ITIL Compliance with Service-Dominant Logic

The increased recognition of the benefits of Service-Dominant (S-D Logic) has encouraged IT organizations to adopt an S-D Logic perspective. In order to streamline the service transformation process, a majority of them are using the best practice ITIL. However, the development of several ITIL books lacks a solid theoretical grounding based on S-D Logic. This is problematic because it hinders IT-organizations to efficiently adopt a service perspective. The purpose of this paper is to present knowledge concerning how ITIL complies with the service perspective of S-D logic. The findings consist of knowledge about areas in ITIL which comply with S-D logic and areas where there is room for improvement. To increase compliance with a service-oriented perspective, ITIL needs to adopt contemporary definitions of service and value, including a stronger emphasis on value co-creation and abandoning a language that corresponds to traditional goods-dominant logic. The findings contribute to an improved understanding of shortcomings of ITIL regarding service-orientation. Based on the findings, this paper suggests some actions that can be applied as a remedy in cases where ITIL has low compliance with S-D logic.