Bo Edvardsson

Karlstads Universitet · Service Research Centre

Purpose Although service research typically asserts that institutions coordinate actors’ value creation processes, institutions and resources are not necessarily transparent, aligned, or pre-existing. This paper aims to develop a more granular perspective on how actors coordinate for value. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on the established co...

In times of crisis, interactions and structures can change, eradicating prevailing norms and rules, with enduring unfavorable effects, and existing conceptual frameworks may fail to explain the effects of radical contextual change. In such contexts, the meaning of the customer experience is also likely to change, and touchpoints, cues, and the conc...

Purpose There is a need to understand value co-creation in service ecosystems that engage multiple actors with different goals. This study aims to extend the understanding of value co-creation by considering the orchestration of service ecosystems with reference to resource-integration processes. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory case stu...

Purpose Notwithstanding the expected apparent benefits of mobile technologies (MTs) in the hotel industry, their adoption is slower than forecasted. This study aims to identify the challenges faced by hotel managers in adopting MTs in their industry, such that the authors may determine the strategic positions for adopting and managing MTs and build...

As one of the retailer’s most potent recovery tactics to offset disgruntled customers, firms invest heavily in compensation to increase customer satisfaction and improve loyalty. How- ever, the effectiveness of this tactic remains unclear. This study examines whether firm-offered compensation affects customers’ emotional responses and bad-mouthing...

Purpose The paper aims to conceptualize how behavioral shifts in times of crisis drive the transformation of value co-creation. Design/methodology/approach Referencing two empirical contexts, the paper explores how digital service platforms facilitate changes in actors’ mental models and institutional arrangements (legal, social, technological) th...

Despite the widespread adoption of the justice framework in service recovery literature, research findings vary as to what dimension - distributive, interactional, procedural - is most important. This paper contributes to this debate by considering how an easily accessible variable like relationship activity (i.e., the frequency of visiting and pur...

Mobile technology in hotels is to provide innovative service solutions for both employees and customers, yet underexplored, and managerial and operational issues remain. This study aims at identifying those issues involved in adopting and implementing mobile technologies by a thematic analysis of focus group interviews of luxury hotel managers and...

While service design has been highlighted as a promising approach for driving innovation, there are often struggles in realizing lasting change in practice. The issues with long-term implementation reveal a reductionist view of service design that ignores the institutional arrangements and other interdependencies that influence design efforts withi...

Purpose This study aims to understand and explain how institutional change occurs at the level of value co-creation practices in service ecosystems. Despite the centrality of collective practices to the service ecosystems perspective, theoretically grounded explanations of how practices change and become institutionalized remain underdeveloped. App...

Purpose Service scholars are finding that institutions – enduring social structures, such as rules, norms, beliefs – are increasingly important in theorizing on service-related phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to advance the use of institutional theory in service research by synthesizing the key insights from institutional theory that have b...

Service recovery occurs when service exchange fails, often because resource integration has failed. In the co-recovery process, multiple actors (including the customer) interact to cocreate a favorable customer experience following failure. The aim of this paper is to extend an existing understanding of the activities and interactions that serve as...

Service recovery research has traditionally been firm-centric, focusing primarily on the time and effort expended by firms in addressing service failures. The subsequent shift to a customer-centric orientation addressed the customer’s role in recovery situations, and the recent dyadic orientation has explored the effectiveness of their joint effort...

Purpose This paper aims to deepen the understanding of resource integration for value co-creation within service-dominant logic (SDL), by drawing on key knowledge management (KM) concepts. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual study introduces three key KM concepts, namely, object, agent and context to SDL; thus, deepening the understanding...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test how national culture may help to explain cross-country differences in new service development (NSD) by comparing the impact of NSD success factors between Mexico and Sweden. Design/methodology/approach Eight hypotheses based on prior literature on NSD and national culture were tested using covariance-...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze how service design practices reshape mental models to enable innovation. Mental models are actors’ assumptions and beliefs that guide their behavior and interpretation of their environment. Approach: This paper offers a conceptual framework for innovation in service ecosystems through service design...

Innovation in healthcare requires changing the institutional arrangements or what are often referred to as “the rules of the game.” Such a change demands that actors do institutional work—intentionally creating, disrupting, and maintaining the entrenched ways of operating within the system. This chapter explores how service design practices contrib...

S-D logic understands innovation as a novel and useful integration of dynamic resources and highlights the role of institutionalization as an essential driver of innovation. The purpose of this chapter is to examine in more detail the nature of innovation processes and outcomes in the S-D logic framework. The focus is on the contribution that the a...

Although fundamental to S-D logic, resource integration has received considerably less attention than value cocreation in the S-D logic literature (Edvardsson et al., 2014). Our aim is to clarify the mechanisms that lead to the emergence of novel resources. We view novel resources as properties of service ecosystems that emerge from the combinatori...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service innovation by developing a conceptual framework that illuminates the key elements and trends in context change. Design/methodology/approach The paper adopts a service ecosystem lens for understanding how elements and trends in context foster service innovation. A conc...

The strong linkage between the creation of value and the actors’ resource-integrating efforts forces academics and practitioners to understand how value stems from resource integration (RI). This article analyses RI as an embedded process within the wider process of interactive value formation. The study is conceptual in nature and adopts a qualita...

Purpose This paper applies role theory to understand customers’ resource integration and value co-creation efforts in practice, with the aim to develop a theoretical framework of archetypical customer roles in a self-service based system. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on a three-phase explorative case study of customers’ experi...

Resource integration is vital to value co-creation. However, most research focuses on competencies as enablers of resource integration and the social aspects that guide them. Based on a literature review of resource integration and motivation theories, this article proposes including motivation as a driver of resource integration and integrating co...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore why innovative service ecosystems scale up, using a service-dominant logic lens. The focus is on identifying the key drivers of the scaling-up process as the basis for a new conceptual framework on the scaling up of service innovations. Design/methodology/approach An inductive research design is used...

Purpose This research provides a historical example of how an innovation champion radically changed the operations of the circus industry by incorporating both the rational and actuation models in his scaling up innovations. The innovations to the logistics and operations of the P. T. Barnum Circus, “The Greatest Show on Earth,” created by William...

The chapter provides a literature review of the resource integration (RI) phenomenon through a bibliometric analysis including 1250 ISI listed journal articles. The main contribution of the study is an overview and analysis of how RI has been portrayed in marketing and management research and the six most important RI dimensions or themes. Furtherm...

While service innovation is a growing priority for organizations, it is difficult achieve when actors are stuck in the status quo. Despite the growing body of literature on service innovation, there remains a pressing need to better account for the context of innovation within service research. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how innova...

Purpose – This paper supports the continued conceptual evolution of service design in service research through the integration of a service ecosystem perspective. Approach – This paper illuminates a convergence toward a new perspective on service design called " service ecosystem design ". The conceptualization of service ecosystem design is supp...

Purpose The extant new service development (NSD) literature tends to assume that the key practices for NSD identified in one context apply for all services, and has failed to sufficiently consider differences in NSD between service types. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of NSD across different service types. Design/methodology/a...

Purpose This paper aims to identify and analyze factors that determine firms’ commitment to co-create new services with business customers. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative study based on a scenario method, involving an online survey of French service companies, reveals the determinants of commitment to service co-creation. Findings Cus...

This paper addresses the implications of an emerging, increasingly important way of thinking about markets: systems thinking. A market is one of the most founational abstractions in marketing and business research; yet, it often receives too little attention. As a result, the taken-for-granted assumptions about markets spur from over-simplified con...

In a panel conversation at the QUIS conference in Karlstad in 2014, Steve Vargo suggested that design, under a service dominant logic, is to service what invention is to product development. That is, design is contributing in early stages of service development and innovation with concepts and ideas, but not in later stages of service development a...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend the understanding of innovation in service ecosystems by focussing on the role of values resonance in relation to the integration of brands, service systems and experience rooms. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical, explorative case study of an innovative service system is carried out using a...

Purpose The aim of this article is to extend the understanding of innovation in service ecosystems by focusing on the role of values resonance in relation to the integration of brands, service systems and experience rooms. Design/methodology/approach An empirical, explorative case study of an innovative service system is carried out using a narrat...

Purpose This article investigates the role of frontline employees in service innovation from a service-dominant logic perspective. Frontline employees lack a formal innovation obligation. Service innovation is a resource integration process resulting in the creation of new value propositions. Design/methodology/approach A case study of service inn...

The aim of this paper is to explicitly link co-design to well-being and expand the conversation about the influence of the co-design process on well-being. This paper highlights considerations for co-design researchers and practitioners interested in enhancing the value created through co-design. The authors draw from discussions in transformative...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for understanding service design and how service design relates to central concepts within service marketing. Design/methodology/approach – For companies, service design is growing in importance and has become a crucial capability to survive in the service-dominant economy. Service desi...

Download full paper for free here until July, 8, 2016: http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1T3YTXj-jF9hi Drawing on service-dominant logic and institutional theory, this paper examines innovation as a process that unfolds through changes in the institutional arrangements that govern resource integration practices in service ecosystems. Four cases are us...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to explore three paradoxes of service innovation and provide a way forward for fresh thinking on the topic. Design/methodology/approach – Through a conceptual model of service innovation research, the authors challenge the “pro-change” bias and explore what can be learnt from the duality of service innovation...

This article outlines a framework of the transformation from the goods-dominant (G-D) to the service-dominant (S-D) logic in firms based on a case study of a bank. Drawing from institutional logic and practice theory, the article also contributes by discussing how the transformation from the G-D to the S-D logic takes place by means of the enactmen...

This article examines the transformation of service systems through actors’ resource integration and value cocreation in contention. It is based on a netnographic study focusing on the use of information and communications technology (ICT) tools by online activists during the “Arab Spring.” The transformation of service systems is conceptualized on...

With the increasing importance of new services, various models for new service development have been created in research. An analysis has shown that such models typically consist of a development process covering activities from idea generation to market launch – implicitly claiming that one single process fits to all kind of services. However, fac...

Customers and employees can co-create a resolution following a service failure through integrating their resources. Their activities and interactions during resource-integration shape the customers' service recovery experiences. Prior research overlooks resource integration between all involved actors in a co-created service recovery process. This...

Purpose – A service system, including self-service technologies (SSTs), should facilitate actors’ value co-creation processes to enhance customer experiences. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how customers’ experiences – both favorable and unfavorable – are formed by identifying the underlying drivers when using SSTs in the context of a self...

Resource integration has become an important concept in marketing literature. However, little is known about the systemic nature of resource integration and the ways the activities of resource integrators are coordinated and adjusted to each other. Therefore, we claim that institutions are the coordinating link that have impact on value cocreation...

Service systems enable value propositions based on creating both, favorable customer service experiences and business value. Value is experiential, individual, contextual, and meaning-laden. Scholars posit that companies must (a) offer a value proposition based on customers value perceptions, (b) align service systems with these value perceptions,...

In today’s economy companies focus on generating customer loyalty and a competitive advantage by creating favorable customer experiences (CX) (Badgett et al. 2007). Customer’s value perceptions are the outcome of their customer experiences (Meyer and Schwager 2007). Therefore, companies need to design, implement and manage corresponding customer ex...

Manufacturing firms develop and introduce service innovations to achieve a competitive advantage and differentiate their market offerings. The installed base of products becomes a platform for selling services hence improve their corporate revenues. Previous research has supported a number of hypotheses about how new product development (NPD) and n...

This paper aims to bridge recent work on Service Logic with practice and research in the Design for Service to explore whether and how human-centered collaborative design approaches could provide a source for interpreting existing service systems and proposing new ones and thus realize a Service Logic in organizations. A comparison is made of exist...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying mechanism of customer co-creation in service recovery (co-recovery), and investigates the impact of initiation on customer post-recovery evaluations and behavioural intentions. Design/methodology/approach – Researchers used a 3 (no co-recovery vs employee-initiated co-recovery vs cus...

The next chapter, written by Bo Edvardsson, contributes to that discussion, arguing that productivity, as it has traditionally been defined, is a concept that belongs to an old school of thought on value and value creation in which value is linked to units of output described in terms such as goods, services, products, process material etc. The new...

Purpose – Despite efforts by researchers and managers to better link marketing activities with business financial outcomes, there is general agreement that by and large chief marketing officers (CMOs) (and marketing in general) have lost strategic decision-making influence within organizations. The purpose of this paper is to understand the causes...

The digitalisation of society and a reduction in the need for printed media has resulted in dramatic changes to the pulp and paper industry. During the past 10 years, investments in this industry decreased by approximately 40 %. Consequently, service provision has become more important and a larger portion of the business of many capital equipment...

Philipp “Phil” Klaus, Founder Dr. Phil Klaus & Associates Consulting, London, UK. Professor of Customer Experience and Marketing Strategy, ESCE, Paris. www.profdrphilklaus.com Phone: +39 3498876196 Email: profdrphilklaus@gmail.com @profdrphilklaus Purpose - Based upon primary research, the paper highlights the three main sources of frustration ab...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of innovation modes in understanding challenges of integrated NSD and NPD, and the use of structured NSD processes in manufacturing firms. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a two-stage multiple case study. The first stage is an interview study of 17 key informants repr...

Purpose: This study aims to extend understanding of business-to-business relationship dynamics by introducing and discussing the phenomenon of a ‘negative critical wave’ (NCW), defined as a disturbance in a relationship that emerges and develops within or beyond individual working relationships. Design/methodology/approach: The dynamics of worki...

According to recent service research, value co-creation takes place through actors’ resource integration in service systems which are embedded in social systems. In these systems actors interact with other actors or entities to create value for themselves. Value creation and value perceptions of the actors cannot be understood without considering t...

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to identify enabling and inhibiting factors that influence patients during their consideration of medical tourism for their healthcare requirement. The research provides marketing and practice implications that help in promoting medical tourism service. Furthermore, the paper provides evidence from medical t...

Purpose Research suggests that service‐dominant designs are superior to goods‐dominant; but why? The purpose of this paper is to answer three questions. First, in what way is a service system based on service‐dominant logic (SDL) superior to one based on goods‐dominant logic (GDL)? Second, which characteristics of the service system facilitate the...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to conceptualize service innovation through a service‐dominant logic (S‐D logic) lens and a service system foundation. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper offers a service‐dominant logic lens and a structuration theory approach emphasizing an actor perspective on service innovation. Since the value of...

Purpose – The aim of this study is to investigate the role of key strategic factors in new service development (NSD). In particular, the role of service development strategy, a formalised development process, integrated development teams and customer co‐creation were investigated and the results were compared with managers' beliefs. Design/methodo...

Purpose – The aim is to introduce a sociological perspective on resource integration and value co-creation into service research using a service systems approach. Methodology/approach – Conceptual and a case study of the service system a Telecom Equipment and Service Provider is embedded in is reported. Findings – The service practice of the servic...

Purpose This article aims to bridge recent work on Service Logic with practice and research in Design for Service to explore if and how human-centered participatory design approaches could provide an ideal source for interpreting existing service systems, proposing new ones and thus realize service logic in organizations. Design/methodology...

In this chapter, we focus on how sustainable customer value is a driver of business success. Our role model is the retail company IKEA, the world's largest furniture industry business. IKEA is a successful and growing business, with long-term profitability. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012. All rights reserved.

This empirical paper presents the results of a detailed case-study investigation of co-creation in radical service innovation. The rationale for the paper is that detailed interventions must be tracked to offer a realistic account of how co-creation occurs. This provides a strong empirical contribution to the emerging body of scholars developing th...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore customer interactions with servicescapes and to explain in more depth the internal mechanisms that form the customer service experience. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on an empirical study of customers using Swedish public transport systems. Data collection is based on a microethnograph...

This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of how to integrate customers within service development by assessing different methods of obtaining use information. The article reviews and classifies methods for customer integration and it also presents a new framework that suggests four modes of customer integration in which data is cla...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to analyze and describe the drivers in the physical environment that help to form customers' service experiences at restaurants, as described by customers in their own words. Design/methodology/approach – A critical incident study was conducted through 122 interviews resulting in a total of 195 favourable and...