For any questions regarding the background of the internship, feel
free to contact Prof.dr. Henderik A. Proper by email:
erik.proper@list.lu