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Transformative service research at the BoP: the case of Etawa goat farmers in Indonesia
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore how value creation and transformative service research (TSR) are interconnected at the base of the pyramid (BoP). To do so, the study seeks consumers’ perceptions of changes in well-being from value creation and the means by which these changes become transformative.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative, longitudinal design was used, involving a community education project in Indonesia. Data collection consisted of interviews with Etawa goat farmers and village leaders after one year ( n = 21), and a further three years ( n = 10).
Findings
Findings from the study are used to advance a model for value creation and TSR at the BoP, which identifies three critical change periods within consumers. These periods suggest that creating improvements in well-being of consumers requires their initial recognition of value outcomes, realisation of agency and a new vision for the future.
Research limitations/implications
Research in other contexts is warranted to confirm the model, to further explore well-being from service at the BoP and to identify issues that diminish consumers’ confidence and stall transformation. Methodological challenges at the BoP also present avenues for insightful work.
Practical implications
Transformative service at BoP requires an emphasis on suitable structures, collaborative processes and management skills to facilitate consumers gaining agency and control, so that they can use their new and existing resources effectively and/or differently.
Social implications
Participants highlighted positive changes to well-being at both individual and collective levels. Notably, some changes were not directly related to initial service provision but reflected improvements, such as employment for women, and better hygiene, health and education of families.
Originality/value
By exploring the interconnection between transformative service and value creation, this study addresses the issue of when value creation becomes transformative and vital for poverty alleviation at the BoP. The proposed model incorporates TSR, service logic and other literature, illustrates a process moving from value determination to value expansion and highlights three critical intrasubjective change periods within actors.
... As highlighted in TSR, inherently transformative services (e.g. yoga training or education) can make significant changes to customer lives by developing their operant resources (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). Customers' experience from a specific service (i.e. ...
... From SDL perspectives (where wellbeing and value are used interchangeably), the contribution of these operant resources is essential for well-being (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). In other words, improved well-being can be achieved through everyday service interactions as the positive value derived from such interactions can make the beneficiaries better off (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). The relationship between perceived value and life satisfaction can also be explained by the horizontal spillover theory (Sirgy, 2012). ...
... First, thanks to superior cognitive ability, mindful customers are likely to gain more operant resources during the service interaction than others (Shapiro et al., 2006). These resources may include psychological positivity, knowledge and social relationships (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). Then, they will use these resources more creatively and efficiently in other activities in their life. ...
Purpose
Mindfulness, while being suggested as an important psychological cognitive capability of customers, has received insufficient attention in studies of transformative services characterized by challenging cocreation behaviors. It is unclear about the contributions of mindfulness to customers’ cocreation and transformative outcomes. This study aims to investigate the direct, indirect, mediating and moderating relationships to explain how mindfulness sustains cocreation effort, increases perceived service value and ultimately enhances the diffusion from the service value to customer well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
A structural model was developed and tested using the CB-SEM method. Data were surveyed from two transformative service industries, yoga training and higher education ( N = 283 and 273 cases, respectively).
Findings
Customer mindfulness has a positive relationship with cocreation effort, which in turn positively associates with perceived value. Additionally, mindfulness has a direct relationship with perceived value, which then is the full mediator in the relationships between mindfulness, cocreation effort and life satisfaction. Mindfulness also moderates the transformation from service value (immediate outcome) to life satisfaction (long-term outcome).
Practical implications
Transformative service providers and policymakers should acknowledge and develop strategies to cultivate customers’ mindfulness, which subsequently fosters their value cocreation effort and enhances their well-being.
Originality/value
This research puts forward the concept of mindfulness, a trainable cognitive capability of customers, and shows its importance in transformative service cocreation. This paper provides a full structural mechanism explaining how mindfulness helps cocreate a transformative service and diffuse its immediate value to customer life satisfaction.
... As highlighted in TSR, inherently transformative services (e.g. yoga training or education) can make significant changes to customer lives by developing their operant resources (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). Customers' experience from a specific service (i.e. ...
... From SDL perspectives (where wellbeing and value are used interchangeably), the contribution of these operant resources is essential for well-being (Vargo and Lusch, 2016). In other words, improved well-being can be achieved through everyday service interactions as the positive value derived from such interactions can make the beneficiaries better off (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). The relationship between perceived value and life satisfaction can also be explained by the horizontal spillover theory (Sirgy, 2012). ...
... First, thanks to superior cognitive ability, mindful customers are likely to gain more operant resources during the service interaction than others (Shapiro et al., 2006). These resources may include psychological positivity, knowledge and social relationships (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). Then, they will use these resources more creatively and efficiently in other activities in their life. ...
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.
... To succeed, the innovation process must rely on the ability to assimilate outside knowledge, specifically of the service ecosystem, important dimensions of service quality and service delivery systems. The added value of innovative service is "in the eye of the beholder", and thus determined by the beneficiary (Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Grönroos, 2001), but as it is based on intangible new ideas, customers struggle to assess in advance what the experience will be and what will be delivered (Parasuraman et al., 1985;Toivonen-Noro and Kijima, 2018). ...
... Rather, it is concerned with investigating whether barriers to adoption, based on passive innovation resistance, prevent consumers from being motivated to consider the adoption of service innovation. Consumer motivation to evaluate a service innovation is a prerequisite for adoption and the BOP offers an appropriate context to investigate the pre-requisites for innovative services to get adopted (Dean and Indrianti, 2020) and one that has not been widely researched to date (Fisk et al., 2016;Gebauer and Reynoso, 2013). ...
... Poverty means limitations and a low margin for error in household spending but also rich social capital and creative problem-solving in complex service ecosystems that lack the characteristics of neoclassically defined markets (Gradl et al., 2017;Pels and Mele, 2018). This study is concerned with the actions and motivations of consumers in their own service ecosystem because the actions of consumers are determined and constrained by forces in this social system where value cocreation occurs (Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Helkkula et al., 2018). ...
Purpose-This paper aims to investigate whether and why the base of the pyramid (BOP) actors display passive innovation resistance because of which they reject service innovations without evaluation and forfeit potential to improve their well-being. The resourceness concept, referring to the outcome of how actors appraise and integrate resources in pursuit of a purpose at hand, is used as a theoretical lens to investigate the everyday consumption behaviour of BOP households and helps to investigate how and why passive innovation resistance occurs. The outcomes of the study help address important theoretical and practical considerations for the development of successful new service concepts at the BOP. Design/methodology/approach-Narrative interviews with 29 households in Zambia provide data, from which patterns in how potential resources do or do not become real are identified and related to the concept of passive innovation. Findings-Economic, social and other factors in the BOP context clearly influence non-random patterns of resource integration which are correlated with passive innovation resistance. This can lead to service innovations being ignored and/or misunderstood prior to evaluation for adoption. This is a risk to the potential positive impact of service innovation for poverty alleviation at the BOP. Practical implications-Service innovation at the BOP must begin with a deep understanding of "how" and "why" consumers typically appraise and integrate potential resources to achieve a beneficial outcome in their context. To overcome the barrier of passive innovation resistance, marketing education must stimulate an understanding of potential benefits and motivation towards the change associated with the adoption of service innovation. Social implications-The findings support more successful service innovation strategies for the BOP, which can provide vital infrastructure for the alleviation of poverty. Originality/value-The application of a service-dominant logic perspective in the BOP context and the conceptual linkage between resourceness and passive innovation resistance is novel. Valuable insights are gained for service practitioners at the BOP and for further conceptual development of innovation resistance in the BOP context.
... Similarly, governmentsupported community training initiatives implemented in partnership with NGOs can enhance BoP producers' operant resources and agency for sustained value co-creation. Developing the management skills of BoP producers, building community-based collaborative processes and suitable structures can assist in the realization of these transformative outcomes for subsistence entrepreneurs and communities (Dean and Indrianti 2020). The community-based poverty alleviation interventions combining market-oriented goals with communal philosophy leverage the social capital of BoP communities for generating positive impact. ...
... Also, transformative subsistence entrepreneurship enhances personal, social and economic well-being at both individual and community levels (Sridharan et al. 2014). Communitylevel well-being improving outcomes encompass resolution of ethnic conflict, improved assortments of marketing systems and enhanced capabilities of BoP communities (Dean and Indrianti 2020;Fajardo, Shultz, and Joya 2019;Gau et al. 2014;Tobias, Mair, and Barbosa-Leiker 2013). The macro-level well-being enhancing outcomes include reduced poverty and inclusive growth (Azmat, Ferdous, and Couchman 2015;Si et al. 2015). ...
... Ansari, Munir, and Gregg (2012) argue that capabilities allow individuals to take advantage of social and economic opportunities, acquiring, developing, and retaining capabilities are essential components of well-being. Therefore, focusing on transformative solutions such as education, training and marketplace literacy and arranging other resources needed for putting entrepreneurial learnings into practice can result in enhanced individual and community level well-being (Dean and Indrianti 2020;Venugopal, Viswanathan, and Jung 2015). Enhancing market agency-the ability to frame exchanges, depict markets and evolve standards and rules for guiding market exchanges-of subsistence consumer entrepreneurs can help in designing benign marketing systems (Kjellberg and Helgesson 2007;Lindeman 2014). ...
The extant review studies on the Base/bottom of the Pyramid (BoP) have paid inadequate attention to the producer and entrepreneur roles of the poor. This review article exclusively focused on BoP producers and subsistence entrepreneurs provides an overview of the current state of research on BoP producers and subsistence entrepreneurs. It encompasses 130 articles from 67 peer-reviewed academic journals and develops an organizing framework for classifying these articles. The conceptual model of entrepreneurship in poverty contexts presented in this article illustrates the drivers, barriers, facilitators and consequences of subsistence entrepreneurship. The conceptual model helps to highlight the relevance of contextually informed public support and advocates adopting a collaborative approach for addressing various challenges faced by BoP producers. We also discuss the implications of our article and provide directions for future research.
... To succeed, the innovation process must rely on the ability to assimilate outside knowledge, specifically of the service ecosystem, important dimensions of service quality and service delivery systems. The added value of innovative service is "in the eye of the beholder", and thus determined by the beneficiary (Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Grönroos, 2001), but as it is based on intangible new ideas, customers struggle to assess in advance what the experience will be and what will be delivered (Parasuraman et al., 1985;Toivonen-Noro and Kijima, 2018). ...
... Rather, it is concerned with investigating whether barriers to adoption, based on passive innovation resistance, prevent consumers from being motivated to consider the adoption of service innovation. Consumer motivation to evaluate a service innovation is a prerequisite for adoption and the BOP offers an appropriate context to investigate the pre-requisites for innovative services to get adopted (Dean and Indrianti, 2020) and one that has not been widely researched to date (Fisk et al., 2016;Gebauer and Reynoso, 2013). ...
... Poverty means limitations and a low margin for error in household spending but also rich social capital and creative problem-solving in complex service ecosystems that lack the characteristics of neoclassically defined markets (Gradl et al., 2017;Pels and Mele, 2018). This study is concerned with the actions and motivations of consumers in their own service ecosystem because the actions of consumers are determined and constrained by forces in this social system where value cocreation occurs (Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Helkkula et al., 2018). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate whether and why the base of the pyramid (BOP) actors display passive innovation resistance because of which they reject service innovations without evaluation and forfeit potential to improve their well-being. The resourceness concept, referring to the outcome of how actors appraise and integrate resources in pursuit of a purpose at hand, is used as a theoretical lens to investigate the everyday consumption behaviour of BOP households and helps to investigate how and why passive innovation resistance occurs. The outcomes of the study help address important theoretical and practical considerations for the development of successful new service concepts at the BOP.
Design/methodology/approach
Narrative interviews with 29 households in Zambia provide data, from which patterns in how potential resources do or do not become real are identified and related to the concept of passive innovation.
Findings
Economic, social and other factors in the BOP context clearly influence non-random patterns of resource integration which are correlated with passive innovation resistance. This can lead to service innovations being ignored and/or misunderstood prior to evaluation for adoption. This is a risk to the potential positive impact of service innovation for poverty alleviation at the BOP.
Practical implications
Service innovation at the BOP must begin with a deep understanding of “how” and “why” consumers typically appraise and integrate potential resources to achieve a beneficial outcome in their context. To overcome the barrier of passive innovation resistance, marketing education must stimulate an understanding of potential benefits and motivation towards the change associated with the adoption of service innovation.
Social implications
The findings support more successful service innovation strategies for the BOP, which can provide vital infrastructure for the alleviation of poverty.
Originality/value
The application of a service-dominant logic perspective in the BOP context and the conceptual linkage between resourceness and passive innovation resistance is novel. Valuable insights are gained for service practitioners at the BOP and for further conceptual development of innovation resistance in the BOP context.
... We acknowledge the value co-creation logics' reasoning (Grönroos and Voima, 2013;Vargo and Lusch, 2004), in which (transformative) value and well-being are inherently intertwined (Dean and Indrianti, 2020) and value is "the change in the well-being of a particular actor" (Vargo and Lusch, 2018, p. 740). Co-creation of services affects the wellbeing of all interrelated actors, so one actor's activities in cocreation of services affect not only his or her individual wellbeing but also the well-being of other actors related to him or her (Sweeney et al., 2015). ...
... However, co-creation of services can result in counterproductive outcomes if tensions exist among the varied interests and needs of different actors (Hillebrand et al., 2015;Oertzen et al., 2018). If the actors' interests and needs are contradictory, the co-creation of services could contribute to the individual well-being of one actor while degrading other, interrelated actors' well-being (Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Plé and C aceres, 2010). Especially in complex services such as health care, unintended effects on actors' needs could occur (Berry et al., 2020). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how tensions and alignments between different actors’ needs in a transformative services network affect balanced centricity, which is an indicator of well-being. Balanced centricity describes a situation in which all network actors’ interests and needs are fulfilled simultaneously. In such cases, all actors are better off, which increases both individual actors’ and overall actor-network well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical study takes place in nursing homes in which in-bed baths represent co-created service encounters that affect the well-being of focal actors (i.e. patients), frontline service employees (i.e. nurses) and transformative service mediators (i.e. family members), who have potentially competing needs. Using a qualitative, phenomenological approach, the study inductively explores and deductively categorizes actors’ personal experiences to gain deep, holistic insights into the service network and its complex web of actor interdependencies.
Findings
The resulting conceptual model of balanced centricity identifies actors’ lower-order needs as different manifestations of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness. If actors’ needs are aligned, their psychological needs can be satisfied, which facilitates balanced centricity. If actors exhibit competing needs though, balanced centricity is impeded.
Practical implications
This study establishes actors’ psychological needs as the origin of tensions/alignments in multi-actor networks that impede/contribute to balanced centricity. Transformative service providers should try to address all actors’ psychological needs when co-creating services to achieve network well-being.
Originality/value
This study adopts a novel, multi-actor perspective and thereby presents a conceptual model that contributes to the understanding of balanced centricity. Future research could test this model in other transformative service settings.
... Due to the challenges of fieldwork in the study context (Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Ostrom et al., 2015;Reynoso et al., 2015), a purposeful sampling strategy was used to select experts at the operational levels of TSA (Miles and Huberman, 1994). This recognized participants' roles as service providers enabling exploration of the application of TSA's mission and values in service inclusion. ...
... It is not solely what faith-based service inclusion offers to individuals but what the individuals and communities do with service inclusion (Sen, 1985). Thus, the gaining of agencywhen people realize they have the strength, hope and access to resourcesis required for transformation (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). While faith-based service inclusion enables a movement away from vulnerability by recognizing the adaptive capabilities and resilience capacity of individuals and the community, it is the strengths of the people that harness these practices for enduring service inclusion and transformative change. ...
Purpose
While service inclusion principles raise the awareness of scholars to service that improves holistic well-being, little research explicitly investigates the spiritual dimensions of service inclusion. This study, therefore, aims to explore faith-based service inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative case study of the Salvation Army’s Chikankata Services in Zambia was undertaken. Semi-structured interviews with the organization’s leaders and professionals were analyzed thematically.
Findings
Service inclusion pillars evince contextualized meaning and priority. In resource-constrained, vulnerable communities, faith-based service inclusion prioritizes two additional pillars – “fostering eudaimonic well-being” and “giving hope,” where existence is precarious, fostering (hedonic) happiness is of low priority. Findings reveal that pillars and processes are mutually reinforcing, harnessed by the individual and collective agency to realize transformative outcomes from service inclusion.
Research limitations/implications
This paper provides unique insight into faith-based service inclusion but acknowledges limitations and areas warranting further research.
Practical implications
The study yields important managerial implications. Service providers can use the framework to identify the contextual priority and/or meaning of service inclusion pillars and relevant reciprocal processes. The framework emphasizes the harnessing potential of individual agency and capability development for transformative well-being.
Social implications
Faith-based service inclusion, predicated on inclusion, human dignity and holistic well-being, has important implications for reducing the burden on scarce resources while building resilience in communities.
Originality/value
By examining a faith-based service in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper provides a holistic framework conceptualizing pillars, processes, agency and outcomes to extend Fisk et al. ’s (2018) service inclusion pillars and to better understand the shaping of service delivery for service inclusion.
... This results on the notion of well-being at an ecosystem level, remaining underexplored from a theoretical and applied perspective (Russell-Bennett et al., 2019). Apart from few empirical studies focused on the health care context (Beirão et al., 2017, Frow et al., 2019, Leo et al., 2019, Dean and Indrianti, 2020, Finsterwalder and Kuppelwieser, 2020, scant TSR research has focused specifically on ecosystem well-being at the micro and meso level (e.g., Frow et al. 2019). ...
... Moreover, as these studies have been performed mostly on health care (Beirão et al., 2017, Frow et al., 2019, Leo et al., 2019, Dean and Indrianti, 2020, Finsterwalder and Kuppelwieser, 2020, other relevant service settings, such as retail, have been left behind. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the well-being consequences of value co-creation activities at an ecosystem level, focusing specifically on the micro and meso levels. This study is performed in a retail ecosystem, a highly relevant context where individuals spend a considerable amount of time and resources, but where well-being is usually not deemed as a relevant outcome.
Design/methodology/approach
The investigation analyzes qualitative data from micro and meso level actors of a retail ecosystem. At the micro-level, in-depth interviews performed with customers, employees and suppliers were assessed. The meso level analysis included most of the actors embedded in the retail ecosystem: employees’ headquarters, suppliers’ headquarters, nearby competitors, family, other retail outlets and external employees.
Findings
This study is one of the first in the transformative service research area to analyze well-being from a retail ecosystem perspective. Hence, this analysis broadens the literature on transformative service by considering supermarket retailing, an everyday service context that is not assumed to generate well-being outcomes. Results reveal that actors who spend more time or have fewer options available for them in the retail ecosystem see their well-being deeply affected. It also extends the conceptualization of value co-creation to a retail ecosystem, a specific ecosystem, which differs from previous studies that focus mostly on health-care ecosystems.
Research limitations/implications
Although useful to understand new insights, a limitation of this investigation is that it is based upon a single qualitative study.
Practical implications
The study portrays how activities happening within a business context have consequences beyond traditional measures such as loyalty or turn-over. It proposes specific value co-creation actions to be performed by employees, suppliers and customers to promote positive well-being consequences for the micro and meso level retail ecosystem.
Social implications
Retail ecosystems are usually not deemed as relevant when trying to understand societal well-being outcomes. This study empirically depicts that all services, even the ones without transformative goals, need to be aware of the impact they have on societal well-being.
Originality/value
This paper provides a novel conceptualization of well-being effects in a retail ecosystem. Specifically, this is the first study in the transformative service research literature to identify the micro and meso level well-being consequences of value co-creation activities within a retail ecosystem.
... As agreed by the scholars that gathered at the third biennial Transformative Consumer Research Conference in June 2011, service research has taken a paradigm shift towards addressing global challenges and improving consumer well-being (Davis and Pechmann, 2013). This paradigm shift has seen the emergence of scholarship with a purpose as service entities and researchers advancing well-being issues (Hepi et al., 2017;Alkire et al., 2020;Rahman, 2020), services that have well-being implications, such as financial services or healthcare (Anderson et al., 2013;Bustamante and Amaya, 2020;Islam, Muhamad and Sumardi, 2021;Soetan, Mogaji and Nguyen, 2021), cater for vulnerable populations like base of the pyramid consumers, low-income households or young age groups (Blocker et al., 2013;Gebauer and Reynoso, 2013;Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Nehls, 2021;Siddiqui et al., 2021) or the impact of disasters on the well-being of families or individuals (Nasr and Fisk, 2019;Finsterwalder and Kuppelwieser, 2020;Finsterwalder, 2021). Anderson et al. (2011 p. 3), define TSR as "service research that centres on creating uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of individuals (consumers and employees), families, social networks, communities, cities, nations, collectives, and ecosystems." ...
... As agreed by the scholars that gathered at the third biennial Transformative Consumer Research Conference in June 2011, service research has taken a paradigm shift towards addressing global challenges and improving consumer well-being (Davis and Pechmann, 2013). This paradigm shift has seen the emergence of scholarship with a purpose as service entities and researchers advancing well-being issues (Hepi et al., 2017;Alkire et al., 2020;Rahman, 2020), services that have well-being implications, such as financial services or healthcare (Anderson et al., 2013;Bustamante and Amaya, 2020;Islam, Muhamad and Sumardi, 2021;Soetan, Mogaji and Nguyen, 2021), cater for vulnerable populations like base of the pyramid consumers, low-income households or young age groups (Blocker et al., 2013;Gebauer and Reynoso, 2013;Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Nehls, 2021;Siddiqui et al., 2021) or the impact of disasters on the well-being of families or individuals (Nasr and Fisk, 2019;Finsterwalder and Kuppelwieser, 2020;Finsterwalder, 2021). Anderson et al. (2011 p. 3), define TSR as "service research that centres on creating uplifting changes and improvements in the well-being of individuals (consumers and employees), families, social networks, communities, cities, nations, collectives, and ecosystems." ...
... (a) Approach and access: training associates to undertake data collection (e.g., Viswanathan et al., 2012), (b) using advocates with cultural familiarity to understand cultural nuances native to ancestral land (e.g., Vikas et al., 2015), (c) purposeful and iterative sampling to ensure desired respondent criteria are met (e.g., Apostolidis et al., 2021), d) understanding power and approach though village heads or employees. (e.g., Dean & Indrianti, 2020), (2). Interview location: (a) home venues for informant comfort and to elicit cues (e.g., , (b) sensitivity and disciplined approach to cultural context implicit through ethical considerations (Jagadale et al., 2018;, (3) Flexibility and focus: (a) semi-structured interviews to allow researcher flexibility, extensive probing and "deep dives" into issues under focus, follow-ups and repeat interviews to decipher cultural context in narratives (e.g., Jagadale et al., 2018), (b) conversational freedom to ensure authenticity (e.g., Viswanathan et al., 2012), (4) Combination of other tools and approaches: (a) ethnography for naturalistic inquiry (e.g., Vikas et al., 2015), (b) participative and non-participative observation, empirical and longitudinal data (Sanchez-Barrios et al., 2015), (c) video and analysis of song and dance (e.g., role playing to assist abstraction (e.g., Ansari et al., 2012), (d) elicitation technique within interviews (e.g., , and focus groups, (e) secondary data to enable the construction of chronology of events and explore details of events (e.g., , (5). ...
A growing body of literature is focused on subsistence markets and how marketing interventions can increase well‐being for those whose daily existence is a struggle to ensure access to necessities of life. To understand the lifeworld of those living at the subsistence level, interviews are favored as a data collection tool. This methodological paper examines interviewing in the subsistence context with a focus on women whose lived experiences are affected by the intersection of gender, power imbalance, and culture. The study context is India. Specifically, we draw upon data from three previous author‐conducted academic studies and conduct a reflective analysis that leads to a series of reflections and recommendations for the interview process. This paper calls for more work to be done in the area and raises the need for a new research paradigm rather than reliance on western‐oriented approaches that may not fit the context. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... Improving people's well-being, especially those in poverty, has become the goal of governments and organizations and a research interest for the transformative service research (TSR) agenda (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). An alternative to improve individuals' well-being is social innovation (TEPSIE, 2014), which has been defined as a novel solution to a social problem (Phills et al., 2008, p. 36), focused on the users' needs and benefiting communities rather than specific individuals (Gupta et al., 2020). ...
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the intersection between service and social innovation, using a service-dominant logic (SDL) ecosystem approach to analyze how service innovations cocreate transformative value for individuals and communities.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study, with different data sources, is used to understand different innovations in a program that provides financial training to women in poverty in Colombia.
Findings
In the program’s service ecosystem, actors worked in tandem to develop dialogical service innovations. These service innovations transformed into social innovations, cocreating transformative value at different levels of the service ecosystem, including beneficiaries, families and communities.
Research limitations/implications
First, this study illustrates how, during service value cocreation experiences, a dialogical innovation path occurs with the simultaneous participation of different service entities. Second, it uses transformative value cocreation to integrate service and social innovations conceptually. Third, it reveals how service innovation cocreates transformative value at different levels of the service ecosystem. Fourth, it shows how technology in its material and immaterial forms, working as an operand and operant role, respectively, facilitates service innovations.
Practical implications
This study illustrates how a wider service focus including all actors involved, in addition to a holistic view of beneficiaries, can prompt service and social innovations.
Originality/value
Service and social innovations have been seen as parallel fields. This study uses SDL to integrate these types of innovation processes and outcomes by applying the concept of transformative value.
... The persuasive intent of social networks has been addressed mainly in the marketing communication literature (van Noort, Antheunis, and van Reijmersdal 2012). Due to their stronger affinity and cohesiveness, the BOP consumers indicate that it is easier to persuade them through their social networks (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). The literature has argued that the effect of persuasive communication among BOP consumers is so subliminal that the low-literate consumers often fail to perceive a message as persuasive due to their strong affinity for community members (Pornpitakpan 2004). ...
This study examines how political marketers use the BOP social networks to make their political marketing communications reach and influence the voters at the BOP (Bottom of Pyramid). For this study, structural equation modeling was used to analyze the 1004 responses from BOP voters in West Bengal, India. Despite their strong networks and ties, the findings suggest that BOP communities do not vote for the political party helping (social capital) or representing (social representation) them. They do so while their social networks persuades them to engage in clientelistic and coercive pressures. The empirical model explaining the complex relationship of the need for social capital and representation, perceived persuasion, clientelism, and coercion will help stakeholders working with the BOP segment to get a more nuanced understanding of their voting behavior. This understanding will help them formulate programs and policies to improve the socio-economic conditions at the BOP.
... Several individuals could be in a situation of diminished or limited resources (e.g. impoverished populations) that constrain the realization of service exchange with important consequences for well-being (Dean and Indrianti, 2020). Therefore, the TSR stream called the service community to focus attention on these vulnerable consumers. ...
Purpose
Despite having inadequate resources, highly impoverished patients tend to seek and share health information over social media groups to improve each other’s well-being. This study aims to focus on access to health-care information for such patients and aims to provide an understanding of how online health-care communities (OHCs), as transformative service mediators, can be platforms for patients with chronic and nonchronic health conditions to share their experiences in a base-of-the-pyramid (BOP) context.
Design/methodology/approach
A large-scale survey among 658 respondents was conducted in a very low-income country. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
A model of patients’ experience sharing (PES), motivations and consequences for health-care services are introduced and tested. The result supports the PES model for patients with chronic health conditions, showing that utilitarian, hedonic and social value dimensions directly influence PES and indirectly influence patients’ continuance intention with OHCs and patient efforts. However, a mediating effect of PES was found only between the value dimensions and patients’ efforts. A negative moderation effect of medical mistrust was found in the relationship between utilitarian value and PES for both chronic and nonchronic patient groups.
Originality/value
This study is a pioneering attempt to develop and test a PES model in a BOP market.
... The enterprise is a complex entity of heterogeneous resources; that is, different organizations have their own core competitiveness resources and capabilities . The breakthrough and adaptation of resource constraints is the key process to achieve inclusive innovation (Dean & Indrianti, 2020). Organizational learning theory proposes that information acquisition is the starting point of learning. ...
Inclusive innovation is critical for poverty eradication and literature has identified several factors affecting inclusive innovation. However, our understanding of how organizational unlearning affects inclusive innovation is still limited. This study explores how organizational unlearning affects two dimensions of inclusive innovation (i.e., symbolic and substantive) via supply chain green learning and the moderating role of green control ambidexterity. We develop hypotheses based on organizational learning theory and organizational control theory and test hypotheses using survey data from 217 Chinese firms. The results indicate that supply chain green learning mediates the impacts of non‐environmental forgetting and environmental change on symbolic and substantive inclusive innovation. The results also reveal that the balanced dimension of green control ambidexterity strengthens the positive impact of supply chain green learning on substantive inclusive innovation, while the combined dimension of green control ambidexterity weakens the positive impact of supply chain green learning on symbolic inclusive innovation. This study enriches the literature and practice in the field of inclusive innovation and organizational control.
... As suggested and utilized by several authors, (i.e. Dean and Indrianti, 2020;Lam and Bianchi, 2019;Edgar et al., 2017;Wiese et al., 2015), and considering the exploratory nature of the study, researchers decided to adopt semi-structured interviews composed of five guiding topics which were chosen, a priori, based on the literature analysis. In addition, ad hoc questions were developed by the interviewer during the interview allowing participants to analyze the topic in greater depth. ...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the consumer's perspective regarding the relationship between services and well-being, contributing to the knowledge base in transformative service research (TSR). More specifically the aim was to understand consumers' perceptions of the relationship between services and well-being and their views about how companies can contribute (directly and/or indirectly) to achieve the well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
To reach the research aim, the study adopts an explorative inductive design, carried out through a qualitative approach and grounded in 30 in-depth interviews with consumers.
Findings
Service sustainability represents the fundamental characteristic that determines the service ability to be transformative, requiring the implementation of the triple bottom line dimensions: social, environmental and economic. It emerged that, in the consumer's mind, the service categories that present a stronger relationship between service and well-being are as follows: healthcare, financial and transport.
Originality/value
The paper proposes a conceptual framework to describe the consumer perspective of the services' transformative role in promoting well-being, providing a theoretical lens for conducting future research and continuing to expand transformative service research (TSR).
Purpose
Emerging transformative service research (TSR) studies adopt a service system lens to conceptualise well-being across the micro, meso and macro levels of aggregation, typically within an organisation. No TSR has yet examined well-being across multiple interconnected organisations at the highest level of aggregation, the meta or service ecosystem level. This study aims to explore how value co-creation and, critically, co-destruction among different actors across interacting organisations enhances or destroys multiple levels of well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses semi-structured, in-depth interviews to collect data from five types of key actors ( n = 35): players, team owners, tournament operations managers, casters and viewers, across 29 interconnected organisations in the oceanic esports industry. The interviews were coded using NVivo 12 and thematically analysed.
Findings
Resource integration on each level of aggregation within a service ecosystem (micro, meso, macro and meta) can co-create and co-destroy value, which leads to the enhancement and destruction of multiple levels of well-being (individual, collective, service system and service ecosystem). Value co-creation and co-destruction, as well as the resultant well-being outcomes, were interconnected across the different levels within the service ecosystem.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to incorporate a multi-actor perspective on the well-being consequences of value co-creation and value co-destruction within a service ecosystem as opposed to service system. Thus, this research also contributes to the minimal research which examines the outcomes of value co-destruction, rather than value co-creation, at multiple levels of aggregation.
Purpose
To explore how inclusive banking services are marketed to financially vulnerable consumers (FVCs) in Ghana from the perspective of managers. This study aims to explore this under-researched area and contribute towards a transformative service research in the country.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a multiple case study research approach to analyse six banks, including commercial, development, investment and rural and community banks. Specifically, semi-structured interviews and archival documents were used to collect data from the perspectives of bank managers.
Findings
The empirical research based on practical and theoretical models shows that Ghanaian banks design an array of financial products and services (FPS), adopt innovative traditional marketing strategies and apply inclusive technologies to reach out to the FVCs.
Research limitations/implications
The authors conducted this study on six banks in Ghana; thus, service researchers are cautioned when generalising the findings and conclusions in other contexts beyond the country of focus.
Practical implications
This study offers practical ideas to guide marketers to better understand how banks market their inclusive banking services to FVCs.
Social implications
This paper provides implications for addressing financial inclusion amongst the “unbanked”, “underserved” and “unserved” collectively known as the FVCs and how Ghanaian banks design FPS to improve service research and well-being outcomes.
Originality/value
This study provides vital information to policymakers in designing FPS aimed at achieving an inclusive financial system to improve the well-being of FVCs in Ghana.
This study challenges the negative assumption that older customers struggle to adapt to e-service by exploring the positive influence of their participation on transformative value co-creation. A two-phase mixed-methods approach was adopted to develop and validate the research model. The results found that customer participation, including information sharing, responsible behaviors, and in-role feedback, promotes older customers' digital skills and basic needs satisfaction, leading to higher appreciation of digital affordances and well-being. Additionally, online employees’ customer orientation positively moderates the above relationships. This study provides insight for service providers to include older customers in e-services.
This study aimed to evaluate the financial wellbeing experiences of digital payment systems in Ghana, an emerging economy, using a case study with special emphasis on gender and age. Quantitative data were obtained from customers and mobile money agents operating in two poor rural districts. The study established a significant positive connection between security and satisfaction, ease of use and satisfaction, and convenience and satisfaction in relation to digital payment systems in emerging markets. Also, customer satisfaction mediates trust and the digital payment experience of the poor. The findings also revealed that customer experience of digital payment systems differs based on gender and age categories. Males appeared to value ease of use rather than great customer experience, whereas females valued security over great customer experience. Great customer experience leads to stronger trust levels among female users than males. Also, younger users were more concerned with issues of convenience, while older customers placed a higher premium on security.
Purpose
Transformative service research (TSR) and social marketing share a common goal, which is to institute social change that improves individual and societal well-being. However, the mechanism via which such improved well-being results or so-called “transformation” occurs, is not well understood. The purpose of this paper is to examine the claims made in the TSR literature to identity the themes and scholarly meaning of “transformative” service exchange; ascertain the mechanisms used in service contexts to realize transformation, including to motivate long-term, sustainable societal change; and develop a transformative service exchange continuum to guide research and managerial approaches that aim to create uplifting social change. The authors recommend their continuum as a framework to inform how social marketing and service scholars design service solutions to address wicked social problems.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents a qualitative study where Leximancer, a text-mining tool, is used to visualize the structure of themes and concepts that define transformative service exchanges as explained and applied in the literature. Additionally, a profiling analysis of transformation as it is discussed in the TSR literature is used to identify the mechanisms that service marketers have developed to establish current theorization of service thinking for social change. These qualitative phases of analysis then inform the development of the transformative service exchange continuum.
Findings
A scoping review identified 51 articles across 12 journals, based on this study’s selection criteria for identifying transformative service exchanges. The Leximancer analysis systematically and efficiently guided the authors’ interpretation of the large data corpus and was used in the identification of service themes. The use of text-mining software afforded a detailed lens to enrich the authors’ interpretation and clarification of six high-level concepts for inclusion on a transformative service exchange continuum.
Originality/value
This paper aims to unpack the meaning of transformative service exchange by highlighting the mechanism(s) used by researchers when designing social change outcomes. It contributes to TSR via the development of the continuum across micro, meso and macro levels. The temporal nature of transformative service exchanges is also elucidated. This continuum integrates current TSR studies and can guide future service studies in the TSR and social marketing domains.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to challenge service researchers to design for service inclusion, with an overall goal of achieving inclusion by 2050. The authors present service inclusion as an egalitarian system that provides customers with fair access to a service, fair treatment during a service and fair opportunity to exit a service.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on transformative service research, a transformative, human-centered approach to service design is proposed to foster service inclusion and to provide a platform for managerial action. This conceptual study explores the history of service exclusion and examines contemporary demographic trends that suggest the possibility of worsening service exclusion for consumers worldwide.
Findings
Service inclusion represents a paradigm shift to higher levels of understanding of service systems and their fundamental role in human well-being. The authors argue that focused design for service inclusion is necessary to make service systems more egalitarian.
Research limitations/implications
The authors propose four pillars of service inclusion: enabling opportunity, offering choice, relieving suffering and fostering happiness.
Practical implications
Service organizations are encouraged to design their offerings in a manner that promotes inclusion and permits customers to realize value.
Originality/value
This comprehensive research agenda challenges service scholars to use design to create inclusive service systems worldwide by the year 2050. The authors establish the moral imperative of design for service inclusion.
Purpose
Consumer experiences of healthcare services are challenging for researchers to study because of the complex, intangible and temporal nature of service provision. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a novel longitudinal three-phase research protocol, which combines iterative interviewing with visual techniques. This approach is utilised to study consumer service experiences, dimensions of consumer value and consumer value co-creation in a transformational service setting: complementary and alternative medicine healthcare.
Design/methodology/approach
This research employed a three-phase qualitative longitudinal research protocol, which incorporated: an initial in-depth interview, implementation of the visual elicitation technique Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique and a final interview to gain participant feedback on the analysis of data collected in the first two phases.
Findings
Four key benefits derived from using the three-phase protocol are reported: confirmation and elaboration of consumer value themes, emergence of underreported themes, evidence of transformation and refinement of themes, ensuring dependability of data and subsequent theory development.
Originality/value
The study provides evidence that a longitudinal multi-method approach using in-depth interviews and visual methods is a powerful tool that service researchers should consider, particularly for transformative service research settings with sensitive contexts, such as healthcare, and when studying difficult to articulate concepts, such as consumer value and value co-creation.
A number of services within society are designed to improve the well-being of its members and transform lives. Some services focus on the protection and support of vulnerable members of society, for example, those suffering the effects of drug use, mental health conditions, violence or poverty. Clients of such social services may also come from minority or marginalized cultural backgrounds. Typically, social services aim to reduce
disparities and enhance individual and population well-being. A major challenge for social policy-makers and social service providers is to establish and maintain constructive engagement between the social services and those they are intended to serve. Some of these vulnerable clients are deemed ‘hard-to-reach’ (HTR) by policy-makers and service providers. Yet, the transformation of lives requires the involvement of the focal actor (client) and their service or activity system, as well as the engagement of other actors, such as the social worker embedded in their service or activity system. This paper aims to further unpack a novel approach, called integrative transformative service framework. This contribution extends its conceptualisation which fuses mainly three different approaches, namely Transformative Service Research (TSR), (Cultural-Historical) Activity Theory (CHAT) and (Regulatory) Engagement Theory (RET).
Purpose
This research investigates new innovative service models that provide opportunities for hearing and deaf individuals to switch roles within a co-created service encounter to allow for an enhanced perspective-taking experience. The purpose of this paper is to gain an in-depth understanding of deaf individuals’ experience working within such models using their preferred language, American sign language, to interact with a primarily hearing-majority customer base.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected for two studies through qualitative depth-interviews with both the deaf service employees and the hearing-majority customers from a North American restaurant founded on this innovative service model.
Findings
Results of these studies yield new insights into understanding the value generated for both the minority and majority populations within this co-creation platform. Notably, the deaf employees primarily recognize the transformative value derived from this service experience, whereas the hearing customers note the missing habitual value elements to which they are accustomed in traditional service encounters that inhibit repatronage intentions.
Originality/value
This is the first study to investigate the interpersonal service experience of deaf and hearing individuals within these emerging service models. Further, this research represents an initial attempt to explore a co-creative service experience between two different cultures, the deaf-minority and hearing-majority populations, with differing levels of ability.
The past 15 years have witnessed an exponential growth in business activities aimed at serving the needs and increasing the well-being of disenfranchised individuals in low-income communities. Thousands of new business initiatives, development institution programs, and innovative investment funds focused on poverty alleviation have emerged during this time. Similarly, since the late 1990s when Prahalad and Hart first coined the term Bottom of Pyramid (BoP), and suggested a new, enterprise-based approach to poverty alleviation, there has also been a steady rise in research on business and poverty. A whole new lexicon emerged to describe this phenomenon, including phrases like “inclusive business,” “subsistence market places,” “frugal innovation,” and “impact investing.” Unfortunately, management theory and research have not advanced at the same pace with the BoP business revolution, and consequently knowledge about parameters for successfully integrating business, poverty alleviation and sustainable development still remains ambiguous.
There is a lack of research on service consumption practices of Base of the Pyramid consumers. This study contributes to the Transformative Service Research agenda by understanding stigmatized service consumption practices and their effect on the well-being of these consumers; this has not been fully addressed until now. Additionally, it is shown that understanding the relations among consumers, communities, and informal service offerings results in the design of services with unintentional positive effects on well-being at individual, collective, and relational levels. Findings show that informal service offerings are non-discriminatory, hassle-free, jargon-free, and reputation-based. These findings pave the way to further explore such complex contexts to better understand the impact of service design on the well-being of such consumers. Positive practices can be adopted by any service industry that intends to serve that segment through the intentional redesign of offerings that are engaging, inclusive, and simple and acknowledge social standing.
This article conceptualises transformative service research and encourages service researchers to engage in research activities that promote human well-being. The authors advance a new research agenda that, unlike traditional service research, treats outcomes related to consumer well-being, including quality of life issues, as important, managerially relevant, and worthy of study. Both (i) services/service systems that already possess transformational qualities through their inherent design and are intended to enhance well-being (but in actuality may not do so) and (ii) other services/service systems that do not focus on transformational qualities but could enhance or unintentionally hurt well-being are worthy of additional research and study. Although transformative service research may be challenging, we argue that both consumers and the organizations that serve them may benefit from research that examines how services can and do improve or reduce the welfare of individuals, communities, nations, and the global ecosystem.
Fundamental to emerging theories of value cocreation is a developing awareness that value emerges in networks. Service networks form to address issues for those in need, and value is conceived differently by the various constituents in the network. To represent this reality, a core service interaction, the reason for the construction of the network, is evaluated based upon a typology of value-creating interaction styles. Next, the potential impact on transformative value cocreation of various relationships in a service network is explored. To illustrate value cocreation from a network perspective, this paper develops research propositions assessing cocreated value in a health service network. Network factors regarding the structural and relationship properties of networks that advance the theory of value cocreation are proposed. Finally, suggestions for managers include ways to engage service network entities to enhance communication to foster a balanced, mutualistic relationship that optimizes cocreated value. Organizations need to better identify and activate customers' support networks in order to facilitate enhanced collaboration and communication.
Service-dominant logic continues its evolution, facilitated by an active community of scholars throughout the world. Along its evolutionary path, there has been increased recognition of the need for a crisper and more precise delineation of the foundational premises and specification of the axioms of S-D logic. It also has become apparent that a limitation of the current foundational premises/axioms is the absence of a clearly articulated specification of the mechanisms of (often massive-scale) coordination and cooperation involved in the cocreation of value through markets and, more broadly, in society. This is especially important because markets are even more about cooperation than about the competition that is more frequently discussed. To alleviate this limitation and facilitate a better understanding of cooperation (and coordination), an eleventh foundational premise (fifth axiom) is introduced, focusing on the role of institutions and institutional arrangements in systems of value cocreation: service ecosystems. Literature on institutions across multiple social disciplines, including marketing, is briefly reviewed and offered as further support for this fifth axiom.
A growing number of consumers are seeking to make a difference through experiences involving interaction and collaboration with organizations that offer charitable service opportunities. These experiences are noteworthy in not only their catalyzing influence on the organization and the beneficiary customer, but also the personal transformation in the volunteer. The authors introduce a phenomenon called transformative charity experiences (TCEs), a triadic framework highlighting an avenue of personal consumer well-being through the transformative effect of service interactions with key stakeholders. Building upon conceptual models proposed in Transformative Services Research and insights from their own embedded charity experiences, the authors introduce how service co-creation from three entities (charity, volunteer, and community) can lead to a transformative effect for the volunteer. An exploratory field study in an international setting provides insights into how the proposed framework accounts for TCEs. Implications and future directions for charitable services research are presented.
This paper takes a closer look at the emerging topic of transformative service research (TSR) and compares its facets with the more established concept of the service-dominant logic (SDL). The paper thus contributes to both theory development and practical application. This work highlights the conceptual parallels in the two approaches, for example, their holistic approach, their systems thinking, addressing entities or actors within such system(s), inclusion of the wider environment, and their focus on the co-creative and interactive nature of well-being generation and value co-creation. The paper also reveals some differences, for example TSR’s focus on eudaimonic and hedonic well-being outcomes vs. SDL’s value co-creation. The paper concludes that both perspectives have merits, but could benefit from being used integratively. By comparing the areas of theory focus, practical application, value co-creation and co-destruction, intentionality, well-being and value concepts, and TSR and SDL’s “logic”, the paper provides suggestions for future research.
Value creation, both its nature and scope, can be better and more accurately understood by inverting six characteristics of goods-dominant logic, or what is also known as old enterprise logic or neoclassical economics, into a service-dominant-informed perspective. These six inversions include (1) entrepreneurship and the view that value creation is an unfolding, emergent process seen as superordinate to management, (2) effectual processes understood as primary in relation to predictive processes and better for informing actors about the interactive, resource-integrating, collaborate nature of value creation, (3) marketing being fundamental to value creation and taking primacy over manufacturing, (4) innovation as more fundamental to, and descriptive of, value creation than invention, (5) a focus on effectiveness as captured by value in use and value in context for beneficial actors taking precedence over efficiency, which is inherently a firm-centric lens, and finally (6) the the predominant reliance on heuristics rather than rational, calculative decision making.
The pursuit of upward social transformation through service design and practice demands rigorous thinking about what this kind of change looks like and how it comes about. To advance these two goals, this study conceptualizes transformative value, defined as a social dimension of value creation which illuminates uplifting changes among individuals and collectives in the marketplace. Conceptual development draws on structuration theory and the service-dominant logic to articulate the spheres of transformative value as well as four distinctions between habitual and transformative value. Ethnographic analysis with a nonprofit service,
which focuses on mitigating the inequalities of poverty, explores how service providers can facilitate transformative value. Findings highlight the roles of holistic value propositions, an anti-structural servicescape, and communal service practices. Beyond micro level social impact, findings also reveal the macro level reach of transformative value by demonstrating how services can contest and transform dominant social structures and stimulate social action. Discussion highlights the implications of transformative
value for human agency and ways to design services that promote well-being among vulnerable populations.
Recently, the disagreement that separates hedonic from eudaimonic philosophers has spread to the science of wellbeing. This has resulted in two opposing perspectives regarding both wellbeing concepts and proposed pathways to wellbeing. Whilst contention continues, most contemporary psychologists now agree that hedonic and eudaimonic approaches each denote important aspects of wellbeing. This has led to integrated wellbeing conceptualisations, in which the combined presence of hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing components is referred to as ‘flourishing’. In regard to the attainment of wellbeing, research simultaneously investigating hedonic and eudaimonic pathways suggests that a life rich in both types of pursuits is associated with the highest degree of wellbeing. Despite this assertion, previously underemphasised methodological limitations question the validity of such claims. To further progress this important area of investigation, future research directions to ameliorate said limitations are explored. It is recommended that the past tendency to contrast and compare hedonia and eudaimonia be abandoned, and instead that the inherent value of both be recognised. Time-use research methods are needed to cross-validate past findings obtained from cross-sectional research, which will make it possible to transition from purely descriptive conclusions to applied conclusions.<br /
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.
Purpose
– The article aims to combine research priorities in the service domain with the emerging topic of service management for the base of the pyramid (BoP). This combination allows us to construct an agenda for service research at the BoP.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper uses bibliographic methods for structuring the BoP contributions, and a literature review for the current research priorities in the service domain.
Findings
– First, the paper highlights the main topics in the emerging BoP debate. Second, the paper constructs a research agenda for service management at the BoP. This agenda can guide service researchers in the selection of feasible empirical fields, support them in finding appropriate research designs, and finally, help them to develop suitable theoretical perspectives.
Research limitations/implications
– Limitations arise from the literature review and bibliographic methods themselves.
Practical implications
– Service research on the BoP provides new ideas for practitioners interested in learning about BoP markets, strategies, and entrepreneurial initiatives.
Social implications
– Understanding the need to explore BoP activities is fundamental to working with a huge segment of society, not only as passive consumers, but also as genuine entrepreneurs capable of creating and managing “inclusive” innovations.
Originality/value
– The research agenda for future service management offers a relevant source of ideas and guidance for interested researchers to rethink their empirical fields, research approaches, and theoretical perspectives.
This article explores a service-dominant (S-D) logic, service-ecosystems approach to studying value cocreation and the (re)formation of service systems. We outline the central premises of S-D logic and elaborate the concept of a service ecosystem to propose a framework that focuses on resource integration as a central means for connecting people and technology within and among service systems. This ecosystems view emphasizes the social factors that influence, and are influenced by, service-for-service exchange. We draw on systems theory and a structurational model of technology to underscore the importance of networks of actors, as well as institutions---e.g., rules, social norms---as critical components of service systems. We argue that this service-ecosystems framework provides a robust and dynamic approach for studying resource integration, value cocreation, and the (re)formation of service systems, and provides important insights for systematically innovating service.
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.
This article conceptualizes and presents a research agenda for the emerging area of transformative service research, which lies at the intersection of service research and transformative consumer research and focuses on well-being outcomes related to service and services. A conceptual framework provides a big-picture view of how the interaction between service entities (e.g., individual service employees, service processes or offerings, organizations) and consumer entities (e.g., individuals, collectives such as families or communities, the ecosystem) influences the well-being outcomes of both. Research questions derived from the framework in the context of financial services, health care, and social services help catalyze new research in the transformative service research domain.
Guidelines for determining nonprobabilistic sample sizes are virtually nonexistent. Purposive samples are the most commonly used form of nonprobabilistic sampling, and their size typically relies on the concept of “saturation,” or the point at which no new information or themes are observed in the data. Although the idea of saturation is helpful at the conceptual level, it provides little practical guidance for estimating sample sizes, prior to data collection, necessary for conducting quality research. Using data from a study involving sixty in-depth interviews with women in two West African countries, the authors systematically document the degree of data saturation and variability over the course of thematic analysis. They operationalize saturation and make evidence-based recommendations regarding nonprobabilistic sample sizes for interviews. Based on the data set, they found that saturation occurred within the first twelve interviews, although basic elements for metathemes were present as early as six interviews. Variability within the data followed similar patterns.
Given the significant, sustained growth in services experienced worldwide, Arizona State University’s Center for Services Leadership embarked on an 18-month effort to identify and articulate a set of global, interdisciplinary research priorities focused on the science of service. Diverse participation from academics in a variety of disciplines working in institutions around the world—in collaboration with business executives who lead organizations ranging from small startups to Global 1000 companies—formed the basis for development of the priorities. The process led to the identification of the following 10 overarching research priorities:
• Fostering service infusion and growth
• Improving well-being through transformative service
• Creating and maintaining a service culture
• Stimulating service innovation
• Enhancing service design
• Optimizing service networks and value chains
• Effectively branding and selling services
• Enhancing the service experience through cocreation
• Measuring and optimizing the value of service
• Leveraging technology to advance service
For each priority, several important and more specific topic areas for service research emerged from the process. The intent is that the priorities will spur service research by shedding light on the areas of greatest value and potential return to academia, business, and government. Through academic, business, and government collaboration, we can enhance our understanding of service and create new knowledge to help tackle the most important opportunities and challenges we face today.
Wellbeing is a growing area of research, yet the question of how it should be defined remains unanswered. This multi-disciplinary review explores past attempts to define wellbeing and provides an overview of the main theoretical perspectives, from the work of Aristotle to the present day. The article argues that many attempts at expressing its nature have focused purely on dimensions of wellbeing, rather than on definition. Among these theoretical perspectives, we highlight the pertinence of dynamic equilibrium theory of wellbeing (Headey & Wearing, 1989), the effect of life challenges on homeostasis (Cummins, 2010) and the lifespan model of development (Hendry & Kloep, 2002). Consequently, we conclude that it would be appropriate for a new definition of wellbeing to centre on a state of equilibrium or balance that can be affected by life events or challenges. The article closes by proposing this new definition, which we believe to be simple, universal in application, optimistic and a basis for measurement. This definition conveys the multi-faceted nature of wellbeing and can help individuals and policy makers move forward in their understanding of this popular term.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to propose and elaborate on a service‐dominant‐logic‐based conceptualization of relationship that transcends traditional conceptualizations.
Design/methodology/approach
– The paper consists of a review of traditional conceptualizations of relationship, a review of service‐dominant logic foundational premises that are useful in reframing the concept, and supporting views from the institutional economics and business ecosystems literature.
Findings
– A transcending, service‐dominant‐logic‐based conceptualization of relationship as a general term representing the network‐with‐and‐within‐network nature of value creation, with transactions as “temporal isolates” of relationships is suggested.
Originality/value
– This higher‐order conceptualization of relationship provides a foundation for better understanding the role of relationship in value creation, as well as its correspondence to transactions and products.
According to service-dominant logic (S-D logic), all providers are service providers, and service is the fundamental basis of exchange. Value is co-created with customers and assessed on the basis
of value-in-context. However, the extensive literature on S-D logic could benefit from paying explicit attention to the fact that both service exchange and value co-creation are influenced by social forces. The aim of this study is to expand understanding of service exchange and value co-creation by complementing these central aspects of S-D logic with key concepts from social construction theories (social structures, social systems, roles, positions, interactions, and reproduction of social structures).
The study develops and describes a new framework for understanding how the concepts of service exchange and value co-creation
are affected by recognizing that they are embedded in social systems. The study contends that value should be understood as
value-in-social-context and that value is a social construction. Value co-creation is shaped by social forces, is reproduced
in social structures, and can be asymmetric for the actors involved. Service exchanges are dynamic, and actors learn and change
their roles within dynamic service systems.
KeywordsService-dominant logic–Service exchange–Value co-creation–Social construction theories–Structuration theory–Social interaction–Service system
Purpose
In today's competitive markets where market offerings are far more complicated and customer interfaces are far broader than conventional marketing models assume, marketing has become increasingly tactical and lost control of the customer management process. The purpose of this paper is to develop a promise management‐based approach to marketing with the goal of regaining customer management for marketing.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach takes the form of a conceptual analysis
Findings
According to the promise management approach marketing is viewed as a process of enabling and making promises as well as keeping promises in order to meet expectations created by promises made. Value creation in customer processes is considered the goal for marketing. It is claimed that by taking this view marketing can once again take full responsibility for customer management.
Research limitations/implications
The paper establishes a foundation for studying marketing as a process in situations where market offerings are multi‐faceted and include inputs from a range of company functions and processes. This is the case in business‐to‐business and service markets.
Practical implications
By adopting a promise management approach to marketing firms can broaden their understanding of marketing and make use of all aspects of customer management as part of an integrated marketing process.
Originality/value
The paper develops previous discussions in relationship marketing and service marketing of the promise concept and its role in marketing research into a comprehensive marketing framework.
Content analysis is a highly flexible research method that has been widely used in library and information science (LIS) studies with varying research goals and objectives. The research method is applied in qualitative, quantitative, and sometimes mixed modes of research frameworks and employs a wide range of analytical techniques to generate findings and put them into context. This article characterizes content analysis as a systematic, rigorous approach to analyzing documents obtained or generated in the course of research. It briefly describes the steps involved in content analysis, differentiates between quantitative and qualitative content analysis, and shows that content analysis serves the purposes of both quantitative research and qualitative research. The authors draw on selected LIS studies that have used content analysis to illustrate the concepts addressed in the article. The article also serves as a gateway to methodological books and articles that provide more detail about aspects of content analysis discussed only briefly in the article. published or submitted for publication
Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.
Communities have the potential to function effectively and adapt successfully in the aftermath of disasters. Drawing upon literatures in several disciplines, we present a theory of resilience that encompasses contemporary understandings of stress, adaptation, wellness, and resource dynamics. Community resilience is a process linking a network of adaptive capacities (resources with dynamic attributes) to adaptation after a disturbance or adversity. Community adaptation is manifest in population wellness, defined as high and non-disparate levels of mental and behavioral health, functioning, and quality of life. Community resilience emerges from four primary sets of adaptive capacities--Economic Development, Social Capital, Information and Communication, and Community Competence--that together provide a strategy for disaster readiness. To build collective resilience, communities must reduce risk and resource inequities, engage local people in mitigation, create organizational linkages, boost and protect social supports, and plan for not having a plan, which requires flexibility, decision-making skills, and trusted sources of information that function in the face of unknowns.
This introductory article is a biennial exercise to reflect on the stream of subsistence marketplaces as a prelude to the special section on this topic following the Sixth Subsistence Marketplaces Conference in 2016. The call for papers was not restricted to conference presentations. At the end of the review process, the special section contained four articles spanning a diverse set of topics. The authors provide an overview of the subsistence marketplaces stream and a background of the conference series. This is followed by a brief introduction to the special issue. They then discuss the what, how, and why for past and future work on subsistence marketplaces.
Purpose
This study aims to understand the engagement between an indigenous social service provider and marginalised clients deemed “hard-to-reach” to gain an insight into how to improve the client’s engagement and well-being through transformative value co-creation.
Design/methodology/approach
The exploratory study’s findings draw on primary data employing a qualitative research approach through document analysis and in-depth interviews with clients, social workers and stakeholders of the focal social service provider in New Zealand.
Findings
The findings indicate that there are inhibitors and enablers of value or well-being co-creation. The lack of client resources and a mismatch between client and social worker are primary barriers. Other actors as well as cultural practices are identified as enablers of well-being improvement.
Research limitations/implications
This research reports on a single social service provider and its clients. These findings may not be readily transferrable to other contexts.
Practical implications
Findings indicate that social service providers require a heightened awareness of the inhibitors and enablers of social service co-creation.
Social implications
Both the integrative framework and the findings provide a sound critique of the prevailing policy discourse surrounding the stigmatisation of members of society deemed “hard-to-reach” and the usefulness of such an approach when aiming at resolving social issues.
Originality/value
This is the first exploratory study that reports on the engagement between a social service provider and its clients in a dedicated Māori (indigenous) context by employing an integrative research approach combining transformative service research, activity theory and engagement theory.
The base of the pyramid (BOP) approach suggests that business with low-income consumers or producers can simultaneously foster well-being, environmental sustainability, and profits. A central tenet of the BOP approach is cocreation between companies, low-income communities, and other actors. However, recent research has strongly questioned the necessity and feasibility of such cocreation. This article undertakes a systematic review of BOP research on cocreation and finds a considerable range in the proposed participants and purpose of cocreation: Cocreation can refer to a deep process of social transformation or, at the other extreme, arms-length cooperation that merely legitimizes a corporation as a development agent. Drawing on development studies, this review proposes a framework for organizing the diverse conceptualizations, and shows how the framework facilitates elaboration on the necessity and feasibility of cocreation at the BOP.
Practice and experience are central concepts in service logic (SL), and research has provided increasingly sophisticated accounts of their role within value creation. However, to date, they have been largely treated separately and despite acknowledgement that they are intertwined, the precise nature of their relationship remains unclear. To respond to this problem, we introduce Bourdieu’s recursive triad of practice–habitus–field as a theoretical lens to articulate how sensemaking processes incorporate an explicit link between practice and experience. We then utilize the theoretical lens to examine value creation for participants of a self-reliance training course. Our article contributes to the theorization of value creation by showing how it is dependent upon the temporal intertwining of practice and experience; how the unconscious or anticipated/foreseen nature of practice and experience become manifested in value creation and how zooming in and zooming out can be simultaneously achieved to acknowledge the individual and contextual influences upon value creation. We present a dynamic model of practice-experience links in value creation, which both extends the theory of SL and provides a basis for further work. The article concludes with managerial implications.
This brief perspective article presents and synthesizes few of the dominant themes emerging in the extant literature on BOP (bottom of the pyramid) marketing, in the backdrop of this special issue dedicated to ‘re-thinking marketing’ in a fresh light. The article draws on how the extant understanding of poor customers pales in comparison to how much we know about non-poor customers. In the end the article proposes a brief wish list of few of the interesting research domains that can be taken up by emerging and new BOP scholars in the area of ‘Poor Marketing’. Few interesting research questions include the following: (1) How poor consumers re-invent their new social image in the light of the constraints of the poor markets? (2) What role consumption plays to enhance the impact of pleasure on various aspects of the lives of the poor consumers? (3) How formation of communities helps the poor consumers to enhance the cooperation in resource-lean environments? (4) How social stratification (e.g., caste system in India) impacts social transformation of poor markets, and BOP market development? and (5) How BOP entrepreneurship impacts on social transformation at BOP?
Two-thirds of the world's population lives in poverty, a global problem that researchers from a wide variety of disciplines study. Yet there is a fundamental lack of service research pertaining to this huge segment of society, commonly known as the base of the pyramid. This segment offers a rich source of information that could help break new ground in service research, by exploring services in contexts in which its current concepts, models, theories, and generalizations might not apply the same way. This article starts by exploring key contributions in base of the pyramid literature and identifying the main perspectives from which extant knowledge has developed. By revising existing service research priorities to identify useful intersections with base of the pyramid perspectives, this study offers new grounds deriving five research streams that reflect the integration of base of the pyramid research perspectives with service research priorities. Finally, this article details the emerging area of base of the pyramid service research using one of those research priorities, namely, transformative service research, in an effort to specify the relevant objectives, scopes, differences, and similarities and thereby identify common grounds for future service research at the base of the pyramid.
The context in which service is delivered and experienced has, in many respects, fundamentally changed. For instance, advances in technology, especially information technology, are leading to a proliferation of revolutionary services and changing how customers serve themselves before, during, and after purchase. To understand this changing landscape, the authors engaged in an international and interdisciplinary research effort to identify research priorities that have the potential to advance the service field and benefit customers, organizations, and society. The priority-setting process was informed by roundtable discussions with researchers affiliated with service research centers and networks located around the world and resulted in the following 12 service research priorities:
Recently, the disagreement that separates hedonic from eudaimonic philosophers has spread to the science of wellbeing. This has resulted in two opposing perspectives regarding both wellbeing concepts and proposed pathways to wellbeing. Whilst contention continues, most contemporary psychologists now agree that hedonic and eudaimonic approaches each denote important aspects of wellbeing. This has led to integrated wellbeing conceptualisations, in which the combined presence of hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing components is referred to as ‘flourishing’. In regard to the attainment of wellbeing, research simultaneously investigating hedonic and eudaimonic pathways suggests that a life rich in both types of pursuits is associated with the highest degree of wellbeing. Despite this assertion, previously underemphasised methodological limitations question the validity of such claims. To further progress this important area of investigation, future research directions to ameliorate said limitations are explored. It is recommended that the past tendency to contrast and compare hedonia and eudaimonia be abandoned, and instead that the inherent value of both be recognised. Time-use research methods are needed to cross-validate past findings obtained from cross-sectional research, which will make it possible to transition from purely descriptive conclusions to applied conclusions.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into indigenous, solution-based business models and their relevance for inclusive service innovation within specific social contexts in emerging economies, with particular emphasis on the role of culture and technology.
Design/methodology/approach
– A proposed framework illustrates four factors that nurture socially driven service innovation in emerging economies: solution, inclusion, culture, and technology. Extant literature from studies in India, Latin America, and China illustrates distinct indigenous innovations and service relationships that exist at the base of the pyramid (BoP), which provides a foundation for a better understanding of socially inclusive service innovations.
Findings
– A conceptual model of inclusive service innovation reflects an integrated, virtuous cycle, composed of service relationships that stem from the BoP at various levels of analysis across different income segments. These findings suggest notable research directions.
Practical implications
– This study reinforces the importance of a solution orientation as a competitive business model to gain customer engagement.
Social implications
– Researchers and practitioners in emerging and advanced economies can use the approach suggested by this paper in their efforts to build sustainable business cultures and improve the well-being of society.
Originality/value
– Previous research has not addressed the social or communal roles of service innovation; this study proposes an innovative switch from a traditional strategy of selling services toward a proactive approach that involves low-income customers as active resources to co-create social and business value.
Companies are recognizing and pursuing the opportunity to serve the market known as the base of the pyramid (BOP), i.e., consumers who live in poverty in developing countries. The BOP constitutes the largest remaining global market frontier for businesses. Until recently, it has been ignored because of its seeming unattractiveness and insurmountable challenges compared with middle- and high-income markets. However, BOP consumers desire and are able to pay for quality products tailored to their needs. In response, firms are developing new products specific to the demands and conditions of this low-income population. To innovate effectively, ensuring new products are well received, firms need to know how to enhance new product adoption among these consumers despite the barriers of poverty. We address this need by developing a model of adoption contextualized to the BOP. Based on theories of innovation and poverty, and drawing on the emergent subsistence market literature, we propose that certain new product characteristics, social context dynamics, and marketing environment approaches moderate or counter some of the limits of poverty, making adoption possible. We then discuss the managerial and theoretical implications of our model for innovation practitioners and researchers.
Billions of impoverished people deserve to be better served: a call to action for the service research community
Fisk, R.P., Anderson, L., Bowen, D.E., Gruber, T., Ostrom,
A., Patrício, L., Reynoso, J. and Sebastiani, R. (2016),
"Billions of impoverished people deserve to be better served:
a call to action for the service research community", Journal
of Service Management, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 43-55.
Surrounded by services: a new lens for examining the influence of services as social structures on well-being”, Working paper
- L Anderson
- A L Ostrom
- M J Bitner
Anderson, L., Ostrom, A.L. and Bitner, M.J. (2011),
"Surrounded by services: a new lens for examining the
influence of services as social structures on well-being",
Working paper, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona
State University.
How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability