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Resources are central to value creation processes. Hence, marketing and service research rely heavily on conceptualisations of resources and resource integration for theory building efforts. One of the most widely accepted marketing lenses on resources and resource integration is the service-dominant (S-D) logic. Depicting resources as becoming and contextual, S-D logic argues that their usefulness co-depends on other resources. Some assumptions of S-D logic have been challenged particularly its dichotomous categorisation of operand and operant resources. To inform ongoing S-D logic theorising, our article problematises the multiple and contradictory ontological views upon resources and resource integration present within S-D logic. Moving beyond critique, we propose concrete means for reconciling these contradictions. Seeing a parallel between S-D logic's ontological inconsistencies and past ontological disagreements in the philosophy of science, we draw on the philosophical perspective of Karen Barad to develop a consistent onto-epistemological foundation for conceptualising the becoming nature of resources in S-D logic. The theory adaptation we perform enhances the applicability and explanatory capacity of S-D logic, while also offering a more robust and rigorous foundation for marketing and service research at large and giving managers new means to make sense of co-dependent resource phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brands are increasingly seen in light of collaborative, value creation activities of a firm and all of its stakeholders. This is strongly influenced by the emergence and dominant role that social media plays in societies globally. With challenges presented for brand management and marketing scholarship more generally, to understand and react to the social implications presented for brand value creation. Accordingly, this study builds on the principles of S-D logic to expand understanding of the co-creation of brand value on social media. We introduce social construction theories, focusing on structuration theory. A conceptual model and propositions apply a structuration perspective to provide new insights into how brand value is socially constructed by multiple stakeholders using social media. The focus is on how stakeholder-brand interactions play out across three dimensions of social structure: meaning; norms; and power. We consider how brand meaning (and thus value), emerges out of consensus and dissensus between various stakeholders—brand loyalists and brand rebels—using social media to interact with brands. And how norms of behavior and structures of power guide and legitimize their social media use to reinforce, or potentially transform, brand meaning. Importantly, we consider how brand management can recognize the interactive opportunities provided by different social media platforms and the positions and roles of stakeholders and their social context in considering the social construction of brand value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selling practice is facing an unprecedented process of change that is redefining the logic of value co-creation and disrupting the nature of B2B relationships across several industries. This phenomenon is well-known in managerial practice but under-investigated at a theoretical level. Sales literature aligns on acknowledging that selling and value co-creation unfold within broader service ecosystems. However, the changes occurring in sales have been predominantly studied by focusing on the single elements affecting them. Based on a qualitative study of 48 sales experts, this research draws on the service ecosystem theory to offer a holistic perspective of the factors driving the transformation of selling for value co-creation. The proposal from the study is that value co-creation through selling is a systemic and multi-actor phenomenon, including two antecedents: Hybridization of salespeople and Digital ecosystem empowerment, two boundary conditions: Multi-actor integration and Acceleration, and 23 sub-dimensions driving change in selling. The study also provides guidance for managerial practices, which is crucial due to the high failure rate of attempts at transforming sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the interactions between authors/producers and consumers in the creation of products and services, whose value proposition rests on the story they tell – books, movies, games, etc. – narrative-based goods. We argue that their scope is not limited to the individual intrinsic experience and reinterpretation of the meanings of the story, described in the narrative consumption literature. We, therefore, propose a typology, which depicts the variety of possible instances of collective narrative consumption by distinguishing four types of interactions based on a hidden/open and confrontation-based/cooperation-based dialogue. Furthermore, we expand the analytical timeframe of transportation theories beyond the moment of consumption (narrative transportation). By incorporating insights from the concept of value co-creation based on the Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) literature we examine how value is co-created during the pre-, mid- and post-transportation phases in the case of all four interaction types. On this occasion, we also develop SDL by conceptualizing and providing examples for value co-creation that does not need direct individual producer-consumer interactions, whilst still significantly affecting both parties. The theoretical concepts are illustrated by practical examples of narrative consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little has been written about co-creational aspects of happiness. Happiness is generally treated in the marketing literature as an individual outcome of exchange. However, the notion of value in exchange has been challenged by service-dominant (S-D) logic. To stimulate the research discovery process, an account of co-creation of happiness is offered, based on the experience of the lead author, in playing blues music. We propose value is co-created in a context when it is perceived by an individual to be adding to their happiness/subjective well-being (SWB). Thus, the concepts of value and happiness/SWB are closely linked and interconnected. The contribution to S-D logic is in recognising the interconnectedness between value co-creation and happiness/SWB. In particular, this article draws attention to the co-creative role of the artist, in cultural ecosystems. This is relevant to the development of the field and has potentially significant implications for policy in allocating society's resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vargo and Lusch (V&L) have claimed that there was a movement from a goods-dominant logic to service-dominant logic in marketing. We problematise this narrative via attention to multiple strands of service discourse from the late 19th to mid-20th century. Our focus begins with the promotion of service in the economics literature. A close reading of a publication important to V&L's account reveals the politics associated with the rise of service discourse. This is elided in their work. Our genealogy subsequently engages with the publications of A. F. Sheldon. His views are unpacked and links to the Rotary Club explicated. The evidence indicates that service discourse was relational in orientation and ethically driven, with the intertwined themes in Sheldon and Rotary's publications generalised into an emergent 'theory of society' that had applicability around the world. We term this discursive formation 'service capitalism'. This perspective was contested by a 'counter manoeuvre' labelled 'service socialism'. Service socialism differed fundamentally from Sheldon's axiology, Rotary's service capitalism or the midpoint view detailed by Edward Filene due to its focus on the deleterious impact of the profit motive, the significance of 'use value', the reorientation from ownership to access-based consumption and attention to human welfare and economic security. Service socialism, we conclude, generates insights that require engagement today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore whether the ecosystem approach is required to understand the new service model of crowdfunding. The value proposition approach offers different interpretations for each of the eight levels of value co-creation as seen in the service ecosystem. A qualitative multiple case-study approach is used to analyze the two most representative crowdfunding platforms in Spain, Verkami and Lánzanos, in terms of the amounts of funds provided. This article offers an analysis of specific cases of crowdfunding in the arts and cultural sector through the biggest platforms in Spain. The sampling design could be improved by including the experiences of crowdfunding projects in other countries in the analysis. The findings could assist service managers and practitioners to improve planning of value cocreation through the value propositions approach, with a variety of actors within the service ecosystem. This article is a contribution to the development of service-dominant (SD) logic in relation to FP 7 and FP 10. Managerial contributions include the development of a crowdfunding service ecosystem model for arts managers, which offers not only a method of generating finance or economic value but also opportunities for strengthening bonds with customers and other stakeholders. This article is unique in that it integrates value proposition categories in micro-, meso-, and macrocontexts and analyzes the different kinds of cocreation that exist in the crowdfunding context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To symbolize the importance of contextual factors of provision in the contemporary service era, in festival research, the term festivalscape has been proposed. Despite the large number of works investigating the construct, extant research does not adequately assess the systemic and interactive nature of festivals, which can be viewed as a set of interconnected elements. To bridge this gap, this article evaluates four festival attributes (atmosphere, service quality, people interaction and collateral services) according to service-dominant logic and service-ecosystem view. Current work examines a light festival organized in Salerno during the Christmas holiday using a sequential regression analysis, revealing the mediating role of experience and satisfaction in influencing behavioural intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article links service-dominant (S-D) logic to the call for better theoretical frameworks to understand research utilization in business and management. It contributes to explaining what happens in cocreating knowledge between researchers and research users and also contributes to the development of midrange theory on S-D logic. A framework is utilized, based on Vargo and Lusch's (2016) update on S-D logic. To demonstrate application, the framework is applied to an example of the authors' research on marketing agencies and their clients. Implications for theory and academic practice and policy are put forward. The S-D logic framework is not tied to any particular research method or way of working and has benefits in being applicable to marketing research and across the wider field of business and management. The idea of resource enhancement is put forward as a learning process in explaining what happens to the actors' resources in the course of resource integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few recent topics in marketing have met such immediate popularity and critique as Vargo and Lusch’s service-dominant logic (SDL). While many have criticized SDL scholarship for a lack of cultural sophistication, coherence, and relevance, it has nevertheless maintained and expanded its own distinct stream of ideas. Recently, Vargo and Lusch have proposed that SDL could be extended into a theory of society. We criticize this notion by contrasting their views on commodity value with Marxist and post-Marxist literatures, finding SDL ill-equipped to understand consumer culture, but also continuing to propagate simplistic and misguided views of “value” in commodity markets. We conclude by challenging SDL’s suitability as candidate for all-encompassing social theorizing because of its tacit neoliberalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers an historical account of the contestation surrounding MP3 and its legitimation as a consumer choice option. We juxtapose our narrative against the service-dominant logic (SDL) literature, which positions the consumer as the co-creator of value. In these debates issues of power and politics are downplayed. By contrast, we foreground the politicized processes that frame consumer choice options. Through a study of the legal disputes around MP3 and digital delivery services, we make a case that law courts provide the scaffolding for judgements of value in the market system. Contrary to proponents of SDL, value is not only a function of co-production between company and customer. Nor do all consumption practices acquire sufficient legitimacy to enter into legally sanctioned value co-creation interactions. This is a function of the ‘hyper-power’ practiced by the legal community and related actors, which constitute or deny value to product offerings. Value is not, therefore, necessarily phenomenologically determined by the ultimate consumer. Neither are they the sovereign individual of marketing lore. Their subjectivity is patterned by macro and meso actors and service provision is permitted when it is capable of enrolment within the circuits of capital accumulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to identify the antecedents of diminished value in business-to-business exchange. There is only a limited amount of research on value destruction in the context of service-dominant (S-D) logic and, to the best of our knowledge, no dyadic studies. From a business perspective, awareness of factors that have the potential to impede value creation will enable relationship partners to increase mutual value realization. The article examines the accuracy of the term ‘value co-destruction’ as a blanket description for interaction that results in value reduction, and proposes that, in many instances, ‘value diminution’ may be more appropriate. The study adopts an exploratory, qualitative approach. One-to-one interviews are conducted with clients and their creative agencies. The results suggest that diminished value outcomes are caused by resource deficiencies and resource misuse by both relational partners, separately and jointly. We propose a model of five higher-order antecedents of value diminution: absence of trust, inadequate communication, power/dependence imbalance, inadequate coordination and inadequate human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Value co-destruction is emerging as an important way to conceptualize non-positive outcomes from actor-to-actor interactions. However, current research in this area neither offers a clear way to understand how value co-destruction manifests nor does it consider the role of actor engagement behaviors. Drawing on a case study in the aerospace industry, the present study begins by identifying and describing two ways in which actor perceptions of value co-destruction form: goal prevention and net deficits. Next, the study identifies and describes nine actor engagement behaviors that moderate actor experiences of value co-destruction. The study also unpacks these concepts at both the actor-to-actor and service ecosystem levels. The article concludes with implications for marketing theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, social marketing has moved away from traditional marketing management approaches towards service-oriented theory, integrating concepts from other disciplines, to account for the distinctive nature of social change and develop an ecological perspective. This article extends prior literature by interrogating the applicability of service-dominant logic (SDL) to social marketing, with a particular emphasis on how a systems perspective can offer new ways to address challenges of social change. In so doing, it examines how the social marketing benchmarks can be extended through applying (and adapting) the principles, concepts and theories of SDL. The article provides critical reflection on the challenges of transferring service-dominant theory to social change contexts highlighting implications for practice and a future research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article outlines a framework of the transformation from the goods-dominant (G-D) to the service-dominant (S-D) logic in firms based on a case study of a bank. Drawing from institutional logic and practice theory, the article also contributes by discussing how the transformation from the G-D to the S-D logic takes place by means of the enactment of value creation practices and how such transformations are driven by institutional entrepreneurs and by conflicts between institutional logics. In addition, the article argues that the studied transformation is interwoven with changes in the professional identities of employees. Managerial implications include how managers may draw on the presented framework to transform their firm and its employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For more than a decade, marketing scholars in the field of service-dominant logic have discussed the ideas of customer value and value creation. An important element in customer value creation is the resources customers use in usage processes. A thorough investigation of these processes, however, is absent in the literature. The purposes of this article are to (1) provide a conceptual understanding of customer usage processes and (2) identify the dimensions for differentiating these processes. Building on an extensive literature review, we derive a conceptualization of customer usage processes and identify three dimensions to differentiate these processes, namely, actor intensity, interaction intensity, and resource intensity. We specify these dimensions further by using the repertory grid technique. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the nature of customer usage processes, the possibilities for differentiating them, and their relationship to the value creation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to further develop the conceptualization of value cocreation by discussing its dimensions and antecedents. We propose that in service interactions, value cocreation should be understood as a joint collaborative activity between service employees and customers, consisting of six dimensions, which correspond to simpler joint actions (individuating, relating, empowering, ethical, developmental, and concerted joint actions). Furthermore, we derive propositions about nine antecedents of value cocreation labeled as communicating, relating, and knowing factors. This article is among the first to propose a conceptually richer understanding of value cocreation illustrated via an analytical framework, which can drive both future research and guide managers interested in implementing the service-dominant logic (S-D logic) principles within their service providing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the ongoing discussion, revived by the service-dominant logic thesis, on value propositions in service organizations. Against a backdrop of understanding value as a pluralistic social construct that takes place across different institutionalized practices of valuation or regimes of value, we argue that value propositions transcend the immediate localness of both value in exchange and value in use. Correspondingly, we claim that service practitioners may draw advantages from engaging with a politics of value that addresses multiple regimes of value, whether commensurable or not. A case study of waste management services in Sweden serves as an illustration of such a politics that combines practical, economic, political, and environmental aspects of value propositions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of symbols in value cocreation in order to develop a deeper understanding of how actors communicate, interact, and reconcile perspectives as they integrate and exchange resources to create value for themselves and for others. We draw on a service ecosystems approach to value cocreation and propose a conceptual framework that highlights varying views of value and articulates the way in which value cocreation results from the integration of resources and interactions among multiple actors. We argue that symbols guide actors in enacting particular practices that enable the cocreation of shared meanings, which help actors determine the value of current and future interactions. In this way, symbols support the coordination of interaction, the communication of information, the integration of resources, and the evaluation of value, among actors. We provide an empirical example of our conceptual framework as supporting evidence for the role of symbols in value cocreation and point toward directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay reviews the purpose and history of the Service-dominant logic linked, biennial Forum on Markets and Marketing (FMM) and the community of scholars it is catalyzing. Five essays developed by the participants around the organizational themes of FMM 2010 – (1) resource integration; (2) value, values, symbols and outcomes; (3) systems, complexity and engineering; (4) markets and practices; (5) effectuation theory – are reviewed. It is suggested these themes can be better understood by the adoption of a generic, actor-to-actor (A2A) model of resource integrators engaged in mutual service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The underpinning logic of value co-creation in service logic is analysed. It is observed that some of the 10 foundational premises of the so-called service-dominant logic do not fully support an understanding of value creation and co-creation in a way that is meaningful for theoretical development and decision making in business and marketing practice. Without a thorough understanding of the interaction concept, the locus as well as nature and content of value co-creation cannot be identified. Value co-creation easily becomes a concept without substance. Based on the analysis in the present article, it is observed that the unique contribution of a service perspective on business (service logic) is not that customers always are co-creators of value, but rather that under certain circumstances the service provider gets opportunities to co-create value together with its customers. Finally, seven statements included in six of the foundational premises are reformulated accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This special issue continues the critical engagement with the popular discourses of Prahalad’s value co-creation paradigm and Vargo and Lusch’s service-dominant logic of marketing. The intensity of the debate among marketing scholars over these two marketing and management concepts demonstrates how much is at stake — conceptually and politically — when the roles of consumer and producer become blurred. Economic concepts of value, ownership, consumption, and production need to be redefined, and political ideas of the relationship between the social and the economic require addressing in the age of cognitive, or as we call it, collaborative capitalism. In addition to these broad theoretical challenges, the contributions in this issue zoom in on what arguably constitutes the central question for our specific field: What are the implications of a collaborative capitalism for understanding the place of marketing techniques in value creation? As with all good scholarship, the essays in this issue do not provide definitive answers but instead lead to a more elaborate set of questions. By doing so, they broaden the critical engagement with value co-creation in marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article serves as an introduction to a special section on ‘Extending Service-dominant Logic’, which includes articles developed from manuscripts presented at the Forum on Markets and Marketing held in Sydney, Australia. This special section is, in turn, part of a combined ‘special issue’, with related articles published in the Australasian Marketing Journal, the European Journal of Marketing, and the Journal of Macromarketing. Together with the articles in these journals, the four articles presented here move S-D logic closer to a theory of the market and marketing by further connecting conceptual dots and exploring the role of theory in relation to S-D logic, and S-D logic in relation to theoretical orientations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the discourse about service dominant (S-D) logic has been largely theoretical, with the main focus on exploring the foundations for an integrating general theory of markets and marketing. Little attention has been given to the role of theorizing, and how empirical evidence can be used to inform the theoretical development. This paper explores the bridging role of middle range theory in this process. First S-D logic is examined as a foundation for general theory. This leads to a discussion about the use of middle range theory to link general theory and empirical findings. The following sections examine the role that contemporary marketing practices (CMP) research plays in providing a bridge between S-D logic and empirical evidence. The paper concludes by considering implications for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work offers a framework for researchers by linking service-dominant (S-D) logic to an intersubjective stream of philosophy of science. Service-dominant logic has resonated in marketing, but no existing research has attempted to link S-D logic with basic meta-theory to provide a framework. Since the range of philosophies of science (isms) referred to in the marketing literature is broad, varying from ‘realism’ to ‘relativism’, from ‘positivism’ to ‘constructivism’ and from ‘structuralism’ to ‘post-structuralism/postmodernism’, first the different isms are grouped into four main groups/streams and then S-D logic is analyzed and classified according to these streams. The four streams are: object-orientation (realism, positivism, empiricism, and so on); subject orientation (constructivism, interpretivism, and so forth); intersubjective orientation (social constructionism, pancritical rationalism, methodological constructivism, and so on); and sign orientation (post-structuralism, postmodernism, and variations). S-D logic is mainly underpinned by an intersubjective orientation and has a huge potential for further development both in and for marketing if seen from a sign-orientated, post-structural perspective and linked to the theory of practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recurring theme in the place marketing literature relates to the inadequacies of traditional theory in accommodating the context specificity of places. Such special characteristics of place marketing relate to the complexity of place 'products', the complexity of the organizational mechanisms for their marketing, and the ways in which branding theory can be applied. This paper explores these three aspects through the 'mindset' of the service-dominant logic of marketing and its foundational premises. The paper concludes that, viewed through the lens of S-D logic, issues which have in the past been argued to create a degree of distinctiveness in place marketing theory and practice could actually have much resonance with more mainstream marketing. Thus, place marketing could be seen as being more similar to more 'mainstream' marketing practice than previous place marketing literature implies, and in some areas the specific place context may shed some light on issues relating to the service- dominant logic more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation in its many forms, for example, product, process, and relationship, is critical to firm growth and profitability. The service-dominant logic with its emphasis on an emerging experiential focus for marketing brings to the forefront significant opportunities for researchers and managers who adopt a symbolic interactionist perspective of customer-marketer relationships, regardless of whether they are end-use consumer-retailer or business customer-supplier relationships. This article discusses innovation, symbolic interactionism and customer value as they relate to each other and to marketing management and research under a service-dominant-logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is increasingly being recognized that brands play a major role in contributing to the value of service businesses (e.g. Berry, 2000; de Chernatony, 2003). However, in their award-winning article about the emerging service-dominant logic, Vargo and Lusch (2004) pay little attention to branding. This article explores the case for integrating branding into the service-dominant logic (S-D logic). We review how diverse perspectives of brands relate to the S-D logic and then examine Rust, Zeithaml and Lemon's (2000) claim that brand equity is a component of the concept of customer equity. Next we review some recent research about brands in relationships and then examine whether there is a missing fundamental premise in the S-D logic about the service brand. Finally we consider the development of stronger underlying theory that integrates the concepts of brand equity, customer equity and network equity into the S-D logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of its own foundational premises implies, the value of service-dominant (S-D) logic is necessarily in its open, collaborative effort. Thus, the authors invite and welcome both elaborative and critical viewpoints. Five recurring, contentious issues among collaborating scholars, as they attempt to understand the full nature and scope of S-D logic, are identified. These issues are clarified and refined, as is appropriate to this co-creation of a service-centric philosophy by the worldwide marketing community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]