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Not always co-creation: introducing
interactional co-destruction of value in
service-dominant logic
Loı
¨c Ple
´
IE
´SEG School of Management, Lille, France, and
Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
IE
´SEG School of Management, Lille, France and ESAN University, Monterrico, Peru
Abstract
Purpose – Noting that a fundamental tenet of service-dominant (S-D) logic is the co-creation of value-in-use, this paper aims to explore the theoretical
possibility that the interactions between service systems cannot only co-create value, but also have adverse consequences leading to actual value
co-destruction.
Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual paper critically reviews the dominance of value co-creation and value-in-use in S-D logic. Noting
the relative lack of research in the converse possibility, the study proposes and explores the implications of value co-destruction as a new concept which
should be introduced within the framework of S-D logic.
Findings – The study proposes a formal definition for the new proposed concept of value co-destruction. It describes in detail the process by which it
occurs, showing that value can be co-destroyed through the interactions between different systems, resulting in value destruction-through-misuse.
Indeed, value co-destruction occurs when a service system accidentally or intentionally misuses resources (its own resources and/or those of another
service system) by acting in an inappropriate or unexpected manner.
Research limitations/implications – This paper is purely conceptual and exploratory. Empirical examination of the theoretical findings regarding
value-co-destruction is required. Possible avenues of interest for such empirical research of value co-destruction are suggested.
Practical implications – Limiting the occurrence of misuse by aligning the mutual expectations of interacting service systems should reduce the risks
of value co-destruction. Recovering from misuse should also be considered.
Originality/value – This study is apparently the first to have introduced the notion of value co-destruction into the conceptual framework of S-D logic.
Keywords Customers, Services, Social interaction, Employees, Service delivery, Value chain
Paper type Conceptual paper
An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this issue.
1. Introduction
Recently, some authors have suggested that the customer
should primarily be seen as a co-creator of experience or value
(Prahalad and Ramaswamy, 2002, 2004), rather than a mere
co-producer of the core offering (product or service) that
enables the delivery of the experience (Bendapudi and Leone,
2003; Bitner et al., 1997; Lengnick-Hall, 1996; Thomke and
Von Hippel, 2002). This shift in focus to the notion of the co-
creation of value has been studied in depth by Vargo and
Lusch (Lusch and Vargo, 2006a; Lusch et al., 2007; Vargo
and Lusch, 2004, 2008b, c), who have contended:
.that service has become the fundamental basis of
exchange; and
.that marketing has thus evolved from a good-dominant
(G-D) logic that has prevailed for decades towards a new
service-dominant (S-D) logic (Vargo and Lusch, 2004,
2008a).
According to S-D logic, the customer is always a co-creator of
value, which is posited as being inherently interactional and
phenomenological (Vargo and Lusch, 2008c). In other words,
S-D logic holds that the value of a good or a service does not
exist per se, but is a function of the way customers perceive the
contextual experiences enabled by this good or service
(Woodruff and Flint, 2006). As a consequence, firms can
merely deliver value propositions, from which customers
derive value-in-use. It also results from this distinction that
the co-production of the core offering (through co-design,
joint production, collaborative inventiveness ...) becomes a
component of value co-creation (Lusch and Vargo, 2006a).
The notion of service in S-D logic does not refer to a unit of
output resulting from a (co-) production process. Rather,
serviceisdefinedas“theapplicationofspecialized
competences (operant resources – knowledge and skills)
through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm
Journal of Services Marketing
24/6 (2010) 430– 437
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]
[DOI 10.1108/08876041011072546]
Received: March 2009
Revised: June 2009
Accepted: December 2009
430
another entity or the entity itself ” (Vargo and Lusch, 2008a,
p. 26). Given that S-D logic posits the exchange of service as
the fundamental basis of exchange, tangible goods are held to
be mere appliances (that is, tools or distribution mechanisms)
that serve as alternatives to the direct provision of service.
Moreover, the service systems involved in this service-for-
service exchange are more than mere combinations of
physical equipment and technology; rather, such service
systems are “configurations of resources (including people,
information, and technology) connected to other systems by
value propositions” (Vargo et al., 2008, p. 145). According to
this view, service systems include firms, customers, suppliers,
employees, and all the other partners in a firm’s network
(Lusch and Vargo, 2006b; Spohrer et al., 2007). Each of these
service systems contributes to the creation of value for itself
and for the others (Vargo et al., 2008).
Thus, a key premise of S-D logic is that value-in-use is
generated by a “collaborative process of co-creation between
parties” (Vargo and Lusch, 2008b, p. 256). Implicit here is
the assumption that the interactions between the parties have
an inherent tendency to result in value co-creation. However,
if it can be co-created, it seems logically possible that value
might also be co-destroyed through such interactional
processes. But marketing thought remains deficient in its
understanding of value-related processes in general (Payne
et al., 2008; Vargo et al., 2008), or of their potential negative
outcomes (Woodruff and Flint, 2006). Yet, just as it is
important to understand customers’ complaining behaviors to
further improve service quality and recover unsatisfied
customers (Maxham, 2001; Snellman and Vihtkari, 2003),
it is also self-evidently important to understand how value
might be co-destroyed – so that it can be identified, analyzed,
and potentially remedied.
Against this background, this conceptual study proposes to
introduce the notion of value co-destruction in S-D logic. The
aim is to explore how such value co-destruction can occur
through the interactions between service systems. The
remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next
section demonstrates that an over-optimistic view of the
inevitability of value co-creation has led to the notion of value
co-destruction being relatively overlooked in the
contemporary discourse on S-D logic. The following section
provides a formal definition of value co-destruction and
depicts the process by which it occurs. We then show that the
value co-destruction process can result from accidental or
intentional actions, which we label misuse of resources, by
service systems. The paper concludes with a summary of the
main contributions and implications of the study.
2. The absence of value co-destruction in S-D logic
2.1 An optimistic view of value
The results of a recent search of the EBSCO database and of
the index of The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing book
(2006) reveal that the academic literature in marketing at
large, then followed by the literature on S-D logic, has mainly
studied the possibilities of value creation and co-creation so
far (Table I).
Explaining these differences goes far beyond this paper.
However, concerning S-D logic itself, they most probably lie
in an “optimistic” view of value processes and their outcomes.
Indeed, the definition of service proposed by Vargo and Lusch
(2008a, p. 26) refer explicitly to “the benefit of another entity
or the entity itself ” and “doing something beneficial”.
Moreover, the word “value” has inherently positive
connotations, as reflected in the positive terminology used by
Vargo et al. (2008, p. 149) in defining value as “an improvement
in system well-being”, which is measured in terms of “a
system’s adaptiveness or ability to fit in its environment”.
These positive references to the beneficial nature of service
and value in the literature on S-D logic thus demonstrate an
inherently optimistic and favorable perspective on the
outcome of value-related processes. However, this implicitly
excludes realistic alternatives which can result in value co-
destruction, as it is not possible to ensure 100 percent error-
free service (Dong et al., 2008).
2.2 The implicit possibility of value co-destruction
According to G-D logic, value can be seen as a two-stage
sequence (Gro¨nroos, 2006; Vargo and Lusch, 2008a). First,
value is created by the firm during the production process
(hence the concept of added value). This value is
subsequently destroyed by the consumer at the moment of
consumption. G-D logic thus posits that value creation and
value destruction are separate and unilateral (that is, they are
not interactional).
In terms of S-D logic, it would seem that the notion of value
co-destruction has been rather implicit until now. For
example, Jaworski and Kohli (2006) mention that, under
some conditions, firms should not engage in the co-creation
of value with a customer because this exercise would be
suboptimal for both parties. However, these authors do not
analyze the way in which value might be co-destroyed, but
instead insist on the factors and circumstances under which
the two parties should not interact at all. Woodruff and Flint
(2006) also note that devaluation processes can occur, and
that these processes can diminish co-created value. However,
these authors do not mention any potential for the actual co-
destruction of value. Nor do they explore the dynamics of
devaluation, although they do acknowledge the need for
further research on this topic.
Finally, Etgar (2006, p. 129) studies the costs associated
with co-production, hence value co-creation. According to
this author, the customer seeks a trade-off between these
various costs and could thus engage in activities that would
“minimize the costs of performing value co-creation
activities”. However, Etgar (2006) remains silent about the
content of the interaction between the firm and the customer,
as well as about the results for the firm in terms of value.
3. The concept and process of value
co-destruction
3.1 Defining value co-destruction
Given that the notion of value co-destruction has not been
addressed directly in the literature (even though some recent
studies have alluded to it), the concept remains blurred and in
need of definition. To that end, the present study draws on the
familiar terminology used in the aforementioned S-D logic
definitions of value and service.
Thus, we suggest that value co-destruction can be defined
as an interactional process between service systems that
results in a decline in at least one of the systems’ well-being
(which, given the nature of a service system, can be individual
or organizational).During this process, these service systems
interact either directly (person-to-person) or indirectly (via
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction
Loı
¨cPle
´and Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 6 · 2010 · 430 – 437
431
appliances such as goods) through the integration and
application of resources. Moreover, following Woodruff and
Flint (2006) who suggest that an imbalance between a firm’s
level of co-created value and that of its customer can occur,
we propose that the level of value co-destruction that results
from the interactional process might not be the same for all of
the service systems involved. Given that S-D logic measures
value in terms of adaptiveness, this means that value co-
destruction might have a differential impact on the
adaptiveness (i.e. ability to fit in their environment) of the
systems involved in the process.
Although it provides useful guidance on the nature of the
value co-destruction concept, this definition remains purely
formal. In other words, it does not explain how value is co-
destroyed through the interactions between service systems.
This process is explored below.
3.2 The process of value co-destruction
As noted above, S-D logic focuses on the notion of value-in-
use, which refers to the value that is co-created through the
interactions of service systems that integrate and apply both
their own resources, and those of other systems (Lusch and
Vargo, 2006b; Lusch et al., 2007). Most of these resources are
operant resources (resources such as knowledge and skills that
act on other resources), although some operand resources
(tangible and inert resources that are acted upon) can also be
used in the interactional process.
Applying these ideas to the proposed concept of value co-
destruction, it is obvious that resources that are utilized
positively to the benefit of the service systems might also be
used in a detrimental manner for one or all of the parties
involved. For example, customers who buy cars but do not
maintain them destroy value for themselves. Moreover, they
also destroy value for the firm that sold it if they blame the
firm for the problems they experience with the car and
damage the image of the firm by communicating their adverse
opinion of the firm’s value proposition to other people
through negative word of mouth. Such customers therefore
trigger a value co-destruction process for both parties by
misusing the firm’s value proposition.
To stick to the terminology of S-D logic, we suggest that the
available resources have been misused when one service
system (in this example, the customer) has failed to integrate
and apply the available operant and operand resources of at
least one of the service systems (the firm and the customer) in
an “appropriate” or “expected” manner from the other
system’s perspective (the firm). Of course, it is also
conceivable that the other service system (the firm) might
also misuse these available resources (its own and/or those of its
customer). It would thus seem reasonable to contend that value
co-destruction results from the misuse of resources during the
interactions between different service systems – that is, each of
these service systems can misuse its own resources and/or the
resources of the other service system, or both service systems
can misuse these resources. In each case, this misuse results in
value co-destruction for at least one of the two service systems.
The concept of value destruction-through-misuse can thus be
set up in opposition to value-in-use. Figure 1 provides a
schematic illustration of the preceding discussion.
We noted earlier that misuse can be understood as a failure
to use the resources in a manner that is appropriate or expected
by the other service system. Indeed, when two systems interact
(directly or indirectly), each party has certain expectations in
relation to its own role and to the role of the other party
(Bateson, 2002). This refers to script theory, which holds that
if each party is capable of foreseeing the behavior of the other,
in addition to knowing how to act and behave in its own right
(Solomon et al., 1985), then their interactions should be
successful. In S-D logic terms, following such a script enables
the co-creation of value-in-use through the appropriate
integration and application of resources. In other words,
value co-creation occurs when two service systems have
congruent expectations of the way in which the available
resources should be used in the course of their interactions.
However, such value co-creation is imperiled if there are
discrepancies between the systems with regard to expectations
of appropriate behavior (Hubbert et al.,1995).
Against this background, it is reasonable to argue that
inappropriate or unexpected use of the available resources in
an interaction will result in value co-destruction for at least
one of the parties. We therefore propose that the key term
misuse of resources refers to the integration and/or
application of the available resources by one service system
in a manner that is considered unexpected and/or
inappropriate by the other interacting service system. Such
misuse might be purely accidental, but also intentional
(Harris and Ogbonna, 2002, 2006). This issue is considered
in greater detail below.
4. Accidental v. intentional misuse of resources
4.1 Accidental misuse
Most service systems presumably intend to co-create value
through their interactions, rather than co-destroy it. Since co-
Table I Quantitative evidence of the focus on value (co)creation in the academic literature
Source Keyword search item Result
EBSCO Database (field “Abstract or
Author-supplied abstract” – as of March 2009)
Value creation 805 results (about half related to marketing)
Creation of value 128 results (a large part refer to marketing)
Co-creation 72 results (all related to marketing)
Value destruction 17 results (none concerned marketing)
Destruction of value Eight results (none concerned marketing)
Co-destruction Two results (none concerned marketing)
Index of
The Service-dominant Logic
Value creation Studied in 17 chapters of 32
of Marketing
book (2006) Value creation costs Studied in one chapter (refers to the costs associated with value co-creation,
so barely relevant to the value co-destruction concept)
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction
Loı
¨cPle
´and Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 6 · 2010 · 430 – 437
432
creation depends on congruent expectations of the manner in
which resources should be integrated and applied by the
service systems during their interactions, it seems logical to
assume that there will usually be no deliberate discrepancies
in these mutual expectations. Nonetheless, the reality is that
such discrepancies can occur (Christensen et al., 2007) and
cause what we label an accidental misuse of resources by at
least one of the interacting service systems. This is best
illustrated by providing two examples of accidental misuse
and the circumstances under which this might occur.
The first example refers to the increasingly common process
of involving customers in the innovation process. Although
such “co-innovation” has been promoted as an efficacious
method for achieving innovation (Chesbrough, 2006), the
results can be disappointing because customers have limited
knowledge about new technologies/materials and are therefore
not necessarily well placed to predict the kinds of innovation
that should be pursued, or envisage the future usages of these
innovations (Ulwick, 2002). This means that some customers
engaged in co-innovation are unable to use their resources
(and/or the firm’s resources) as the firm expected, simply
because they are limited by their frame of reference. In these
circumstances, if customers do misuse the available resources,
such misuse is clearly accidental, rather than the result of
deliberate choice. From the firm’s perspective, if the outcome
of such accidental misuse merely leads to an incremental
innovation or a “me-too” product while a disruptive
innovation was expected, this leaves the field open for
competitors who are developing alternative innovations
(Ulwick, 2002). Accordingly, the intended process of co-
creating value thanks to co-innovation has become a value co-
destruction process, which has the potential to decrease the
firm’s competitive well-being – meaning in S-D logic terms
that it limits its capacity to adapt to its competitive
environment. From the customer’s standpoint, this relative
failure to produce effective innovation has “wasted” (that is,
misused) personal resources that might have been employed
for other more beneficial activities. This, in turn, might
provoke frustration and eventually have an adverse effect on
the customer’s personal well-being – in terms of the latter’s
ability to adapt to the environment. Thus, for the customer
also, the intended process of value-co-creation has become a
co-destruction process.
The second example refers to the misuse of resources that
can occur in the context of the role conflict felt by front-line
service employees who are subject to competing expectations
from their employers and their customers (Eddleston et al.,
2002; Wetzels et al., 1999). For instance, if the firm has a
policy of minimizing the amount of time that employees
spend with individual customers, but certain customers insist
on employees devoting a lot of time to dealing with their
requirements, these customers are (from the firm’s
perspective) misusing a resource (in this case, the employee)
because they are not using it as the firm expected it to be
used. This misuse is likely to be unintentional (i.e. accidental
misuse) because the customers are probably not aware of the
firm’s policy about the desirable duration of customer–
employee interactions. However, since the firm presumably
suffers from the diminished efficiency of its employees, the
intended process of value-co-creation has, from the firm’s
position, become a co-destruction process. In contrast, from
the customers’ view, the prolonged interaction provides them
with greater value and improves their well-being. Thus, in this
instance, the accidental misuse of a resource during the
systems’ interaction actually co-creates value-in-use for one
party (the customers) while simultaneously causing value
destruction-through-misuse for the other party (the firm).
This second example shows that an interaction does not
necessarily engender the same value-related effects for both
service systems. Indeed, it would seem that a process of value-
Figure 1 Sources of value co-destruction through service systems’ interactions
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction
Loı
¨cPle
´and Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 6 · 2010 · 430 – 437
433
co-destruction can clearly lead to differential effects,
generating value destruction-through-misuse for one system
and value-in-use for the other.
4.2 Intentional misuse
It might seem to be counter-intuitive for service systems to
misuse resources deliberately in the course of their
interactions. Yet, one or other party sometimes has an
interest in misusing resources. Such intentional misuse of
resources usually occurs in the context of one service system
seeking to increase its own well-being and capacity for
adaptiveness to the detriment of another system’s well-being
and capacity for adaptiveness. Intentional misuse thus implies
the existence of deliberate value imbalances, for detrimental
effects (value co-destruction) will be experienced by one of
the service systems, whereas the other interacting system will
experience benefits (value co-creation). Four examples can be
offered to illustrate this phenomenon.
The first one further explores the preceding case of role
conflict. A recent research across various industries showed
that when they contact firms for service, customers essentially
expect to find knowledgeable frontline employees and (ii) to
have their problem resolved on the first call (Dougherty and
Murthy, 2009). But the metrics used by these service centers
(mostly, time on hold and minutes per call) encourage
frontline employees to hurry through calls. In fact, these two
factors which customers do care most about are usually
absent from customer-service managers’ dashboards! As a
result, 50 percent of the surveyed customers declare that
many of the firms they interact with do not understand or care
about them. This means that if the employee complies with
the firm’s wishes regarding a limitation on the time taken in
customer encounters, customers will perceive that this
resource (the employee) is not being used in the appropriate
manner that they had expected. Thus, from the customers’
perspective, the firm is intentionally misusing its own
resource, and the effect of this misuse is to diminish the
customers’ well-being. Hence, from the customer’s stance,
this intentional misuse of resources has resulted in value co-
destruction. In contrast, from the firm’s perspective, the
intentional misuse of resources enables the firm to co-create
value, since it is more efficient and productive (Singh, 2000).
The second example of deliberate misuse of resources also
involves the employees’ behavior. Here, these front-line
service employees are regarded as service systems in
themselves, rather than resources of the firm (Vargo et al.,
2008). According to this view, the service system represented
by the front-line employees interacts with two other systems
– the firm and the customers. In these interactions,
employees are in position to use, or intentionally misuse,
their own resources (e.g. skills and knowledge) and/or the
resources of the firm and the customers. In other words, they
can choose to engage in “sabotage behaviors”, i.e. “behaviors
that are intentionally designed negatively to affect service”
(Harris and Ogbonna, 2002, p. 166). In so doing, they
effectively improve their well-being (i.e. co-create value) by
enhancing their personal self-esteem, perceived status, and
job satisfaction, while decreasing the well-being of the other
systems (i.e. co-destroy value) by adversely impacting on the
firm’s performance and the quality of service delivered to
customers (Harris and Ogbonna, 2002, 2006).
Our third example concerns the intentional misuse of
resources in the context of managing distribution channels.
Many firms seek to reduce costs and improve productivity by
encouraging their customers to switch from person-to-person
service encounters to automated self-service (Curran and
Meuter, 2005). However, because customers vary in their
willingness and aptitude for such self-service (Lee, 2002), a
firm that imposes self-service technology on all its customers
is intentionally using its resources in a manner that is
perceived as inappropriate by those customers who are
reluctant to embrace the use of the technology. From the
latter’s standpoint, such an intentional misuse of resources by
the firm will adversely impact their well-being.
The final example illustrates how customers can
intentionally misuse resources (the firm’s resources and/or
their own resources) to obtain more value for themselves
while co-destroying value for the firm. For instance,
customers misuse a firm’s resources and their own when
they complain illegitimately (Reynolds and Harris, 2005) or
when they adopt opportunistic behaviors to take advantage of
service employees (Ple
´, 2006). A simple example of such
intentional misuse of resources is telling untruths to front-line
employees with a view to benefiting from preferential
treatment. From the firm’s perspective, customers’ resources
(e.g. cognitive skills) are used in an unexpected manner
resulting in value co-creation for one party (the customer)
while causing value co-destruction for the other one (the
firm).
5. Contributions and implications
5.1 Theoretical contributions
The aim of this conceptual study has been to adopt the
terminology and conceptual framework of S-D logic to
explore the notion that the interactions between service
systems (such as firms and customers) do not necessarily
result in value co-creation. We argue that these interactions
between parties can also have adverse consequences, and that
they can actually co-destroy value. We propose that a co-
destruction process of value is triggered when at least one of
the interacting service systems misuses its own resources and/
or the resources of another system. In this context, the term
“misuse” refers to a failure to integrate and/or apply resources
in a manner that is appropriate and expected by the other
service system. Such a co-destruction process results in value
destruction-through-misuse for at least one of the parties.
The present conceptual study is apparently the first to have
introduced the notion of value co-destruction into the
conceptual framework of S-D logic. Indeed, it is one of the
few to have explored the concept of value destruction in the
marketing literature at large. In so doing, this paper has
responded to the call of Vargo and Lusch (2008c) for the
further development of the emerging S-D logic of marketing.
As a corollary to its main aim, this article has also
contributed to a better understanding of value-related
processes in general, about which marketing thought has
remained relatively silent so far (Payne et al., 2008; Vargo
et al., 2008). In this regard, we have noted that the process of
value destruction-through-misuse can result from either
accidental or intentional misuse of resources by service
systems. In addition, we have shown that this can engender an
imbalance in the levels of value achieved by different service
systems. In fact, it is apparent that the co-destruction process
can actually result in value co-destruction for one of the
systems and value co-creation for the other.
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction
Loı
¨cPle
´and Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 6 · 2010 · 430 – 437
434
5.2 Directions for further research
This study does not pretend to be exhaustive in any way, and
certainly raises more questions for future research than it
answers. Four possible directions for future empirical and
theoretical research are proposed below.
First, it would be interesting to explore the potential
influence of the characteristics of service systems on the co-
destruction process. For example, the interactions between a
firm and its customers who have a good understanding of a
product and its uses might differ from the interactions
between the firm and its customers who lack such an
understanding (Ulwick, 2002; Von Hippel, 1978). Similarly,
the intensity of value-related processes (and hence the
likelihood of value co-creation or co-destruction) might vary
in accordance with the customers’ interest in having a
relationship with a firm and the quantity and quality of
resources that they are prepared to bring to the interaction
(Ward and Dagger, 2007).
Another promising area for future research is the long-term
dynamics of value-related processes. For example, although a
firm might derive short-term value from a decision to force all
customers to accept self-service technology, such a decision
might result in long-term co-destruction of value if too many
customers are disappointed and eventually leave the firm.
Longitudinal research on value-related processes (and co-
destruction in particular) is therefore required (Woodruff and
Flint, 2006).
Third, given that the misuse of resources is at the heart of
value co-destruction, further study of the antecedents and
dynamics of the misuse of resources is of primary importance.
It would be interesting to explore the circumstances that
induce a service system to misuse its own resources or those
of others. Future research could also explore whether
accidental misuse becomes formalized over time to become
intentional misuse.
Finally, future research could explore the dynamics between
value co-destruction and value-in-exchange (that is, the
money that one service system gives to another to obtain its
value proposition). Given that the present study has shown
that a co-destruction process might produce an imbalance in
value between interacting service systems, it would be
interesting to know whether (and to what extent) this
imbalance has an impact on value-in-exchange.
The sets of questions raised above, while covering a wide
array of issues, collectively point to a need for explorator y
research which would enable to develop measurement tools
(e.g. scales) for the new concepts proposed here. It would also
enable to study the antecedents and relationships of these
concepts, as a first step towards a theoretical framework of
value co-destruction that would complement the one of value
co-creation. As a starting point for such research, conducting
a carefully-designed in-depth qualitative research may be
more appropriate than doing a broad-based survey covering a
wide spectrum of industries and companies. To that extent,
observations and interviews would be essential research
methods to gain useful insights into the four preceding
directions. All the same, given the lack of documentation of
the properties of the concepts and the need for identifying and
classifying them, the critical incident technique would be an
appropriate research method (e.g. Bitner et al., 1994) to
collect descriptions of salient past experiences of value co-
creation and co-destruction faced by service systems (the data
collection could concern either one system, or dyads).
5.3 Managerial implications
When contemplating the potential benefits of co-creating
value, managers should not neglect the possibility of value co-
destruction. The stakes are high: “40 percent of the customers
who suffer through bad experiences stop doing business with
the offending company [...] without the slightest warning”
(Dougherty and Murthy, 2009, p. 22). To do so, we propose
that managerial thinking and actions should strive to avoid or
at least limit the misuse of resources, which we argue is at the
heart of value co-destruction. This means that it is essential to
align the mutual expectations of the interacting service
systems (that is, to reduce or eliminate the discrepancies
between these mutual expectations), or to be prepared to
recover from the occurrence of misuse.
To prevent misuse, firms should communicate precisely prior
to the interaction about the manner they expect their
customers to integrate and apply the resources needed for
co-creating value. Such information about the nature and
content of the interaction can be provided via detailed
brochures, on websites through text, audio, pictures, video,
etc. But due to their “unidirectional” nature (from the firm to
the customer), such socialization techniques (Kelley et al.,
1990) are not enough to align the mutual expectations, for it is
important that the customers do not feel that they are imposed
a specific behavior in the interaction. Hence, they must also be
convinced that the firm shares their own view of value-in-use.
Interviews, surveys, observations and experimentations of
actual and potential customers’ behaviors are useful tools to
know and understand how the customers expect resources to
be integrated and applied in interactions.
However, given that it cannot be systematically avoided,
practitioners should consider methods to identify misuse, and
to recover from it. To that aim, training and empowering
frontline employees may offer some assistance. These
employees should be able to recognize the occurrence of
misuse and to learn how to align the parties’ mutual
expectations. If the alignment proves to be impossible to
reach, empowered frontline employees can finally offer the
customer appropriate solutions. Technology too can help to
identify and recover from misuse, even though it must be
carefully managed. For example, customers can send e-mails
to complain about misuse-related problems. But nowadays,
they can also rely on the power of blogs or social websites such
as Twitter and Facebook to share these problems with
potentially hundreds or thousands of people. This obliges
firms to be more and more reactive, or even pro-active, to
avoid brand image adverse consequences (and thus increased
value co-destruction).
6. Conclusion
The potential for co-creating value through interactions is
huge, but the possibility of interactional value co-destruction
should not be overlooked. Managers and academics alike
must recognize that value co-creation is not the only possible
outcome of the interaction between service systems. Adverse
consequences can occur for a variety of reasons during the
process, and it is therefore essential, before implementing a
strategy based on S-D logic, to consider where, how, and to
what extent co-destruction might occur.
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction
Loı
¨cPle
´and Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 6 · 2010 · 430 – 437
435
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About the authors
Loı¨c Ple
´is Assistant Professor and Director of the New
Educational Technologies Department at IE
´SEG School of
Management, France. He received his PhD in 2006 from the
University of Paris-Dauphine (France). His research topics
deal with customer participation, the integration of the
customer in organizations and the way this influences their
business models. His research has been published in academic
and professional journals such as M@n@agement,the
International Journal of Bank Marketing, and L’Expansion
Management Review. He also won the 2010 M@n@gement
award delivered to the best paper of the AIMS Conference
(Association Internationale de Management Strate
´gique).
Loı¨c Ple
´is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
l.ple@ieseg.fr
Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres is Full Professor and Head of
the Department of Marketing at IE
´SEG School of
Management, France. He received his MBA in 1995 and
PhD in 1998, both from the Louvain School of Management
at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Prior to
entering academia, Dr Chumpitaz worked for several years in
management in the telecommunication industrial sector and
for almost 15 years he has served as an analytical consultant
for marketing research projects and agencies. His research
focuses on service quality, customer satisfaction, brand
loyalty, service recovery and market orientation. His
research has been published in academic and professional
journals such as Managing Ser vice Quality,International
Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research,
European Business Forum, European Journal of Marketing,
Recherche et Application en Marketing, and Annals of Operations
Research.
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction
Loı
¨cPle
´and Rube
´n Chumpitaz Ca
´ceres
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 6 · 2010 · 430 – 437
437
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