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Studying customers’ resource integration by service employees in interactional value co-creation
Abstract
Purpose – Noting that resource integration is a pivotal dimension of value co-creation in Service-Dominant logic, this paper aims to explore how service employees engaged in co-creation processes with customers integrate the latter’s resources.
Design/methodology/approach – To address the limitations of previous research on customer resources and their integration by service employees, this study turns to the concept of customer participation to identify the nature of customers’ resources. A conceptual framework of their integration by service employees underpins nine key propositions. This foundation leads to the development of theoretical contributions, managerial
implications and avenues for research.
Findings – Customers can use 12 types of resources in value co-creation. Contrasting with earlier findings, the conceptual framework reveals that service employees may not only integrate these customers’ resources but also either misintegrate or not integrate them. Non-integration and misintegration may be intentional or accidental. Accordingly, value co-creation or co-destruction may result from interactions.
Research limitations/implications – This conceptual and exploratory text requires complementary theoretical and empirical investigations. It also does not adopt an ecosystems view of co-creation.
Practical implications – Knowing the different steps of resource integration and what influences them should increase the chances of value co-creation and limit the risks of value co-destruction.
Originality/value – Scant research has examined the nature of customer resources and how service employees integrate them. This paper also is the first to distinguish among resource integration, misintegration and non-integration.
... The myopic and limited epistemology of construct value cocreation was challenged with the notion that all service exchanges may not result in the mutual wellbeing of actors. If the service-for-service exchange is not well carried with the agreed value proposal, it may result in a loss of resources loos, resulting in value co-destruction (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011;Plé, 2016Plé, , 2017. The seminal work of Plé (2017) brought future directions for scholars to reconceptualize the constructs of value cocreation and co-destruction while deviating from its biased for a more realistic understanding. ...
... Both articles are the most cited in the selected studies. (Plé, 2016), in his latest research, emphasizes the need for further research on value co-destruction, especially in the context of ecosystems. The seminal work of Plé and Chumpitaz (2010) and Echeverri and Skålén (2011) mutually define value co-destruction as a process where the interaction among actors results in a decline in at least one of the systems instead of value cocreation. ...
... Later, the research stream catering actions of actors, e.g., customer misbehaviour (Kashif & Zarkada, 2015), resource misuse (Plé, 2016), loss of wellbeing, failure to deliver the value proposition, inability to offer resources, customer failure to gain expected and, unexpected loss (Guan et al., 2020;Laud et al., 2019;Quacha & Thaichon, 2017) encompasses the definition of value co-destruction in recent literature. Calhau Codá and Silva Farias (2021) define value co-destruction as the dark side of value cocreation. ...
The research frontier of Service-Dominant logic has elicited the etymological debate on the phenomenological nature of value. To date, the literature has shown a biased and myopic view of value co-creation as an outcome of service interaction. Leading journals have given prominent space to value co-creation. Still, value co-destruction is yet least explored though it is also a realistic view of a service interaction. Value co-creation manifests the wellness of actors, but not all service interactions result in positive outcomes causing value co-destruction. The researchers have started the debate on value co-destruction relating to its conceptual description; still, the literature is fragmented. This article is a systematic literature review that explores the epistemological, theoretical, and contextual understanding of value co-destruction to synthesize fragmented literature from 2010 to date. This article provides an overview of value co-destruction seminal work, theoretical underpinnings, leading antecedents, and coping strategies in particular contexts. The systematic selection of literature affirms value co-destruction as a decline in the wellbeing of actors during service exchange due to the misalignment of actors’ resources and a mirror image of value co-creation. This article offers co-existence, the role of context, contextual antecedents, the temporal nature of co-destruction, and exclusively the ISPAR model as theoretical support for value co-destruction as future research directions.
... This is not always the case, however, since these resources can be utilised in an adverse manner, resulting in the co-destruction of value (Williams et al., 2016). This bipolar nature can be ascribed to all resources, since they only acquire the status of resources in the function of the context of their use (Ple, 2016). Thus, a resource which is integrated within a system to positively create value could serve as a value destroying resource within the same system or in other systems. ...
... Therefore, for value to be co-created, resources have to be sacrificed (Zeithaml, 1988). In a conceptual paper by Ple (2016), a list of twelve resources which consumers utilise in value creation was constructed (Table 3). These resources, when sacrificed by the consumer and congruently integrated, could result in value creation. ...
... It is important to note that not all forms of misintegration result in value co-destruction. There are situations where the misintegration of resources could result in value co-creation (Ple, 2016). Given that the resultant creation or destruction of value depends on the beneficiaries' expected use of their resources, when beneficiaries have low expectations of the use of their resources, misintegration could result in value co-creation when the provider surpasses their expectations. ...
Co-destruction of value has been highlighted as a possible outcome of every interaction between firms and consumers. Despite the likelihood of its occurrence, the concept is not adequately defined or understood, while little is known about how and where it occurs. This paper reviews the literature on co-destruction to provide insights into what co-destruction is, and it identifies where co-destruction occurs and how it occurs through resource mis-integration and in practice. The review takes a stakeholder approach, highlighting how value can be co-destroyed by stakeholders both within the dyad of the firm and its consumers and beyond this dyad during multiparty interactions and in virtual communities. The analysis suggests that value can only be co-destroyed when the expectations of the beneficiary are higher than the level of service offered by the provider. The paper proposes a new definition for co-destruction and highlights pressing research gaps within the co-destruction literature.
... Dolan et al., 2019;Kashif & Zarkada, 2015;Plé, 2017;Zhang et al., 2018). In the B2C context, the abuse of customer resources by organizations or employees has resulted in value co-destruction (Castillo et al., 2021;Plé, 2016;Smith, 2013), and customers' abuse of their own resources (such as complaint behavior, exaggerated online reviews, negative interactions with other customers) can also have a negative impact on value formation (Baker & Kim, 2019;Dolan et al., 2019;Kim et al., 2020;Luo et al., 2019). If the cognitive scripts of both sides of interaction are inconsistent (Järvi et al., 2020), or they are not consistent in their views about procedures, understandings and engagements (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011), or resources are mis-integrated or non-integrated (Yin et al., 2019), or an actor implements inappropriate behaviors (Zhang et al., 2018), etc., co-destruction can result. ...
... In the value formation process, a single actor not only relies on his resources but also integrates his resources with the resources of other related entities. Therefore, resource integration is a key dimension in value formation (Plé, 2016). However, the resource integration process does not always produce positive results. ...
... Good resource integration results in value co-creation, while poor integration may result in value codestruction. For example, Plé (2016) found that when interacting directly with customers, employees may correctly integrate, incorrectly integrate or not integrate customer resources; and the latter two situations may cause value co-destruction. Laud et al. (2019) found that resource misintegration was distributed over stages of resource access, adaptation, combination and application, and has ten distinct manifestations. ...
This paper develops a value co-destruction behavior (VCDB) scale in the business-to-customer (B2C) service context. It uses a multi-method and multistage design, which is consistent with the method of developing and validating psychometric scales. That is, in the first stage, we focus on the development of measurement items designed to reflect the conceptual attributes of VCDB. The second stage determines whether the measurement items are established as an indicator of VCDB and whether their reliability values are acceptable. The third stage tests to what extent the measured items represent the structure of VCDBs and their reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. Finally, the nomological validity of the VCDB scale is tested. Through qualitative induction and three quantitative studies, this study constructed a multidimensional VCDB scale, composed of bad employee resource integration behavior, bad customer resource integration behavior, bad employee interpersonal interaction behavior and bad customer interpersonal interaction behavior.
... The value co-creation paradigm emphasizes a range of customer resource contributions and co-creation activities during service interactions (Plé, 2016). Consequently, customers need to possess knowledge that helps them fulfill their role as service co-creators. ...
... FLEs or employees with whom customers directly interact at the point of contact with service organizations (Rafaeli et al., 2017), play an important role in facilitating customer cocreation and shaping customer service experience (Plé 2016). They enable and facilitate value co-creation by adapting their interaction style to customers' knowledge and modifying the combination of resources provided to co-create customized benefits for customers (Le et al., 2022). ...
... Customer co-creation behavior refers to the activities of customers for integrating their resources (e.g. knowledge) with other actors' resources to co-create value (Plé 2016). Resource integration requires customers to have a certain level of expertise and the extent to which customers perform cocreation behavior varies across customers and situations (McColl-Kennedy et al., 2017). ...
Purpose
Understanding customers’ expertise for better service co-creation is of great importance. To be an effective co-creator, customers need to have much more knowledge than a basic literacy, which is appropriate for passive service consumption. This paper aims to propose the concept of customer service co-creation literacy (SCL) to capture not only the basic expertise but also the expertise for active service co-creation. This study then investigates how SCL can be cultivated and how it facilitates customer co-creation behavior, which subsequently leads to enhanced value.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model was developed and tested in the health-care service context using a sample of 310 patients. CB-SEM/AMOS software package was used for data analysis.
Findings
SCL has different impacts on three components of co-creation behavior, which in turn influence the service value differently. SCL not only solely facilitates co-creation behavior but also directly increases customer value. SCL can be cultivated by social support and frontline employee interaction.
Practical implications
The findings offer managerial and societal implications for cognitive interventions to develop customers’ SCL, which is aligned to customers’ needed literacy for co-creation and well-being.
Originality/value
The newly proposed concept of SCL is shown to be more appropriate in research adopting the service-dominant logic. Its importance as one type of customer operant resource for value co-creation is underscored. Findings also uncover how other actors indirectly contribute to customers’ value co-creation via developing their SCL resources.
... Social interaction between actors is the antecedent of resource integration (Bruce et al., 2019). Through interaction, actors in a network can access specific kinds and quantities of resources (Plé, 2016). For instance, Plé (2016) identified 12 potential resources in a study of service employees' interactions with customers, implying that interactions between actors are a means to gaining access to resources and a platform for integrating them, aiming for VCC (Singaraju et al., 2016). ...
... Sometimes, actors are unaware of the existence of emotional resources within certain contexts. For example, a waiter might notice a customer's physical disability and wheelchair (a physical resource) but might be unaware of the customer's current mood (an emotional resource; Plé, 2016). In this situation, VCD can occur if one actor cannot access another's emotional resources and unintentionally behaves in an offensive or unexpected way. ...
... Resources can be complementary when they diverge in quantity and quality or redundant when they are similar and increase joint volume (Gummesson & Mele, 2010). To improve the well-being of service systems, actors should be able to match and adapt resources to fit their needs (Plé, 2016;Laud et al., 2019). Bruce et al. (2019) proposed that "integrable quality," "the extent to which resources possess the characteristics necessary to support resource integration activities" (p. ...
The paper develops a conceptual framework to study the constructs of information technology (IT)-supported value co-creation and co-destruction through shared processes of social interaction and resource integration as mediated by IT and embedded in interactive value formation practices. In particular, the elements of social interaction and resource integration are identified, and the role of IT is discussed. We conduct a systematic literature review and analyze the data using the service system perspective. Our research contributes by identifying the constructs of value-creating phenomena enabled by IT from the service system perspective and presenting a research agenda for further studies.
... In the context of this study, resource integration refers to how visitors integrate their individual resources with those offered by the CDM to co-create intended value (Plé, 2016;Lusch, 2004, 2017). Without such contribution of consumer resources, service provider value propositions will likely remain as propositions (Vafeas and Hughes, 2020). ...
... In the context of individual consumer resources, Arnould et al. (2005) put forward three main categories: social; cultural; and physical. Following on from this, Plé (2016) proposed the following 12 individual consumer resource categories: ...
... As not all of these 12 resource categories are likely to be mobilised by the individual consumerit is largely dependent on the context (Plé, 2016)this study therefore only explores those resources that are likely to be applied by CDM visitors to co-create (or codestruct) value as part of the value creation process. Furthermore, there is minimal existing research that explicates how the value co-creation (or co-destruction) process, i.e. resource integration between the CDM and visitors during the museum visit, can produce intended (or unintended) value outcomes, potentially enabling social inclusion, which this study also addresses. ...
Purpose
This study aims to elucidate the value creation process within a culturally diversified museum (CDM), which aims to achieve social inclusion, i.e. bridging the social divide between mainstream and minority communities, through the integration of CDM’s and visitors’ resources. Using service logic (SL) theory as the theoretical lens, we aim to unveil the CDM’s unique service provider and customer (visitor) resources, the corresponding resource integration process that explains value co-creation and co-destruction and the resultant value outcomes for social inclusion.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study of an Australian CDM is used, involving various qualitative data sources, including depth interviews, focus groups, visitor book content analysis, on-site observation and participation in the CDM’s events and forums.
Findings
The findings provide insights into the unique CDM and visitor resources that are integrated to achieve value outcomes that foster social inclusion. However, the results suggest that alongside value co-creation, co-destruction can unfold, causing a (mis)alignment with the aim of the CDM to bridge the social divide between mainstream and minority communities.
Practical implications
This study’s findings offer salient implications for CDMs and similar service providers that enables social inclusion and policymakers.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the service domain by highlighting the importance of the alignment between provider and customer resources to co-create value within a culturally diversified context. That is, CDMs can learn from the misalignment of their resources and those of their visitors to improve their resource offerings and achieve greater social inclusion outcomes in the future.
... The second fundamental tenet of S-DL is that value is interactively formed (Plé, 2017;Vargo and Lusch, 2004), as actors integrate their resources to cocreate value (Mustak and Plé, 2020;Plé, 2016). The understanding that all actors are resource integrators contrasts with the traditional emphasis on suppliers' deployment of resources to create value (Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2012). ...
... The third key insight of S-DL consists of institutional arrangements and their shaping of the RI process, either by constraining/expanding the resources of actors, facilitating/curtailing the integration of resources, or the realization of positive outcomes (Caridà et al., 2019;Mele et al., 2018;Plé, 2016). This third tenet ensures that both agency and structure and the reciprocal influence on one another are considered when explaining market formation and development (Akaka and Chandler, 2011;Chandler and Vargo, 2011;Geels, 2020). ...
... Resources are anything that can potentially create value (Akaka and Chandler, 2011). The broad distinction between intangible or operant and tangible or operand resources established by Vargo and Lusch (2004) has been complemented by more finegrained classifications (Plé, 2016). Following Peters et al. (2014) and Plé (2016) Resourcing consists of actors' operations on available resources so that actors' basic resources are integrated and transformed into composite and interconnected resources to create specific benefits (Caridà et al., 2019). ...
The formation of policy-pushed markets has been underexamined in the transition literature, despite their importance for achieving sustainability policy objectives and their greater risk of failure. This study draws from service-dominant logic, i.e., a marketing-originated meta-theory of markets, to explain why one of these policy-pushed markets—local energy flexibility markets—may not develop. In particular, we show that to decide whether to participate in these policy-pushed markets, market actors assess the resources available to them, anticipate the required interactions to integrate resources, and forecast potential value formation. Actors’ limited ability to identify or access resources, and/or their unwillingness or inability to interact with other actors to integrate resources explain why value processes do not unfold so that the market does not develop. We also demonstrate that existing institutional arrangements may limit actors’ agency to access to resources or coordinate value flows, which prevents the policy-pushed market from self-adjustment.
... 56 ISSN 1807-975X habilidades e conhecimentos humanos. A provisão de serviço implica a combinação de recursos, por meio de sua integração e aplicação, movida por recursos operados, logo, pelas atividades dos atores (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2016, 2017Lusch & Nambisan, 2015). ...
... Segundo a LDS, os atores envolvidos não podem oferecer valor, mas podem participar na criação e oferta de proposições de valor, que é sempre único e fenomenologicamente determinado pelo beneficiário (Vargo & Lusch, 2004, 2016. Chandler e Lusch (2015) definem proposições de valor como convites de atores, uns aos outros, para engajarem junto ao serviço, e propõem uma agenda de pesquisa que avalie como essas proposições de valor podem CODÁ, R. C.; FARIAS, J. S.; DIAS, C. N. Formação Interativa de Valor no setor de hospitalidade no turismo: framework e agenda de pesquisa. ...
... Each facility-level practice reflective of B2B-BOC is described in more detail in the following sub-sections. Another essential factor of the model is the role played by the suppliers in providing the information support to the buyer for the proper deployment and mobilization of the resources (Plé 2016;Kohtamäki and Partanen 2016;Teixeira et al. 2020). It is essential that this information either enhance the buyers' operational capability or reduce the negative impact of service disruptions. ...
... After releasing a new service or software upgrade, the suppliers are the first to acquire, absorb, and deploy the operational "know-how" related to the upgrade. Since the new services' effective deployment is the core business of suppliers, they concentrate and disseminate knowledge and information about these services, facilitating B2B buyers' process to learn more about them (Teixeira et al. 2020;Plé 2016;Kohtamäki and Partanen 2016). ...
B2B technology-enabled services, such as telecommunications, depend on buyers' internal practices to manage resources within their branch facilities. This paper introduces the concept of B2B buyer operational capability (B2B-BOC) as the bundle of facility-level practices (strategic emphasis, employee training, infrastructure management, and security) that, together with supplier information quality, are necessary for continuous technology-enabled service delivery (service continuity). We use survey data from 300 buyers in Brazil to test our hypothesis. Results show that (i) B2B-BOC completely mediates the effect of supplier information quality on service continuity and that (ii) B2B-BOC varies significantly among facilities of the same buyer.
... Loic P (2016) believes that resources are the core and foundation of value co-creation [7], and Vargo and Lusch (2012) propose that operational resources are the fundamental source of competitive advantage [8]. In the stage of value creation, the technology, knowledge, experience, and other knowledge resources related to brand products owned by customers provide the enterprise with valuable personalized demand information and product optimization knowledge to help enterprises realize the creation of product value [9]. ...
With the development of technology and the improvement of customer awareness, customers and enterprises are becoming more and more proactive in the process of cooperation. Among these developments is the value creation of customers in the brand network. The community changes with the accumulation of resources during the customer journey, and it is particularly important to explore the impact of customer resource accumulation and regulatory focus of enterprises for customers on customer value. Previous research mainly focused on the role of customer resources in the stages of value creation and value realization, ignoring the impact of customer participation on customer resources accumulation and customer value during the customer journey and the moderating effect of customer regulatory focus between them. This paper investigates this from the perspective of resource theory. Based on the investigation in 451 active customers in the Chinese famous brand network community, it uses the SEM method to test the relationships among customer participation, customer resources and customer value, and the moderating role of regulatory focus during the customer journey. The empirical results show that both customer relationship resources and human resources positively affect customer lifetime value and customer engagement value and play a mediating role between customer participation and customer value during the customer journey. Furthermore, the customer promotion focus positively moderates the relationships between customer participation and customer resources, while the prevention focus only positively moderates the relationship between customer participation and customer human resources. The research results provide a theoretical basis for brand network communities to sustainably cultivate and guide customers to contribute a higher value.
... Value co-destruction (VCD) is conceptualized as the decrease in value that occurs when the customer uses the product, and also when value is realized collaboratively during the interaction between customer and seller (Echeverri & Skålén, 2011). Starting from the premise that interactions can result in value co-creation, they considered it logical for the existence of value co-destruction (VCD) through the same interaction processes and the misuse of services by customers (Plé, 2016;Plé & Cáceres, 2010). ...
Objetivo do estudo Levantamos a seguinte questão: como se destrói valor nos processos de Transformação Digital e como as organizações lidam com isso? Relevância/originalidade A cocriação de valor (VCC) é um conceito no coração da Lógica Dominante de Serviço (SDL). Os pesquisadores afirmam que, assim como o valor é criado, a mesma lógica pode ser usada para explicar a co-destruição de valor (VCD). Metodologia/abordagem Realizamos uma pesquisa bibliométrica que inclui 957 artigos envolvendo VCC, VCD e SDL. Principais resultados Encontramos evidências da necessidade de atualização das premissas do SDL Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas Identificamos também tópicos de tendência envolvendo Transformação Digital e VCD, artigos que propõem novas abordagens e várias sugestões para pesquisas futuras. Contribuições sociais/para a gestão A transformação digital requer atenção e planejamento, nossos achados podem ajudar os gestores a refletir sobre os risco e cuidados. Palavras-chave: Cocriação de Valor, Codestruição Study purpose We raise the following question: how value is destructed in Digital Transformation processes and how organizations deal with it To help future researchers in the search for answers to this question, we conducted bibliometric research that includes 957 articles involving VCC, Relevance / originality Value co-creation (VCC) is a concept at the heart of the Service-Dominant Logic (SDL). Researchers claim that just as value is created, the same logic can be used to explain value co-destruction (VCD) Methodology / approach We conducted bibliometric research that includes 957 articles involving VCC, VCD and SDL. Main results We found evidence of the need to update the premises of the SDL Theoretical / methodological contributions We also identified trend topics involving Digital Transformation and VCD, articles that propose new approaches and several suggestions for future research Social / management contributions Digital transformation requires attention and planning, our findings can help managers to reflect on risks and care.
... Therefore, the adverse effects of VCC failure can be extensive. That is why it is necessary to pay attention to both positive and negative aspects of VCC (Plé, 2016(Plé, , 2017 to improve the quality of healthcare services. ...
This study aims to identify the types of value co-destruction (VCD) emerging in healthcare services that cause patients to reduce or extinguish their intentions to continue using the services; it also aims to identify the VCD antecedents. Complaints from 1075 dental clinic patients, which are collected as textual data, are analysed in this study. The authors adopt an exploratory approach comprising a quantitative analysis based mainly on the topic model, a type of machine learning, and a qualitative analysis based on the KJ method. Twelve types of VCD were empirically identified, three of which had a significant negative effect on the intention to continue using the service. Ten antecedents that cause these types of VCD were identified, when examined based on a multi-level perspective, institutional factors and social norms were found to be related to the VCD process. This study contributes to understanding the mechanisms by which failures in healthcare services occur and to developing effective decision making to overcome them.
... Value co-destruction (VCD) is conceptualized as the decrease in value that occurs when the customer uses the product and also when value is realized collaboratively during the interaction between customer and seller [14]. Starting from the premise that interactions can result in value co-creation, they considered it logical for the existence of value co-destruction (VCD) through the same interaction processes and the misuse of services by customers [12,15]. ...
Digital transformation imposes an invisible legacy on managers: the destruction of value. Technology's ability to make services intangible can lead to irreparable losses of value to businesses, resulting in a decline in economic potential and imposing a dictatorship of gratuitousness. To research how this happens and propose solutions, I analyze the trend of value co-destruction (VCD) in banking digital transformation. The ability to understand and predict such changes is important to guide the planning , implementation, and evaluation processes of business decisions, since the application of expert systems in decision support is common. Value creation is a central concept in business literature since companies create value through their operations and the delivery of services and products that meet the desires of their customers. However, the value can also be destroyed, causing the bankruptcy of companies and significant changes in the market. Through a semi-systematic review of the literature, I seek the theoretical guidelines of VCD in the context of online banking services. We found 112 articles related to the theme, and part of the systematic analysis of these articles is arranged in this work. The main objective of this theoretical essay is to evidence research propositions for analysis of VCD in the context of digital banking transformation.
... On the value co-destruction side of the delegator role, we find that, at times, the game application did not integrate the resources required for the fulfillment of the value proposition of social interactions. Instead, the application's non-integration of resources (Plé, 2016) descended the gaming experience toward an individual, "lonely" activity. While emergent studies have suggested that technology may have processes and practices (Akaka & Vargo, 2014) and even agency (Kaartemo et al., 2019), research has tended to treat technology as a resource or an artifact distinct from users (Akaka & Vargo, 2014). ...
Digitalization and emerging technologies have given rise to cybernized services and a debate questioning the traditional Service-dominant logic (SDL) view of technology as a resource in service exchange. To date, little is known about the role of technology as a value co-creating (or co-destroying) actor in the context of services empowered by emerging technologies. Attaining an in-depth understanding of technology as an actor in cybernized service ecosystems is integral for practitioners and researchers alike to foster and investigate value co-creation in the sociotechnical interactions from the perspective of the involved human actors. To address this need, we unmask the technology actor by conducting a qualitative content analysis on in-depth laddering interviews with users of the Augmented Reality (AR) mobile game application Pokémon Go. Employing the Actor-Network Theory (ANT), we depict three emerging technology actor roles in service exchange and discuss their value co-creative/destructive implications to research and practice.
... Existing research defines value co-creation as the benefits realized from resource integration through activities and interactions with a service provider and, possibly, other collaborators in the customer's service network (McColl-Kennedy et al. 2012;Kim 2019). Given the relevance of resource integration for value (co-)creation, studies discuss different types of resources that might also be relevant for value creation in digital service ecosystems in the context of weight loss services such as different psychological, social and provider resources (Plé 2016;Pham et al. 2021a). Following prior research, customer value (co-) creation activities are defined as "cognitive and behavioural performance or active doing of things" (Sweeney et al. 2015, p. 319). ...
... In the tourism industry, value co-destruction is not uncommon. The ultimate destruction of value may be caused by a company (e.g., Smith, 2013), such as the exposure of cleaning issues in many five-star hotels in 2017; caused by employees (e.g., Plé, 2016), such as the incident of scamming money from customers in Xuexiang, Heilongjiang, China in 2018; or by tourists (e.g., Dolan et al., 2019;Yeh, Fotiadis, Chiang, Ho, & Huan, 2020), such as randomly throwing garbage and destroying scenic buildings during tours. Regardless of where responsibility lies, co-destruction is a stumbling block to the healthy and rapid development of the tourism industry. ...
In the tourism industry, the phenomenon of value co-destruction is not uncommon, and it has become a stumbling block to the healthy and rapid development of the tourism industry. Based on the conservation of resources theory, this research explores the mechanism of the impact of organizational inducement on value co-destruction behavior in the workplace. Through a questionnaire survey of 624 frontline employees of tourism companies, this study finds that organizational inducement not only enhances the service rule commitment of employees but also helps reduce value co-destruction behavior in the workplace, service rule commitment mediates the buffering effect of organizational inducement on value co-destruction behavior in the workplace, and relational energy negatively moderates the impact of organizational inducement on service rule commitment. The findings of the study provide enlightenment on the most efficient measures an enterprise takes under the condition of limited resources.
... The value of tourists' participation in the co-creation process can be realized in two ways (Plé , 2016;Smith, 2013): value co-creation (Lei et al., 2021) and value co-destruction (VCD) (Guan et al., 2020;Lund et al., 2020). Value co-creation is a collaboration and a resource integration between businesses and their customers that is advantageous for both cocreation parties (Lusch and Vargo, 2006). ...
Purpose-The purpose of the study is to examine the effect of value co-destruction on customer citizenship and negative electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) behaviors. In addition, the study aims to determine the mediating role of tourist citizenship between value co-destruction and negative e-WOM behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach-By using a convenience sampling method, data were collected from 704 customers, who purchased their touristic products through co-creation. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were applied to the data obtained to determine the factors that make up the dimensions in the research model. The partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to evaluate the relationship in the research model proposed in the study.
Findings-The results of the study indicated that value co-destruction had an effect on customer citizenship behavior and negative e-WOM. While the helping behavior of customer citizenship had an effect on negative e-WOM, the advocacy behavior of customer citizenship had no effect on negative e-WOM. However, this study found only an indirect mediation effect of helping behavior in the relationship between value co-destruction and negative e-WOM.
Research limitations/implications-The research examined the antecedent behaviors that cause value co-destruction and the effects of these behaviors on the outcomes of the holiday experience. This information then was combined in a model and evaluated in a holistic framework. Theoretically, the research helps us understand the impact of value co-destruction behavior on citizenship behavior and on tourists' negative e-WOM tendency. The research examines value co-destruction behavior and its effect on holiday-experience outcomes simultaneously.
Practical implications-The research provides a framework that tourism enterprises can use to produce and offer value-attributing services for their customers and to manage dysfunctional and disruptive business processes and behaviors to reduce value co-destruction. The research also provides a new way for practitioners in the tourism sector to understand and generalize the behavioral changes of tourists caused by value co-destruction during and after their experience.
Originality/value-The paper contributes to an understanding of value co-destruction antecedents and outputs from the customer perspective. Further, the research provides information to tourism businesses to effectively and efficiently manage the value co-creation process and prevent value co-destruction. The findings of the study will provide useful suggestions that will contribute to researchers and sectoral representatives.
价值共毁和负面的电子口碑行为：游客公民身份的中介作用
摘要
研究目的: 本论文研究价值共毁对于顾客公民行为和负面网络口碑行为的影响。此外, 本论文还将指明游 客公民行为在价值共毁与负面网络口碑行为的中介作用。研究方法:本论文采用便利抽样法,研究样本为704名顾客,他们曾通过价值共创过程来购买旅游产品。本
论文使用了探索性数据分析和验证性数据分析法, 以分析研究模型中的各种变量和维度。通过偏最小平 方-方程结构模型(PLS-SEM)数据分析,本论文验证了研究模型中的各种假设变量关系。
研究结果: 本论文研究结果表明, 价值共毁对顾客公民行为和负面网络口碑行为有显着影响。顾客公民行 为中的帮助行为对负面网络口碑行为有显着影响, 然而, 顾客公民行为中的拥护行为并未对负面口碑传播 行为有显着影响。
此外,本论文发现了一条中介因子的间接效应：帮助行为对于价值共毁和负面网络口碑
行为之间的中介效应。 研究原创性: 本论文从顾客角度, 解释了价值共毁的前因后果。此外, 本论文研究结果建议旅游业如何有 效率和效能地管理价值共创过程,防止价值共毁情况出现。本论文研究结果还为其他研究学者和行业代表 提供了有用的建议。 研究理论启示: 本论文研究了价值共创的影响因素, 以及其对于度假体验的影响。本论文创立了一个整体
研究模型,概括了价值共创的前因后果,并且提供了模型实证结果。理论上,本论文帮助认知了价值共毁行 为对于公民行为和游客负面网络口碑意愿的影响。本论文研究了价值共毁行为,以及同时其对于度假体验 的影响。 研究管理启示: 本论文中的模型可作为商业模型,供旅游企业使用, 以向其顾客提供高价值服务, 同时能够 管理失效和破坏性的商业服务流程和行为, 以减少价值共毁。本论文还为旅游行业人士提供了一条新思 路,以了解和总结在旅游度假中和度假后的价值共毁所造成的游客行为的种种改变。 研究限制与未来研究: 本论文有几项限制以供未来研究考虑。本论文的样本为曾通过价值共创以购买旅 游体验的顾客。因此,本论文结果可能无法适用于其他类型的游客。本论文还只从需求方面来研究价值共 毁。此外,本论文提供了一些初级验证结果,解释了旅游业中的价值共毁行为的前因后果,未来研究应该拓
展这个研究,加入其他因素,管理价值共毁和价值共毁的后果,避免企业受到价值共毁的影响。
关键词：共创、共毁、服务主导逻辑、社交媒体、旅游 文章类型：研究型论文
... Currently, the mainstream literature in the field is dominated by customer-centric perspectives, in which services are looked upon almost exclusively from the perspective of the customer (Fellesson & Salomonson, 2016). Few exceptions (e.g., Plé, 2016;Baumann & Meunier-FitzHugh, 2015) investigate how service employees integrate customers' resources in co-creation processes, and explore the process of value co-creation in engendering transactional and relational interaction. Previous research also covers their mutual relationship, for example, the way employees' behaviour influences customers' behaviour (Chan et al., 2017), and how customer behaviour influences employees' performance (Yi et al., 2011). ...
The purpose of this essay is to study different pathways to high customer episode/relationship values using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) based on 93 cases of customers who visited independent coffee shops in South China. The results demonstrate that a high level of episode/relationship value can be produced through multiple configurations of a customer’s personal characteristics, value co-creation behaviours, and employee citizenship behaviours toward the customer. The key conclusions indicate that, to achieve a high episode value, employee citizenship behaviours toward customers (OCB-C) are key factors, and customers’ citizenship behaviours (CCB) and/or OCB-C are essential to producing high relationship values. In addition, high agreeableness, high openness, and low conscientiousness play important roles in achieving a high level of episode/relationship value. This study contributes to the advancement of the value co-creation theory by providing configurational insights.
... A firm's ability to gather resources is a crucial determinant of its value co-creation (Plé, 2016), as suggested in the seminal work by Vargo and Lusch (2008, p.3), who note that "organizations exist to integrate and transform micro-specialized competencies into complex services that are demanded in the marketplace". Therefore, resource facilitators are associated with integrators in the value creation process (Vargo & Lusch, 2008). ...
Co-creating tourist experiences helps create value for the tourists resulting from their interactions with tourism service providers and the physical environment. However, the practices and procedures that drive the co-creation of innovative tourist experiences are still not clear. We address this research gap by combining the resource-based view (RBV) and service-dominant (S-D) logic to develop specific hypotheses about the mediating role of value co-creation in the process by which internal and external resource orientations impact radical and incremental innovations, which in turn influence tourist experience and outcomes (brand advocacy and revisit intentions). We find support for most of our hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to analyze data from matching samples of 191 tourists and managers in tourism provider firms in India. Specifically, external (but not internal) resource orientation positively affects both incremental and radical innovations, which in turn positively impact tourist experience, brand advocacy and revisit intentions. Finally, value co-creation fully mediates the positive effect of internal (but not external) resource orientation on both incremental and radical innovations. These findings would help tourism providers design co-creative and innovative tourism strategies to manage and improve tourist experiences as well as their brand advocacy and revisit intentions.
... This is reflected in recent studies that talk about AI and value codestruction (Čaić et al., 2018;Canhoto & Clear, 2020;Castillo, Canhoto, & Said, 2020;Neuhofer, 2016;Smith, 2013). Plé (2016) itself has elaborated on the reasons for value codestruction in a service setting, who is the pioneer of value codestruction (Plé & Chumpitaz Cáceres, 2010). Laud et al. (2019) explain the process of resource misintegration to elucidate the codestruction process in services. ...
Ultraviolet (UV) sterilization technology is widely used to reduce microorganisms that may remain on the surfaces after a standard cleaning to the minimum number. In this chapter we have proposed a robot named for disinfection, which consists of the UV light and hence the robot is a disinfection robot. It can be deployed at a variety of locations, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our UV bot has six 15 W of UV lamps mounted on top of the UV bot platform covering 360 degrees. Our UV bot employs an embedded system based on a Raspberry Pi to aid in navigation and obstacle avoidance.
... This is reflected in recent studies that talk about AI and value codestruction (Čaić et al., 2018;Canhoto & Clear, 2020;Castillo, Canhoto, & Said, 2020;Neuhofer, 2016;Smith, 2013). Plé (2016) itself has elaborated on the reasons for value codestruction in a service setting, who is the pioneer of value codestruction (Plé & Chumpitaz Cáceres, 2010). Laud et al. (2019) explain the process of resource misintegration to elucidate the codestruction process in services. ...
Several uncertainties have emerged during the pandemic COVID-19, which has led to unprecedented turbulence in healthcare services worldwide. One of the most practical responses to this situation is to create technology-enabled mechanisms of value co-creation by which the service provider (i.e., doctors, hospitals, testing labs, etc.) and the consumer (i.e., patients), along with other actors of the healthcare ecosystem collectively co-create actual well-being. This work critically elaborates upon the role of ' Artificial Intelligence (AI)' in combating the uncertainties and challenges posed by COVID-19 in healthcare value co-creation. We explore the interdisciplinary domains of knowledge from the literature of services marketing, healthcare & technology and discuss the advantages of AI-empowered interactions in facilitating healthcare value co-creation during the pandemic. Additionally, we also highlight the spill-over (primarily negative) effects of AI on healthcare value co-creation, especially on the patients in developing economies.
Contents (Inside chapter)
1. Introduction
2. Service -Dominant Logic in Marketing
3. Service Interactions and Co-created Wellbeing
3. Uncertainty due to Pandemic
4. Uncertainty in Healthcare
4.1 Impact on pandemic led uncertainty on a patient’s mind
4.2 Impact on pandemic led uncertainty on service interactions
5. The Emerging Role of AI
6. AI combating Uncertainty and Supporting Value Co-creation in Healthcare
7. The Spill-over effect of AI
8. Conclusion and Future Work
9. References
... According to S-D logic, resource integration is a crucial factor in cocreation (Shulga and Busser, 2020). The integration of resources by multiple actors, such as employees and customers, can drive successful value cocreation (Akaka and Chandler, 2011;Lusch et al., 2010;Plé, 2016). In addition, smart tourism, as a subtype of tourism, is related to resource integration and tourism marketing (Wang et al., 2013). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to present a holistic review of journal articles on value cocreation in the tourism and hospitality field. By distinguishing similarities and differences in the contexts of China and other regions, the authors identify targeted research directions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study collected 438 English articles and 31 Chinese articles on value cocreation in tourism and hospitality published in the Web of Science, Scopus and China National Knowledge Infrastructure online databases. After analyzing the study location of all articles in the sample, the authors identified 79 English-language articles that adopted China as the context of the study. The first data set included non-China-focused publications and the second data set included China-focused publications. A comparative bibliometric methodology was conducted.
Findings
The results indicate similarities and differences between the two data sets in terms of research methods, topics and future research directions. Seven major concepts were identified in the first data set: hospitality value cocreation; the value generation process; key stakeholders; outcome variables; the application of service-dominant logic; peer-to-peer accommodation and destination management. Four research focuses were identified in the second data set: the application of customer-dominant logic; the value generation process; resource integration and the cocreation experience.
Research limitations/implications
This research contributes to the understanding of tourism and hospitality cocreation systems through literature analysis and encourages future research on the nexus of the Chinese and global contexts. This systematic investigation extends the concept of value cocreation by integrating its implementation process and value categories and further evaluates the consequences and benefits of value cocreation, which helps clarify how winners and losers can adjust their strategies accordingly.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in the adopted comparative bibliometric analysis which comprehensively reviewed and compared the characteristics of value cocreation research across two contexts. In addition, the study dialectically assesses Chinese tourism cocreation phenomena and their impacts from a global perspective.
... Further, the direct contact between FLEs and customers results in real-time information exchange, making it possible to gain important insights and adapt the service and its manner of delivery (Gwinner et al., 2005). Therefore, these adaptive behaviors are deemed important to meet customers' needs during interactive service encounters (Wilder et al., 2014), which is critical for value co-creation (Pl e, 2016). ...
Purpose – This study aims to address two relatively unexplored issues in banking service literature. The first relates to the impact of co-creation behaviors of frontline employees (FLEs) on their well-being. The second is the impact of FLEs’ adaptability on their performance of co-creation behaviors and their well-being in the workplace.
Design/methodology/approach – A structural model was built and tested using survey data collected from 366 FLEs offering financial consulting services to customers at banks.
Findings – FLE co-creation behaviors have positive impacts on FLEs’ well-being, including well-being in the workplace (job satisfaction) and general well-being (quality of life). Moreover, FLEs with a high level of interpersonal and service-offering adaptability perform co-creation behaviors better than those with lower adaptability and have higher job satisfaction. Between service-offering adaptability and interpersonal adaptability, the former has stronger effects than the latter.
Practical implications – The findings suggest that banks develop and enhance FLEs’ adaptability and cocreation behaviors to enhance their well-being and customer value.
Originality/value – Prior research on FLEs’ co-creation mainly focuses on customer-related transformative outcomes, leaving their own well-being less examined. This study fills this gap by providing evidence to suggest that although active co-creation behaviors require FLEs to have more skills and put in more effort, they do bring about transformative impacts in terms of better job satisfaction and quality of life. Additionally, a high level of adaptability helps FLEs to comfortably perform their co-creation behavior, thereby reducing stress and
improving well-being.
... Just as consumers could be motivated to act positively, they could be motivated to act negatively. Likewise, resources are bipolar and only acquire the status of resources in the function of the context of their use (Plé, 2016). Resources can be utilized adversely, resulting in the co-destruction of value (Smith, 2013;Williams et al., 2016). ...
Service systems create value when actors exhibit behaviours expected to facilitate resource integration and could destroy value when actors do not exhibit the expected set of behaviours. This study seeks to determine which groups of values and individual traits facilitate consumer co-creation and co-destruction behaviours. A data set of 390 online survey responses from consumers in the United States was analysed using multiple regression. The analysis suggests that values which express self-enhancement and openness-to-change are most likely to facilitate co-destruction behaviour, while values which express self-transcendence and conservation are most likely to facilitate co-creation behaviour. With regards to traits, we find that neurotic traits are most likely to facilitate co-destruction behaviour and least likely to facilitate co-creation behaviours. Conscientious and agreeable traits are least likely to facilitate co-destruction behaviours, while extraversion and openness traits are most likely to facilitate co-creation behaviours. This study contributes to the literature by providing a better understanding of the consumer values and traits which facilitate co-destruction and co-creation behaviour. This study also shows that the basic human values circumplex structure can be divided to reflect co-destruction and co-creation values. The polar opposites of the big five personality traits can be classified based on their tendencies to co-destroy or co-create value.
... Whilst research acknowledges that value formation is located in the interactions between multiple linked actors sharing common goals (Plé, 2016;Plé and C aceres, 2010;Smith, 2013;Tsiotsou, 2016;Vargo and Lusch, 2016), it also draws on the notion of resource integration, i.e. using knowledge and skills when operating on given resources (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). Resources can include having access to materials, esteem, time, sociality, motivation, the energization of behaviour, the power balance, goals, groupthink, trust, coordination, etc. (Prior et al., 2016;Smith, 2013). ...
Purpose
Contemporary service and marketing research on value co-creation and value co-destruction assume a one-dimensional view on value, ranging from positive value co-creation, alignment and high value to negative value co-destruction, misalignment and low value. This limitation has recently led researchers to conceptually develop more dynamic spatial-temporal models of how value is formed during the interaction, e.g. in terms of different relationships between practice elements (procedures, understandings and engagements) both within and between actors in “value formation spaces”. However, much of this research awaits validation and is in need of more details. This study aims to address this limitation with the purpose of detailing how and why the mechanisms in such spaces are formed.
Design/methodology/approach
Two different and interlinked typologies were analytically derived from previous research and applied on ethnographically-inspired multi-perspective empirical data from a service combining health care and transport service ecosystems, using a combination of interviews, observations and service design methodologies. The design in combination with a practice theory perspective was used to articulate crucial aspects related to understanding the dynamics of value co-formation for elaborative and illustrative purposes.
Findings
The study contributes to service theory by conceptualizing as follows: a typology consisting of nine different configurations of practice elements (within and between such elements) and eight possible directions that value formation can take, suggesting a theory that explains value co-creation, value co-destruction and mixed cases.
Research limitations/implications
Although the findings have been developed in a specific empirical context, they articulate a conceptualization applicable to many other service and marketing value co-formation settings.
Practical implications
The typologies are conceptual tools to be used in identifying and measuring the alignment/misalignment of practice elements in complex organizations. The empirical findings uncover service problems faced by disabled customers.
Originality/value
The suggested typologies can guide research and practitioners in understanding and analysing value co-formation mechanisms in complex service settings.
... While remaining alert to destination resources, this article focuses on tourist operant resources, which have been represented in previous studies by tourist expertise (Barrutia and Gilsanz 2013). Tourist expertise is viewed as the antecedent of certain cocreative processes (France, Merrilees, and Miller 2015;Plé 2016). Value cocreation processes are, in turn, understood as resource integration-a set of processes (taskrelated, social, and mental mechanisms) that transforms available resources into value (Barrutia and Gilsanz 2013). ...
This research proposes an integral model of cocreation processes before, during, and after a trip affecting customer value and anteceded by tourist expertise. Beyond prevailing task-related (coproduction) processes and the more recently contemplated social processes, we consider mental cocreation using the concept of mental time travel (forward and backward). Findings from 428 tourist responses reveal the great potential of these novel cocreation forms, showing that imagining a forthcoming trip and remembering the travel afterwards are important affective value drivers, as is interacting with locals and employees. Overall, these play a more prominent role than task-related processes. Likewise, we found that tourist expertise is a major antecedent of cocreation and precursor of value. Managers could encourage tourist cocreation by applying customer education strategies, stimulating activities with high community contact, and using virtual tools to intensify thoughts and memories of past and future travel experiences. Technology may be key in achieving this.
... The reasons, on the one hand, are that value is an elusive concept (Gr€ onroos, 2012;Woodall, 2003). On the other hand, researchers note the difficulty of studying the phenomenon of value co-creation analytically (Payne et al., 2008;Gr€ onroos, 2012;Pl e, 2016;Echeverri and Salomonson, 2017;Car u and Cova, 2003), due to several unclear and vague conceptualisations of what value co-creation really is (Gr€ onroos and Voima, 2013; Gr€ onroos and Gummerus, 2014; Leroy et al., 2013). ...
Purpose:
Value co-destruction has received little attention in an event-related context. This appears surprising, given that the interactions among actors at an event may also reduce the value for other participants, stakeholders and that of the entire event or the event’s service ecosystem. This paper first aims to conceptualise value co-destruction and to provide an overview of related research in an event context. Second, a future research agenda for value co-destruction processes in an event context is developed.
Design/Methodology/approach:
Journals of the “Scimago Journal & Country Rank” were systematically reviewed for the keywords “value co-destruction”, “value destruction” and “negative value co-creation”. A second literature review specifically aimed at the events context extended the search scope to non-Scimago journals, Google Scholar and Google Web using the same keywords. All identified articles were qualitatively analysed concerning (1) the conceptualisation of value co-destruction; and (2) reasons for value co-destruction.
Findings:
The review of previous research highlights a limited scope of analysis, a focus on value co-destruction as an outcome, and on interactions at the meso-level. Based on these findings, a holistic definition of value co-destruction is proposed. The paper identifies three major directions for future studies on value co-destruction at events and suggests specific examples.
Originality: The paper contributes to a more holistic understanding of value co-creation and co-destruction in an event setting. For example, a clearer understanding of the interactions that reduce the overall value of an event may assist to better design valuable events in the future.
Keywords:
Value Co-Creation, Value Co-Destruction, Service Dominant Logic, Value Formation, Negative Value Co-Creation, Event Management
Paper-type: Conceptual
Value co-destruction has received widespread attention from the tourism academic community. This article uses the employees and customers of tourism service providers as the main research objects and employs interviews and questionnaires to develop an employee-customer perspective measurement scale of value co-destruction behavior in tourism. The reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation model testing results show that the measurement scale of value co-destruction behavior in tourism consists of 5 dimensions (bad interpersonal communication behavior, bad information interaction behavior, irresponsible customer behavior, employee contract violation behavior, and irresponsible employee behavior) and a total of 29 items with high reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity, which can be used to evaluate the extent to which a subject abuses his or her own resources or the resources of others in tourism interactions, resulting in tourism value reduction or destruction. Finally, the research results and future research are discussed.
Digital Transformation imposes an invisible legacy on managers: the destruction of value. The ability of technology to disseminate services can lead to irreparable losses of value for companies, resulting in the decline of economic potential and imposing a dictatorship of gratuitousness. To research how this happens and propose solutions, I analyze the trend of value co-destruction (VCD) in the Digital Bank Transformation. The ability to understand and predict such changes is important to guide the processes of planning, implementing, and evaluating business decisions. Value creation is a central concept in the business literature, as companies create value through their operations and the delivery of services and products that meet the desires of their customers. However, value can also be destroyed, causing companies to fail and significant changes in the market. Through a semi-systematic literature review, I seek the theoretical guidelines of VCD in the context of online banking. We found 112 articles related to the topic and part of the systematic analysis of these articles is available in this work. The main objective of this theoretical essay is to highlight research propositions for the analysis of VCD in the context of Digital Banking Transformation. For the main delivery, it is necessary to: 1) delimit the concepts related to Digital Transformation and VCD; 2) understand how the VCD process is configured; 3) define the mechanisms related to the VCD; and 4) gather characteristics of the financial services segment in the context of Digital Transformation. Two proposals were proposed for future research.
This paper aims to describe the dynamics of co-creation and co-destruction between different actors in the interactive value formation (IVF), in a service ecosystem, at its meso, macro and mega levels of aggregation, in the ecotourism sector during the Covid-19 pandemic. Four propositions were postulated: use of information, resources integration, feedback, and engagement. Research was divided into two phases: fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis analysis (fsQCA) and interview content analysis, through case studies in Brazilian ecotourism destinations. Resources integration is a crucial pillar for the outcome of IVF during the service encounter phase. For post-service meeting phase, feedback emerges as a protagonist for the IVF result consolidation.
Rule enforcement is a crucial part of the frontline service employee’s role that, if mishandled, can have serious consequences for employees, customers and the organization. However, there is very little knowledge about both its drivers and outcomes in the service literature. This study contributes to the organizational frontlines literature by developing a comprehensive framework of the drivers and consequences of service rule enforcement. Our conceptual model identifies organizational, individual, and situational variables that influence service rule enforcement and sheds light on the employee-related, customer-related, and organization-related consequences of rule enforcement. In conceptualizing service rule enforcement, we address the notions of enforcement/non-enforcement, the extent and consistency of enforcement, and rule enforcement styles. We also propose that rule enforcement can have both positive and negative consequences. Finally, we provide a research agenda that proposes ideas for future studies in this area.
Service robots provide operational benefits to restaurants, but the mechanism through which novel robotic services optimize customer experience given appropriate robots’ dependence on human employees remains unclear. To fill this gap, this study adopts the transmission model of customer inspiration and identifies customer value cocreation processes in robotic services. Combined evidence from two online experiments and a field experiment demonstrates that robotic service novelty has a positive effect on customer cocreation intention via customer inspiration. Robotic task interdependence, which reflects the extent to which a robot relies on human employees to complete its tasks, attenuates the relationship between robotic service novelty and customer cocreation intention through decreased customer inspiration. These findings offer insights into marketing strategies for robotic services that provide enhanced customer experiences.
Drawing from service-dominant logic and conservation of resources theory, the aim of this study was to examine the integration of relational energy as a complementary operant resource. US respondents (n = 720) participated in a scenario-based online survey depicting value co-creation at a destination resort as customers (N = 360) and front-line employees (N = 360). PROCESS Model and MANOVA results showed that in value co-creation, relational energy had direct and mediated effects on actors’ subjective wellbeing and perceptions of company competitive service advantage (PSCA). Positive appraisal of co-created value served a mediating role for actors’ wellbeing and PSCA. Generations served as a full moderator from relational energy to wellbeing, and partial moderator from co-created value (CCV) to wellbeing. No moderation effect of generations was found between CCV and PCSA, but partial moderation from relational energy to PSCA. This study is the first to identify relational energy as a resource necessary for successful co-creation that improves actors’ wellbeing.
The co-creation concept is a growing marketing strategy adopted in service industries, however within the higher education industry, the development of the co-creation model is considerably slow going. Drawing upon the Theory of Service-Dominant Logic and input-process-output-outcome (IPOO), this study aims to develop and test a customer value co-creation model for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from the customers’ perspective during face-to-face online learning. The customer value co-creation model focuses on the interrelationship between customer resources, interaction, co-creation experience, and customer satisfaction. A total of 515 students from various HEIs conducting online classes were validated for analysis. The tested model explains that the operant resources as the resources, interaction as the process, co-creation experience as the output, and customer satisfaction as the outcome. The model assists HEIs in understanding how co-creation activities lead to customer satisfaction and suggests more refined marketing strategies.
Given the growing interest in value destruction and co-destruction research, this study explores media agency-client relationships, identifying their industry-specific value-damaging behaviours and business conditions. It adapts the concept of service logic value spheres to differentiate between provider and client value destruction as well as joint co-destruction spheres. Through 25 interviews with media agencies, advertisers, and media consultants, the study analyses whether one actor (provider or client) or both (joint) are responsible for value destruction. It determines value destruction/co-destruction activities occur in several contextually embedded business environments (media advertising markets). Additionally, organisational structures (marketing departments), management decisions (leadership), and relationship stages (pitch situations) are framed by actors’ industry-specific service activities (campaign planning). The authors highlight management implications and suggest strategies to improve media agency provider-client relationships.
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 concept of the customer journey may prove insufficient to theorize the formation of those experiences. Adopting an agency-structure perspective, the article explores how crisis disrupts and alters structuration modalities, including space-time perception, access to resources, and institutional arrangements. To conceptualize how these contextual changes affect customer experience, we contend that it is necessary to understand the complex set of interactions among multiple actors and the structures and modalities that together shape the customer experience. Drawing on structuration theories to elucidate how disruptive contexts and crisis modalities affect the customer experience, the proposed conceptual framework identifies crisis modalities (discontinuities, accessibility, and fragmentability) that explain customer experiences in disruptive contexts as meaningful patterns of interaction informed by structure and agency. These findings can help firms to understand and manage customer experiences in disruptive contexts. In conclusion, we discuss how future research might contextualize and test the proposed framework.
Purpose
Co-production is an important process that alters value creation and improves the relationships between service providers and their customers. Such practice allows customers and service employees to access and leverage resources residing in their relationships. Clearly, the marketing-related literature focuses on the bright side of co-production. Nevertheless, the costs and potential negative consequences associated with its dark side must be further investigated. Therefore, this study aims to present a conceptual framework that explores the relationships among co-production, co-production enjoyment, co-production intensity, service effort, and job stress, and their effects on value co-creation, value co-destruction and customer satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
This study was conducted on the basis of dyadic data; the process incorporates both the customer and the corresponding service employee into a single unit of analysis. The proposed model was tested by using a structural equation model that involves LISREL analyses.
Findings
The results of this study indicate that co-production influences co-production enjoyment, co-production intensity, service effort, and job stress. Co-production enjoyment and service effort increase value co-creation, whereas co-production intensity and job stress increase value co-destruction. Value co-creation and value co-destruction have different effects on customer satisfaction.
Originality/value
This study addresses the gap in the extant research and contributes to a better understanding of the double-sided effects of co-production by integrating employees and customers into a single dyadic and comprehensive model.
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 concepts of signaling and screening theory, this paper adopts a service marketing perspective to explore how independent heterogeneous actors coordinate for value creation at the individual level. Illustrative cases of corporate startup collaborations are presented in support of the proposed conceptual framework.
Findings
Actors share and acquire information through signaling and screening activities in a coordinative dialogue with other actors. These resource integration activities (for resource creation and matching) affect actors’ valuations and future actions.
Originality/value
The one-sided explanations of coordination in the existing literature reflect the dominance of the institutional theory. By contrast, the proposed agency-oriented perspective based on the integration of signaling and screening functions offers a more granular conceptualization of the resource integration process. As well as capturing how actors use coordinating dialogue to match resources and institutions, this account also shows that matching is a core element of resource integration rather than an antecedent. The findings indicate paths for future research that focus on the actor.
CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT IN SERVICES FROM THE SERVICE-DOMINANT LOGIC POINT OF VIEW
The concept of Consumer Engagement has been a subject of theoretical and empirical research in the field of marketing since the early 2000s, when Keller’s book was published, in which the topic of engagement in the context of marketing was discussed. This resulted from customers using new communication technologies, such as the Internet and smartphones. Basing on the observation of this global trend consisting in customers actively participating in engaging platforms, and in particular the social media, companies decided to include customer engagement in their marketing activities. The main goal of doing so was to create, build and strengthen relationships with customers, which is based on relationship marketing theory (Gummesson, 1994; Grönroos, 1996) from which the concept of consumer engagement is derived.
Simultaneously, a new concept – services dominant logic (S-D logic) – appeared, considering the market from the services point of view. The authors of this concept
(Vargo and Lusch, 2004) made an assumption that the fundamental base for the market from the marketing point of view is no longer the sale of physical products but omnipresent services. It gave a basis to develop a new market concept in marketing
providing the context for the considerations on consumer engagement, on services
which are the basis for the creation of gross value added (GVA) in developed countries (Luxembourg – 87.5%) and developing countries, such as Poland. In the case of
the Polish market, the share of services in creating the GVA was 63.5% in 2018 (GUS,
2019, p. 99).
Based on the developed conceptual model, which integrates the theories of customer engagement (CE) and the service dominant logic (S-D logic), a quantitative study was carried out on service consumers. The results of the study made it possible to verify the theoretical assumptions and confirm the correctness of the assumed relationships between the model variables. Using the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), the factor structure of the tested theoretical concept was confirmed. On the other hand, the analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmed the direct positive impact of antecedents related to the service dominant logic on consumer engagement and a direct positive relationship between CE and the S-D logic consequences. In addition, by indirect hypotheses testing, the mediating effect of consumer engagement between the integration of resources and consumer learning and three consequences related to the service dominant logic, which were included in the structural model (as the development of consumer operant resources - individual and interpersonal and the co-creation of value) was confirmed, thus showing a positive an indirect effect between the analysed constructs.
The obtained results of the research and conducted analyses contribute to the theory of management and marketing in the concepts of: customer engagement, service dominant logic and their integrated framework and, as a result, to science in the discipline of management and quality sciences. The practical aspect of the obtained results informs marketers and managers about the methods and directions of activities in the field of customer/consumer engagement.
Forschung findet zunehmend innerhalb von interdisziplinären Forschungskooperationen statt. Diese kollaborative und projektgebundene Organisation der Forschungstätigkeiten stellt neue Anforderungen an den Arbeitsalltag von Forschenden - unter anderem durch erhöhte Akquise-, Integrations- oder Abstimmungsaufwände. Dadurch steigt seitens der Forschenden der Bedarf an Unterstützung, welche insbesondere durch die dezentralen und projektinternen Management- und Koordinationsstrukturen geleistet werden kann. Wie die Unterstützungsangebote solcher Strukturen auszugestalten sind, wird bislang vornehmlich aus einer übergeordneten organisationsbezogenen Perspektive untersucht und somit die individuellen Präferenzen und Bedürfnisse der Forschenden außer Acht gelassen. Durch die Einnahme eines Dienstleistungsverständnisses werden bei der Gestaltung solcher Angebote die Forschenden in den Fokus gesetzt. Dafür bietet die service-dominierte Logik und deren Wertkonstrukt des Value-in-Use eine theoretische Grundlage. Unter dem Begriff forschungsnahe Dienstleistungen untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit den Wert, welcher sich aus den Angeboten für die einzelnen Forschenden ergibt. Hierfür wird ein Konzeptionierungsmodell für den Value-in-Use von Forschenden anhand des aktuellen Forschungsstands aus dem Dienstleistungsbereich und dem Bereich der Arbeitspsychologie aufgestellt. Da der Value-in-Use eine subjektive Wertwahrnehmung beschreibt, dient eine anschließende empirische Analyse der inhaltlichen Spezifikation des theoretischen Modells für den konkreten Anwendungsfall. Hierzu werden Einzelinterviews geführt und die so gewonnen Daten mithilfe einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet. Anhand von 14 Erfahrungen mit forschungsnahen Dienstleistungen können somit zwölf Zieldimensionen und sechs aktivierte Arbeitsressourcen ermittelt werden. Die Ergebnisse der Zieldimensionen bauen ein tiefgreifendes Verständnis dafür auf, auf welchen Ebenen Wert für die Forschenden geschaffen werden kann. Außerdem bieten die aktivierten Arbeitsressourcen, welche zum Erreichen der Zieldimensionen benötigt werden, Einblicke in die Wertentstehung entlang des Nutzungsprozesses von forschungsnahen Dienstleistungen.
This research addresses the issue of phygital customer journey management by proposing a conceptual framework. The framework allows for the development of an artifact in the form of a six-step method accompanied by an experiential blueprint. To do so, a methodology taken from design science is applied. The research highlights new customer journey management capabilities and contributes to the theory of marketing capabilities, viewing the alignment of company and customer resources as a central issue in experience management. As one of the first to use the design science research methodology (DRSM) in the field of marketing, this research also contributes to the renewal of the methodologies used by both practitioners and researchers.
This study aims to conceptualise the risks of a co-creation relationship between providers and customers in the front end of innovation (FEI). The existing literature on the topic of the interactions between customers and providers is vast but mostly reflects the vision of each respective field of science addressing specific issues and dynamics. This review paper combines integrative and generative approaches (Post et al., 2020). The narrative overview methodology (Green et al., 2006) fits the purpose to integrate the contributions of scholars from different areas and with distinct perspectives. The authors present a comprehensive view of the complex and, sometimes, conflictual customer–provider relationship in a business-to-business (B2B) context applied to the FEI. The review, mostly focused in the service industry, included the identification of inconsistencies and poorly explained phenomena. This work contributes decisively to the innovation, management and organisation literature, advancing a model of the projected risks of the specific customer–provider relationship in the FEI phase.
Servitization has been a global trend in the manufacturing industry. Facing the increasingly networked business environment, implementing servitization in business ecosystem (SIBE) has significant implications for academics and practices. Considering the fragmented SIBE research, this paper aims to reveal a holistic landscape of this domain by a systematic literature review. After collecting 84 related articles in Scopus, descriptive and thematic analyses were applied to answer the predefined review questions. The paper illustrated the overall state of SIBE research, an emerging domain with an increasingly growing trend. Five major themes were identified as the critical pillars of SIBE research: the antecedents, organisational structure, key strategies, resources and capability, and possible outcomes for SIBE. A research agenda for SIBE was provided by discussing the underlying research opportunities. This study is one of the pioneering efforts to review the interface between servitization and business ecosystem, serving as the initial foundation for SIBE. Both theoretical and managerial implications are drawn for servitization research and practice.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors influencing content generation and community initiative in PESCs. Taking advantage of an emerging PESC – Xiaohongshu APP, the study identifies three antecedent resources, including customer-owned knowledge, harmonious passion to shopping and perceived information usefulness, that affect content generating and further community initiative.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the service-dominant (S-D) logic model and resource integration related work, the authors proposed a conceptual framework empirically tested using data of a survey and the real content-generating behavior from 347 respondents.
Findings
This paper identifies three resource antecedents of content generating behavior with significant influence. Furthermore, there is a moderating effect of perceived information usefulness among these three resources, which echoes the concept of resource integration. Content generating has a significant and positive influence on community initiative.
Originality/value
First, the paper identified customer and platform resources promoting the prosperity of PESCs, enhancing the research on antecedents of community prosperity. Second, the paper empirically quantifies the process and outcome of resource integration conceptual model. Third, it enriches the understanding of C2C interaction by investigating the value creation process on PESCs. Moreover, findings in the study provide insights for community managers to improve the operation of PESCs.
Purpose of the study: The present study aimed to determine the impact of employee engagement on customers’ loyalty through customers’ engagement. Moreover, this study also aimed to examine the moderating role of customers’ trust and the mediating role of customers’ engagement on the relationship between employees’ engagement and customers’ loyalty. Methodology: The data were collected from 220 insurance service users through a non-probability sampling technique. Data reliability and validity were confirmed through Cronbach’s alpha and confirmatory factor analysis and hypotheses were tested through Andrew F. Hayes model 7. Main Findings: Results show a significant direct effect of employee engagement on customers’ loyalty. Moreover, the findings confirmed the significant role of customers’ engagement as a mediator between employee engagement and customers’ loyalty. Results also confirmed customers’ trust moderating effect between employee engagement and customers’ engagement. Furthermore, the result confirmed the mediation of trust-based-customers engagement between the link of employee engagement and customers’ loyalty. Applications of this study: This study would have some positive repercussions for utilitarian services such as insurance services providers. For instance, this study's findings revealed the process through which companies can make customers more loyal. Insurance companies through their employees' engagement and customer engagement can make a dyade that can better explain customers’ loyalty. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study explored the underlying mechanism that links employee engagement to customers’ loyalty. Moreover, this study introduces a new term “trust-based engagement” as an important attribute in enhancing customers’ loyalty in general and particularly for insurance companies.
The purpose of this article is to present the principles, application methods, contributions, and limitations of the design science research methodology (DSRM), a research strategy based on design science research (DSR). After presenting the principles of DSRM, we show how to use this method by applying it to the problem of customer journey management. We make practical recommendations for applying the method, and discuss its contributions and limitations. By presenting a method that meets the requirements of both rigor and relevance, this article contributes to the renewal of research methods used in our discipline.
Considering the call for understanding the broader social and cultural context of value co-creation within emerging multilevel co-creative service systems, this research aims to explore the social and cultural processes along with psychological processes in terms of their influence on resource integration. It primarily adopts the customer perspective of resource integration. First, an integrative structure is developed and then the identified antecedents are positioned under relevant category proposing the multi-perspective VCC antecedent' framework. Further, the extant knowledge about VCC antecedents is used to set the agenda for future research. The study is based on an in-depth review of 85 key articles carefully extracted from a broad set of 1100 papers on VCC within the Scopus database. This review work provides a clear state of the art of VCC antecedents and has a direct implication for managers involved in designing the co-creation strategies for their customers.
Purpose
This paper aims to draw on the sociocultural dimensions of food luxury consumption as a new theoretical foundation to explore the consumers’ perceptions of ethical food production and consumption practices within luxury gastronomic restaurants.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a contextualized, qualitative exploration of French luxury dining settings among 35 consumers with different profiles, food cultural backgrounds and gastronomic knowledge. Drawing on Thompson’s analysis framework, the authors captured the narratives beyond the stories told by participants that describe their perceptions and the meanings they assign to ethical food practices in Michelin-starred restaurants.
Findings
The results illustrate how consumers with different profiles perceive ethical food practices within luxury restaurants. The authors identified three segments: novice, advanced and confirmed according to participants’ acquaintance with luxury gastronomy codes and values. These three profiles served as a framework to examine consumers’ perceptions of ethical food forms – environmental sustainability, food well-being and cultural heritage – within the luxury dining setting.
Research limitations/implications
The study revealed no one dominant form of ethical food practices as emphasized in prior studies. Rather, there are multiple forms, including functional, hedonic and symbolic values, related to the degree of familiarity and knowledge of consumers in terms of their luxury gastronomic experiences. The findings show that the perception of ethical food practices within luxury restaurants can encompass additional dimensions such as food well-being and cultural preservation and transmission. This information can enrich the restaurant sustainability literature that principally focuses on health, community and the ecological aspects of food ethics in restaurants. Although this study suggests numerous new insights, there are limitations related to focusing on the French food culture. However, these limitations can help us develop other opportunities for future research.
Practical implications
The findings of this study provide luxury professionals and marketers with key insights into effective strategies to integrate sustainable practices while enhancing the luxury experience. The findings show that to encourage luxury businesses and restaurants to promote sustainable practices, it is necessary to enhance the functional, social, emotional and cultural dimensions of the perceived benefits of offering sustainable luxury experiences and reducing the constraints related to sustainability.
Social implications
With its focus on the luxury dining settings underpinning the ethical food practices from the perspective of consumers, this research offers novel insights for researchers and luxury professionals interested in ethical and sustainable business practices.
Originality/value
This research suggests a new way to study sustainability and ethical food production and consumption practices in luxury dining settings – namely, as multiple, culturally embedded perceptions related to three main profiles of luxury gastronomy consumers: novice, advanced and confirmed.
This study investigates the chain effect of customer value co-creation behaviour on the customerization capability and service capability of service firms and, ultimately, customer perceived value. The study evaluates the moderating roles of the level of technologization and relationship marketing orientation in the relationship between customer value co-creation behaviour and the capabilities of firms. The data were collected from dyadic interaction between customers and the service staff of service firms in Vietnam through surveys. The results show that customer citizenship behaviour and participation behaviour are differentially linked to the customerization capability, and service capability of service firms, which in turn affect customer perceived values. Relationship marketing orientation serves as a significant moderator for customerization capability, yet it is not a significant moderator for service capability. Surprisingly, the level of technologization does not significantly moderate for both customerization capability and service capability. The study advances the literature of value co-creation and offers useful managerial implications.
In 2004, Robert F. Lusch and Stephen L. Vargo published their groundbreaking article on the evolution of marketing theory and practice toward "service-dominant (S-D) logic", describing the shift from a product-centred view of markets to a service-led model. Now, in this keenly anticipated book, the authors present a thorough primer on the principles and applications of S-D logic. They describe a clear alternative to the dominant worldview of the heavily planned, production-oriented, profit-maximizing firm, presenting a coherent, organizing framework based on ten foundational premises. The foundational premises of S-D logic have much wider implications beyond marketing for the future of the firm, transcending different industries and contexts, and will provide readers with a deeper sense of why the exchange of service is the fundamental basis of all social and economic exchange. This accessible book will appeal to students, as well as to researchers and practitioners.
The notion of configuration – that the whole is best understood from a systemic perspective and should be viewed as a constellation of interconnected elements – is arguably one of the central ideas of organization studies. Yet, this idea also remains one of the field’s least understood aspects. In this volume and its introduction, we outline a new perspective for understanding configuration. Our starting point is the emergence of set theoretic configurational methods, and especially Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), which provides novel ways for analyzing configurations. Our volume goes beyond introducing a new method to the fields of management and organization, as these methods furthermore offer an opportunity to rethink our understanding of the field and to develop different ways of theorizing the rich complexity of relationships that characterize organizational life. In this introduction, we introduce some of the key themes that differentiate the approach taken here from previous work on organizational configurations and provide evidence for the emerging renaissance of the configurational approach in organizational theory and research.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/competing-with-ordinary-resources/
Although their importance in service operations is widely acknowledged in services marketing literature, the place and role of customers in organizational theories remain unclear. In particular, the way customers may influence the firm’s intra-organizational coordination has received little attention. By combining services marketing and intra-organizational coordination theories, this paper contends that customers may influence the coordination process among service employees, also called relational coordination. Relational coordination is a process that focuses on the interactions among the roles endorsed by employees who participate in this process, carried out through communication and a web of relationships among these participants. It is argued here that customers should be included among the set of participants in relational coordination; they might influence relational coordination among service employees through the way service employees perceive customer participation (CP) in service processes.
This article proposes a conceptual framework of the potential influence of CP on relational coordination among frontline service employees, by reporting the findings of case studies carried out in two multichannel retail banks. The data analysis offers two main results. First, the way in which frontline employees perceive inputs (i.e., what customers bring to service processes) and the antecedents of CP (i.e., reasons customers participate in service processes) appears to influence relational coordination among employees. Second, this influence seems to be moderated by the nature and history of the customer–employee interaction. The data analysis also suggests mutual leniency as a potential new sub-dimension of the relationship dimension of relational coordination. Presented as five propositions, these results offer some limitations and further research directions discussed at the end of the paper.
Purpose – The purpose of this essay is to explore further the concept of value cocreation from a service-ecosystems view, by considering the importance of networks and the configuration of relationships and resources in markets.
Methodology/approach – We use a conceptual approach to extend a service-dominant (S-D) logic, ecosystems view of value cocreation by drawing on the literature regarding networks in marketing and related research.
Findings – A service-ecosystems approach to cocreating value-in-context is proposed, which points toward networks as mediating factors in value cocreation because they influence the ability to access, adapt, and integrate resources by establishing exchange relationships and shaping the social contexts through which value is experienced.
Research implications – This research suggests that value cocreation is a complex and multidimensional process that is best studied in the context of dynamic networks or ecosystems of service exchange.
Practical implications – This research suggests that networks mediate value cocreation, and thus, firms should consider the configurations of relationships and resources to develop more compelling value propositions.
Social implications – This research draws on the idea that exchange relationships are embedded within society and suggests that processes of value cocreation not only draw on but also contribute to the social contexts that frame market exchange.
Originality/value of essay – This research extends the value cocreation and S-D logic literature by exploring the role of networks in service ecosystems. In this framework, networks are mediators of value cocreation because they enable access to resources and help to (re)shape social contexts through which value is derived.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of context in service provision and, more broadly, in market co-creation. We oscillate foci from an individual actor at the micro level to a market at the macro level to make the scaleable influence of context more salient. This reveals the meso level, which is nestled between the micro and macro levels. We discuss how these market levels influence one another. We conceptualize markets as simultaneous, continuous exchanges that are bounded by each of these levels of context.
Marketing inherited a model of exchange from economics, which had a dominant logic based on the exchange of “goods,” which usually are manufactured output. The dominant logic focused on tangible resources, embedded value, and transactions. Over the past several decades, new perspectives have emerged that have a revised logic focused on intangible resources, the cocreation of value, and relationships. The authors believe that the new per- spectives are converging to form a new dominant logic for marketing, one in which service provision rather than goods is fundamental to economic exchange. The authors explore this evolving logic and the corresponding shift in perspective for marketing scholars, marketing practitioners, and marketing educators.
Since the introductory article for what has become known as the “service-dominant (S-D) logic of marketing,” “Evolving to
a New Dominant Logic for Marketing,” was published in the Journal of Marketing (Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004a)), there
has been considerable discussion and elaboration of its specifics. This article highlights and clarifies the salient issues
associated with S-D logic and updates the original foundational premises (FPs) and adds an FP. Directions for future work
are also discussed.
KeywordsService-dominant logic-New-dominant logic-Service
The purpose of this article is to further develop the conceptualization of value cocreation by discussing its dimensions and antecedents. We propose that in service interactions, value cocreation should be understood as a joint collaborative activity between service employees and customers, consisting of six dimensions, which correspond to simpler joint actions (individuating, relating, empowering, ethical, developmental, and concerted joint actions). Furthermore, we derive propositions about nine antecedents of value cocreation labeled as communicating, relating, and knowing factors. This article is among the first to propose a conceptually richer understanding of value cocreation illustrated via an analytical framework, which can drive both future research and guide managers interested in implementing the service-dominant logic (S-D logic) principles within their service providing firms.
This paper contributes to the understanding of value co-creation and co-production by exploring how social roles can be drawn upon as resources for change in value networks. By broadening the marketing emphasis on dyadic perspectives of social roles to that of a network perspective, a social role is conceptualized as a particular set of practices that connects one actor to one or more other actors. In this way, social roles act as resources for change in value networks because they can lead to social norms and establish social positions, or sets of value-creating relationships connected to a particular actor. The proposed framework suggests that actors continually draw on social roles and social positions as resources in their efforts to co-create value with different actors. Given this, we argue that recent, notable changes in social roles within value networks can be more specifically associated with co-production, or the joint development of potential, exchangeable resources.
The purpose of this article is to further develop the conceptualization of value co-creation and discuss its dimensions and antecedents. We propose that in service interactions, value co-creation should be understood as a joint collaborative activity between service employees and customers consisting of six dimensions, which correspond to simpler joint actions (individuated, relational, empowered, ethical, developmental and concerted joint actions). Furthermore, we address communicating, relating and knowing as antecedents of value co-creation. This article is among the first to propose an analytical framework for the study of value co-creation and can drive both future research and guide managers interested in implementing the service logic principles.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper was to extend understanding of the sense of place captured by the servicescape concept, as a means by which customers clarify their service expectations and their satisfaction with service experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
– The design is conceptual. This article critically examines and extends the servicescape concept in the light of insights from the service-dominant (S-D) logic.
Findings
– First, we explain how servicescape adds meaning to a service provider’s value proposition, part of a pattern of customer expectations which are later confirmed or disconfirmed as value-in-use. Second, the servicescape is a more socially imbued context than has previously been recognized, because the service experience is co-created by customer and service provider. Third, the context for service is not restricted to the traditional physical servicescape, as other more fluid and web-based settings are now common.
Practical implications
– Extending the understanding of place as a context for value determination in new ways.
Originality/value
– The literature on servicescape is extensive, but it is anchored to the physicality of the service environment. Given the rise of the Internet and, more recently, digital social media as a virtual “place” of business, the relevance of servicescape is due for critical review. Our critical examination adds to the experience value of service and also extends the S-D logic understanding of value-in-use.
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 efforts and are the reference base for customers’ value assessment. When conceptualizing the systemic nature of resource integration, we include the regulative, normative, and cognitive institutions and institutional logics. This article provides a framework and a structure for identifying and analyzing the influence of institutional logics on resource integration in service systems.
Purpose
This article seeks to advance a novel service network perspective, based on the service‐dominant logic, designated as service‐dominant networks (SDN).
Design/methodology/approach
Service‐dominant logic components serve to build and describe SDN. Specifically, resources and actors are key components, combined with activities and the process by which they become resources. A case study details the features of SDNs.
Findings
Service‐dominant networks exhibit unique, previously unaddressed features. According to the service‐dominant logic, components only become resources when they are integrated; thus, they disappear as resources after their integration, which means SDNs are fugacious: they (be‐)come and go. In addition, SDNs comprise one or more main intended activities that explain their existence, though these intended activities do not necessarily initiate any particular SDN. Rather, other critical incidents can initiate SDNs.
Research limitations/implications
The features of SDNs proposed in this article have not been a focus of prior research. In particular, the dynamics and fugaciousness of SDNs are challenges for research and management.
Originality/value
This article offers the first proposal of a novel, service‐dominant network perspective. In a very general and abstract form, it identifies the features of SDNs.
Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to provide a comprehensive understanding of current literature on value. In exploring perspectives on economics, choice, consumption and evaluation of value, assumptions and limitations of extant approaches are highlighted and an integrative framework of value is proposed. It is suggested that this integrative perspective on value has a number of implications for marketing theory and research.
Methodology/approach – This chapter conducts an extensive review and assimilation of value from management, marketing, philosophy and economics.
Findings – The chapter categorises the existing value literature into six themes of value understanding: utility, economic worth, perceived satisfaction, net benefit, means end and phenomenological experience. In so doing, the chapter identifies implicit assumptions in philosophy, chronology and consciousness of value and offers an integrative value framework which brings in the literature to understand the contextual invariances of value creation within a phenomenon (i.e. offering, affordance, context, agency and individual resources). In addition, it reconciles creation with choice and evaluation of the value ex ante and ex post. Finally, our chapter proposes the paradox of value – value which can be assessed, measured and even judged by an individual cannot be the value created.
Research limitations/implications – In shifting value away from exchange towards use, it is suggested that marketing positioning, segmentation and targeting strategies may need to consider five elements identified in the integrative value framework. Furthermore, as proposed by the framework, new business models may be achieved from understanding value creation in context.
Originality/value of chapter – This chapter extends existing literature on value through reconciliation of various theoretical literatures in management, marketing, philosophy and economics. Notably, it highlights implicit assumptions in philosophy, chronology and consciousness of value and their potential limitations. It proposes an integrative framework that can be used for understanding the future of marketing and new business models.
Recognizing Gigerenzer's (1991) dictum that scientists' tools are not neutral (tools-in-use influence theory formulation as well as data interpretation), this article reports theory and examines data in ways that transcend the dominant logics for variable-based and case-based analyses. The theory and data analysis tests key propositions in complexity theory: (1) no single antecedent condition is a sufficient or necessary indicator of a high score in an outcome condition; (2) a few of many available complex configurations of antecedent conditions are sufficient indicators of high scores in an outcome condition; (3) contrarian cases occur, that is, low scores in a single antecedent condition associates with both high and low scores for an outcome condition for different cases; (4) causal asymmetry occurs, that is, accurate causal models for high scores for an outcome condition are not the mirror opposites of causal models for low scores for the same outcome condition. The study tests and supports these propositions in the context of customer assessments (n = 436) of service facets and service outcome evaluations for assisted temporary-transformations of self via beauty salon and spa treatments. The findings contribute to advancing a nuanced theory of how customers' service evaluations relate to their assessments of overall service quality and intentions to use the service. The findings support the need for service managers to be vigilant in fine-tuning service facets and service enactment to achieve the objective of high customer retention.
Recent developments in marketing and service research highlight the blurring of boundaries between firms and customers. The concept of customer engagement (CE) aggregates the multiple ways customer behaviors beyond transactions may influence the firm. However, the term is embryonic and academics and practitioners alike lack understanding on how CE contributes to value co-creation. This article marks the first attempt to conceptualize the role of customer engagement behavior (CEB) in value co-creation within a multistakeholder service system. We combine the theoretical perspectives of CE and value co-creation research to the analysis of a rich case study of a public transport service system involving consumers, communities, businesses, and governmental organizations. Our findings describe drivers for CEB, identify four types of CEB, and explore the value outcomes experienced by various stakeholders. This article proposes that CEB affects value co-creation by virtue of customers’ diverse resource contributions toward the focal firm and/other stakeholders that modify and/or augment the offering, and/or affect other stakeholders’ perceptions, preferences, expectations, or actions toward the firm or its offering. Through inducing broader resource integration, CEB makes value co-creation a system-level process. We offer nine research propositions explicating the connections CEB has to value co-creation by focal customers, the focal firm, and other stakeholders. Our research suggests that firms should focus greater attention on the resources that customers can contribute, explore the potential to engage diverse stakeholders around a common cause, and employ organically emerging systems that provide opportunities for more extensive value co-creation.
Resource integration, as it relates to value creation, has recently been a key aspect of the discussions about service-dominant (S-D) logic. However, the majority of research pays relatively little explicit attention to the process of theorizing and the epistomological and ontological assumptions upon which the theorizing process is based. This article addresses these issues. The processes that relate to theorizing and developing strong theory are discussed. We then examine how to conceptualize resources' and resource integration' following differing ontological and epistemological assumptions that guide the theorizing process. Research recommendations to help navigate through the finer details underlying the theorizing process and to advance a general theory of resource integration are developed.
Purpose
– The purpose of this conceptual paper is to analyse the implications generated by a service perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
– A conceptual analysis of two approaches to understanding service perspectives, service logic (SL) and service-dominant logic (SDL), reveals direct and indirect marketing implications.
Findings
– The SDL is based on a metaphorical view of co-creation and value co-creation, in which the firm, customers and other actors participate in the process that leads to value for customers. The approach is firm-driven; the service provider drives value creation. The managerial implications are not service perspective-based, and co-creation may be imprisoned by its metaphor. In contrast, SL takes an analytical approach, with co-creation concepts that can significantly reinvent marketing from a service perspective. Value gets created in customer processes, and value creation is customer driven. Ten managerial SL principles derived from these analyses offer theoretical and practical conclusions with the potential to reinvent marketing.
Research limitations/implications
– The SDL can direct researchers’ and managers’ views towards complex value-generation processes. The SL can analyse this process on a managerial level, to derive customer-centric, service perspective-based opportunities to reinvent marketing.
Practical implications
– The analysis and principles help marketing break free from offering only value propositions and become an organisation-wide responsibility. Firms must organise service-influenced marketing and create a customer focus among all employees, beyond conventional marketing.
Originality/value
– A service perspective on business has key managerial implications and enables researchers and managers to find new, customer-centric, service-influenced marketing approaches.
Much current research fails to provide in-depth explanations as to how and with what resources frontline employees deal with incidents where customers display dysfunctional behaviour. By drawing on theory of implicit knowledge and practical judgement this paper aims to explain this and conceptualize inherent structures and sub-mechanisms, central to service marketing. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews and narratives from four different industries, each representing service provision wherein customer misbehaviour is found to be frequent. The results display linkages between the central dimensions of dealing with customer misbehaviour. When incidents of misbehaviour occur they are met by tactics ranging from routinized action to more analytical and strategic approaches. These tactics are guided by underlying mechanisms in the form of practical judgements based on rules, balanced adjustment or reflection, with the judgements in turn being informed by implicit knowledge based on norms, schemes, or multi-perspective thinking. The study reveals patterns of linkages between these.
Purpose
– This empirical study aims to explore sufficiency conditions for patient loyalty to a hospital.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study collected 645 self-administered questionnaires from patients in a major medical center in Taiwan and applied fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA) to explore the sufficiency conditions for patient loyalty.
Findings
– The findings support the conclusion that the three conditions (patient satisfaction, patient participation in the process of diagnosis, and patient participation in treatment decision-making) in combination are sufficient for high patient loyalty to the hospital but high patient satisfaction alone is insufficient. While the three conditions in configural algorithm are sufficient, this expression is not necessary, which means the findings do not reject possible alternative conditions for high patient loyalty.
Research limitations/implications
– The study applies a relatively new method, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fs/QCA) to test the sufficiency proposition of the theory. This method enables researchers to focus on examining sufficient conditions without worrying about various confounding factors and informs this study ' s conclusion that patients exhibiting high scores in all three conditions mentioned above constitute a near-perfect subset of highly loyal patients. Hospitals thus should provide their satisfied patients opportunities to share a role in the process of diagnosis and treatment decision-making.
Originality/value
– Along with patient satisfaction, this study clearly identifies two important stages of patient participation (i.e., participation in the process of diagnosis and treatment decision-making) that are important in forming patient loyalty to a hospital. Prior studies do not present empirical evidence to this proposition.
This article explores in-depth what health care customers actually do when they cocreate value. Combining previously published research with data collected from depth interviews, field observation, and focus groups, the authors identify distinct styles of health care customer value cocreation practice. Importantly, the authors show how customers can contribute to their own value creation through their own (self) activities in managing their health care. Building on past work in service-dominant (S-D) logic, consumer culture theory and social practice theory, the authors identify “roles,” “activities,” and “interactions” that underlie customer cocreation of value in health care. The authors uncover five groupings of customer value cocreation practices yielding a typology of practice styles and link these to quality of life. The practice styles are “team management,” “insular controlling,” “partnering,” “pragmatic adapting,” and “passive compliance.” Two in particular, team management and partnering, should be encouraged by managers as they tend to be associated with higher quality of life. The authors provide a health care Customer Value Cocreation Practice Styles (CVCPS) typology. The usefulness of the typology is demonstrated by showing links to quality of life and its potential application to other health care settings.
Service-dominant (S-D) logic can function as a strategic business logic that portrays creating superior value in conjunction with—rather than for—customers as a source of competitive advantage for organizations. From this perspective, strategy is about making choices in terms of how to best facilitate and enhance value cocreation for mutual and long-term betterment. While the literature has pointed out the managerial merits of cocreating value, less is known about the organizational capabilities necessary to execute S-D logic in practice. This article devises an S-D orientation, specified as a portfolio of six strategic capabilities, namely individuated, relational, ethical, empowered, developmental, and concerted interaction capability. In combination, these six strategic capabilities constitute a cocreation capability. The authors develop the conceptual model of S-D orientation through (a) an in-depth literature review and (b) input from 21 expert academics. Conceptualizing S-D orientation provides a foundation for bridging S-D logic and strategy research with a more general framework, and for guiding much-needed empirical research that will inform managers. From a managerial point of view, S-D orientation provides a holistic approach to align the organization with its value network partners. The article also sets out an agenda for future research.
Purpose – This chapter proposes three main objectives in relation to understanding customer involvement in business networks. First, to identify important aspects of the network structure and environment and how the actions of the customer and other network participants create and maintain these. Second, to identify and explore the mechanisms and processes of resource integration in the network. Third, to identify the capabilities and competencies that customers bring to the network, and to understand how these are enhanced and developed.
Methodology/approach – Conceptual.
Research implications – We recognize that aspects of the resources themselves are important and that the characteristics of the resource and the way in which partners align them were key components of resource analysis.
Practical implications – We note that the interaction of different operant and operand resource combinations opens new doors to customer knowledgeability and involvement, where power over either authoritative or allocative resources in itself will not guarantee value creation.
Social implications – We support the call for the development of more sociologically enriched and complex models of interagent resource exchange. In particular, we would advise the need for a better understanding of how different network structures and environments are created and maintained through domination, legitimation, and signification processes.
Originality/value of chapter – This chapter addresses the gap in our understanding of how customer involvement in business-to-business networks may influence learning, value cocreation, and innovation. This chapter makes an important contribution to research in the field in that it investigates how the inclusion of the customer in business networks alters current assumptions and practices.
Purpose
Customer participation in the creation of offerings has become a key focus in marketing literature. This paper synthesizes extant research on the topic to enhance understanding of the conceptualization and value outcomes of customer participation in the creation of offerings.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on an extensive, systematic literature review covering 163 articles on customer participation published over the last four decades. Selected publications were analyzed according to the topics studied, study context, research approach, and findings.
Findings
The review demonstrates how the conceptualization of customer participation has evolved in terms of the nature and range of customer contributions, their temporal scope, and the outcomes considered. It also synthesizes the hypothesized and empirically scrutinized value outcomes of customer participation for both sellers and customers.
Research limitations/implications
The review reveals important gaps in the existing knowledge on customer participation, and identifies relevant areas for future research. The literature review may have missed some relevant papers that use different terminologies.
Practical implications
Managers should consider the strategic significance of customer participation in their businesses, promote the potential benefits to their customers, and institute necessary changes in their organization to facilitate participation.
Originality/value
This paper provides a structured overview of the empirical and conceptual research addressing customer participation and brings forth evidences regarding its value outcomes, thereby contributing to extant knowledge on value creation.
It is widely accepted that customers derive value through resource integration, by integrating their own resources with those provided by organization and other network actors. This perspective implies that customers must acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to be effective resource integrators as they engage in activities that facilitate or create value. Supporting customer learning, then, is a pressing new challenge for firms that recognize customers engage in resource integration in the course of their value-creating processes. This article builds on an interactive model of self-directed learning to develop a model of customer learning for resource integration that identifies the characteristics of learning contexts, interactive elements of the learning process and links learning to customers' effectiveness in resource integration activities. A future research agenda is set out, organized around the elements of our conceptualization that can generate much required managerial insights into the interactive process-based nature of customer learning and customers' effectiveness as resource integrators. For practitioners who recognize the resource integration roles customers play, the authors raise a set of questions that will assist in developing marketing programs that support customer learning.
Because extant literature on the service logic of marketing is dominated by a metaphorical view of value co-creation, the roles of both service providers and customers remain analytically unspecified, without a theoretically sound foundation for value creation or co-creation. This article analyzes value creation and co-creation in services by analytically defining the roles of the customer and the firm, as well as the scope, locus, and nature of value and value creation. Value creation refers to customers’ creation of value-in-use; co-creation is a function of interaction. Both the firm’s and the customer’s actions can be categorized by spheres (provider, joint, customer), and their interactions are either direct or indirect, leading to different forms of value creation and co-creation. This conceptualization of value creation spheres extends knowledge about how value-in-use emerges and how value creation can be managed; it also emphasizes the pivotal role of direct interactions for value co-creation opportunities.
This commentary uses the Customer Integration—Facilities, Transformation, Use (CI-FTU) framework of Moeller as a platform for discussing two nested challenges in the development of service-dominant (S-D) logic. The first is the potency of the traditional, goods-dominant (G-D) logic paradigm, including the pitfalls of using its lexicon for describing a transcending logic. The second is the related need to develop a broader perspective for understanding value creation than is apparent in traditional conceptualizations or in the CI-FTU conceptualization. In addition, the challenge of isolating S-D logic in its rapid evolution beyond G-D logic is discussed.
A paradigm shift in marketing seems to be underway. Inspired by Vargo and Lusch's (2004a) proposal of service dominant logic, customer integration is proposed as a key component of marketing. Three stages of service provision are identified: facilities, transformation, and usage. The stages differ in terms of resource origin (company or customer), autonomy of decision-making (integrative or autonomous), and value (potential value, value-in-transformation, and value-in-use). These perspectives, which are synthesized in the study framework, shed light on the process of service provision and direct or indirect knowledge application (Vargo and Lusch 2004a). The author aims to show that in the context of the proposed framework, customer integration is vital to the implementation of service provision.
The delineation of B2B from ‘mainstream’ marketing reflects the limitations of the traditional, goods-dominant (G-D) model of exchange and a conceptualization of value creation based on the ‘producer’ versus ‘consumer’ divide. Service-dominant (S-D) logic broadens the perspective of exchange and value creation and implies that all social and economic actors engaged in exchange (e.g., firms, customers, etc.) are service-providing, value-creating enterprises; thus, in this sense, all exchange can be considered B2B. From this perspective, the contributions of B2B marketing (and other sub-disciplines) can be seen as applicable to ‘mainstream’ marketing. This generic, actor-to-actor (A2A) orientation, in turn, points toward a dynamic, networked and systems orientation to value creation. This article discusses this systems-oriented framework and elaborates the steps necessary for developing it further into a general theory of the market, informed by the marketing sub-disciplines, marketing practices, and disciplines external to marketing.
Although much of the existing research on employee sabotage and deviance focuses on the manufacturing sector, studies have
also found evidence of deliberate employee misbehavior in a variety of service settings. In this study, the authors conceptualize
and test a model of service sabotage dynamics that incorporates both the antecedents and the consequences of such behaviors.
In doing so, the study contributes contemporary empirical evidence of factors associated with the deliberate sabotage of service
by frontline customer-contact personnel. Using a survey-based approach, the authors collected data from 259 respondents from
a sample of 1,000 respondents. The findings largely support the hypothesized antecedents of service sabotage and show that
a range of individual characteristics, management control efforts, and perceived labor market conditions are linked with service
sabotage. Furthermore, the analysis suggests that service sabotage behaviors are associated with individual and group rewards,
effects for customers, and other performance measures.
To address the trade-off between new product innovativeness and speed to market caused by customer participation activities, the author differentiates two dimensions of customer participation—customer participation as an information resource (CPI) and customer participation as a codeveloper (CPC)—and explores the moderating effects of downstream customer network connectivity and new product development process interdependence and complexity. Matched data collected from 143 customer–component manufacturer dyads indicate that CPI has a negative influence on innovativeness when downstream customer network connectivity is high but a positive effect when it is low. In contrast, CPI has a positive effect on speed to market when downstream customer network connectivity is high and no significant effect when it is low. In addition, CPC undermines new product speed to market when process interdependence is high. In contrast, CPC can improve new product speed to market but hurt new product innovativeness when process interdependence is low. The results of this article provide specific managerial guidelines as to how to manage customer participation to improve new product innovativeness and speed to market.
The diversity of the service sector makes it difficult to come up with managerially useful generalizations concerning marketing practice in service organizations. This article argues for a focus on specific categories of services and proposes five schemes for classifying services in ways that transcend narrow industry boundaries. In each instance insights are offered into how the nature of the service might affect the marketing task.
To address the trade-off between new product innovativeness and speed to market caused by customer participation activities, the author differentiates two dimensions of customer participation - customer participation as an information resource (CPI) and customer participation as a codeveloper (CPC) - and explores the moderating effects of downstream customer network connectivity and new product development process interdependence and complexity. Matched data collected from 143 customer-component manufacturer dyads indicate that CPI has a negative influence on innovativeness when downstream customer network connectivity is high but a positive effect when it is low. In contrast, CPI has a positive effect on speed to market when downstream customer network connectivity is high and no significant effect when it is low. In addition, CPC undermines new product speed to market when process interdependence is high. In contrast, CPC can improve new product speed to market but hurt new product innovativeness when process interdependence is low. The results of this article provide specific managerial guidelines as to how to manage customer participation to improve new product innovativeness and speed to market.
Clients of service organizations have important roles to perform in creating services. Yet, comparatively little attention has been directed at the participation of clients in complex and demanding client performance domains. In this paper, clients are viewed as "partial" employees and (1) a model of client involvement stages is proposed, (2) role definition and control for clients in complex service creation are discussed, and (3) attention to issues that emerge from this discussion is encouraged.
