Cross-culture thinking in sustainable service design of social innovation: Case comparison between Milan, IT and Wuxi, China

Abstract

China is undergoing a profound reform to a more sustainable society. The emerging environmental, economic, and social issues beneath this period urge the greater responsibility to social innovations. However, during the global broadcast of social innovation cases and their transformation into appliance, cross-culture elements haven't drawn enough attention. There are rarely any lights shed on the cross-cultural transformation during the exportation of innovation worldwide. Based on the, this paper investigates the evaluation criteria, the broadness of its impact and active participation rate as well as the associated reasons behind from those test and interview to Chinese users about through Chinese user test and interview about two service design cases in Milan and Wuxi, we analyzed related evaluation criteria and other criteria of influence dimensions, participation willingness as well as the causes behind them. So that the designer can, on one hand, learn about the of characteristics of collective cultural cognition of Chinese users and the distinctions between users from west and east; And on the other hand, give suggestions, which is to understand local culture thoroughly and connect users, to lay emphasis on the evaluation of the benefit claim of the proposals and to combine its feasibility, easiness of handling and the design and spread of correlated information. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.