Christian Grönroos and Annika Ravald
The purpose of this article is to analyze the scope, content and nature of value co‐creation in a service logic‐based view of value creation, addressing the customer's perspective…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to analyze the scope, content and nature of value co‐creation in a service logic‐based view of value creation, addressing the customer's perspective in a supplier‐customer relationship. The nature of the activities and the roles of the supplier and the customer in value creation and co‐creation are analyzed. Furthermore, the purpose is to discuss what implications for marketing can be derived from this analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
The article analyzes the marketing implications that follow from the pivotal role of interactions in service provision. The article, thus, builds on a long history in service marketing research pointing at the impact on the content and scope of marketing of customer‐supplier interactions.
Findings
In this article, it is concluded that creating customer value is a multilaned process consisting of two conceptually distinct subprocesses. These are the supplier's process of providing resources for customer's use and the customer's process of turning service into value. The article results in five service logic theses which provide an understanding of the process of value creation and its implications for marketing. The theses offer a terminology that helps researchers and practitioners to understand the various roles of suppliers and customers in value creation and to analyze opportunities for co‐creation of value.
Originality/value
The findings of this article challenge some of the salient propositions of the emerging service‐dominant logic, i.e. customers as co‐creators of value, and firms can only make value propositions. The role of marketing is reframed beyond its conventional borders.
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Annika Ravald and Christian Grönroos
The value concept is a basic constituent of relationship marketing. The ability to provide superior value to customers is a prerequisite when trying to establish and maintain…
Abstract
The value concept is a basic constituent of relationship marketing. The ability to provide superior value to customers is a prerequisite when trying to establish and maintain long‐term customer relationships. Stresses the fact that the underlying construct of customer satisfaction is more than a perception of the quality received. What must be taken into account as well is the customer’s need of quality improvements and his willingness to pay for it. From a relationship perspective these aspects are fundamental, since they are both related to the costs of the parties involved. Suggests that a reduction in customer‐perceived costs may be a most recommendable method of providing value to the customer, since, done properly, it can improve the internal cost efficiency as well. It is then possible to establish and maintain mutually profitable customer relationships, which is of prime concern in relationship marketing.
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Danilo Brozovic, Annika Ravald and Fredrik Nordin
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the honeybee colony metaphor as a tool to make sense of the dynamics of service systems surrounding a service relationship.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the honeybee colony metaphor as a tool to make sense of the dynamics of service systems surrounding a service relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on qualitative case research, this study develops and applies the metaphor of honeybee colonies as a tool to analytically and discursively draw parallels between different aspects of honeybees and service systems surrounding a service relationship, focusing on the dynamic nature of both.
Findings
The honeybee colony metaphor can serve as an analytical tool, helping managers to make sense of the dynamics of service interactions and, as a discursive tool, giving sense to the strategic implications of service providers’ everyday activities.
Research limitations/implications
Few metaphors, no matter how complex, can wholly capture reality. The honeybee colony metaphor describes the dynamics surrounding a service relationship at a comprehensive level. Further research can focus on the metaphor’s particular aspects (the changing role of honeybees in the system, for example) or distortions (e.g. parasitic relationships).
Practical implications
The honeybee colony metaphor illustrates the strategic importance of part-time marketers; they “pollinate” and “fertilize” the customers and properly assessed information that they report represents a basis for strategic decisions.
Originality/value
The introduction of the honeybee colony metaphor in this paper provides a new lens for capturing the dynamic aspects of service systems surrounding a service relationship and the strategic implications derived from adopting a systemic outlook on service.
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The purpose of this paper is to record the author’s personal reflections on his career as a marketing scholar.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to record the author’s personal reflections on his career as a marketing scholar.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal reflections in an autobiographical approach.
Findings
The author’s career as student, teacher and scholar is described in some detail.
Originality/value
The paper records events and memories that might otherwise be forgotten. No other such account has been published of Christian Grönroos’s career.
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Abstract
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Jochen Wirtz and Christian Kowalkowski
The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross…
Abstract
Purpose
The business-to-business (B2B) marketing literature is heavily focused on the manufacturing sector. However, it is the B2B service sector that shows the highest growth in gross domestic product (GDP). Beyond a vibrant stream of literature on servitization, the B2B literature has neglected drawing on the wider service literature. This paper aims to examine recent streams of service research that have promising implications and research opportunities for B2B marketing.
Design/methodology/approach
Together, the author team has decades of research, managerial and executive teaching experience related to B2B marketing and services marketing and management. The observations and reflections in this paper originate from this unique perspective and are supplemented by insights from 16 expert interviews.
Findings
The authors identify and discuss in this paper four broad and related themes from the service literature that can stimulate B2B research and practice. First, the authors highlight the implications for capturing value in economies with their rapidly increasing specialization and related growth in B2B services. Specifically, the authors explain where B2B firms should focus on to gain bargaining power in the value chains of the future. Second, an additional strategy to enhance a B2B firm’s power to capture value is servitization, which allows firms to get closer to their customers, increase their switching costs and build strategic partnerships. The authors explore how firms can use service productization to enhance their chances of successful servitization. Third, servitization is expensive, and productivity and scalability are often a challenge in B2B contexts. These issues are tackled in a recent service research stream on cost-effective service excellence (CESE) where the authors derive implications for B2B firms. Fourth and related to CESE, latest developments in intelligent automation offer exciting opportunities for B2B services to be made more scalable.
Originality/value
This paper is based on the unique perspective of the author team and a panel of experts and connects major streams of service research to the B2B literature.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the politics involved in local struggles against forestry extractivism. The forestry sector is dependent on vast areas of land for tree…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the politics involved in local struggles against forestry extractivism. The forestry sector is dependent on vast areas of land for tree plantations. This creates deep-rooted conflicts between global corporations that seek access to natural resources and locals whose way of life requires the use of the same land.
Design/methodology/approach
This study draws on a political ontology frame of reference and storytelling methodology to build on testimonies of three small-scale farmers who actively seek to resist forestry plantations next to their land in rural Uruguay. The stories reveal the impossibilities they face when raising claims in the public political sphere and how they lack the means to organise strong collective resistance.
Findings
One of the testimonies reveals how the farmers engage in a form of “politics of place” (Escobar, 2001, 2008) to counter the power of the proponents of forestry and the further expansion of plantations. This form of politics strengthens and politicises the ontological difference between extractive and non-extractive worlds. The farmers seek to build new imaginations of rural living and sustainable futures without the presence of extractive corporations. They fulfil this aim by designing community projects that aim to revitalise ancient indigenous legends, set up agro-ecological farms, and teach schoolchildren about the environment.
Originality/value
The struggles of the farmers indicate the territorial transformations involved in (un)making (non)extractive places and the need to expand the analysis of the politics involved in struggles against extractivism beyond social struggles.
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The purpose of this study is to characterize how services present responsibilized consumers with well-being capabilities. This is done by drawing on structuration theory and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to characterize how services present responsibilized consumers with well-being capabilities. This is done by drawing on structuration theory and literatures on responsibilization, social well-being and psychological well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on conceptual development and a qualitative interpretive study of value propositions in texts and images on websites of 11 different self-tracking wearables and applications.
Findings
This paper introduces the changing–coping–countering characterization to explicate different types of well-being capabilities that are represented in services. These capabilities represent different stances towards structures. This paper proposes and discusses how these capabilities can have different impacts on well-being on individual and collective levels.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to the perspective of services in a self-tracking context. Further empirical research is needed to investigate well-being capabilities from consumer perspectives.
Practical implications
The proposed characterization can help practitioners in becoming more reflexive concerning their value propositions that relate to consumer well-being. This implies becoming aware of well-being discourses that shape and affect service development.
Originality/value
This paper provides a novel characterization for understanding the role of services in the context of responsibilization. It contributes to structural perspectives on the role of services in contributing to well-being.