A more-than-human approach to transformative service systems

Purpose This paper aims to develop a more-than-human approach to transformative service systems by examining how service is constituted as a relational and material accomplishment within evolving configurations of human actors, technologies, bodies, spaces, materials and institutional conditions. Design/methodology/approach The study combines relational ontology, abductive qualitative reasoning and microhistorical analysis. Drawing on embedded participation, project documents and interviews within the Smart Healthy Age-Friendly Environments (SHAFE) initiative, five microhistories are reconstructed and compared to trace how service systems are composed, adjusted and evaluated in practice. Findings The analysis develops a framework comprising three interdependent dimensions: service arrangements, which explain how service-system capacity is relationally composed; service-in-the-making, which captures its situated realisation through ongoing adjustment; and value-in-enactment, which explains how service consequences become recognisable, interpretable and accountable. Across the microhistories, transformative capacity emerges through relational configurations that sustain care, inclusion, dignity, well-being and well-becoming. Originality/value The paper extends Transformative Service Research beyond analytically human-centred accounts while retaining its commitment to human well-being. It introduces relational configuration as the concept explaining how transformative service-system capacity is composed, realised and evaluated through human and more-than-human relations.