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This paper aims to explore practice innovation and organizational resiliency during exogenous service ecosystem disruptions. This inquiry focuses on the extreme disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which required service firms to recodify long-established service scripts, adapt digital and physical material elements of the service encounter and ultimately reconfigure a system of practices. The specific context is forced practice innovation in Starbucks servicescape (kiosks and coffeehouses). Starbucks is best known for its custom beverages and third-place strategy. Their strict adherence to a complex service script and unique ordering practices altered during pandemic stay-home disease prevention mandates.

Thematic coding consistent with prior research on practice innovation and diffusion and a grounded theory methodology was conducted. Data were triangulated and analyzed within and across a variety of sources. These include field notes from direct observation, interviews, focus groups, firm-authored collateral in the form of marketing communications and third-party authored secondary sources such as news, social media, blogs and forums.

Data reveal how practice innovation occurs through the reconfiguration of a system of practices, which support organizational resiliency and can force brand evolution, in prolonged exogenous service ecosystem disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic required service industries to adapt and recodify service scripts and alter physical and digital elements of service encounters. While the pandemic affected all firms in the sector, we argue that Starbucks' established scripts and third-place strategies, which characterized the brand experience, were particularly vulnerable. We find that practice innovation occurs through the reconfiguration of practice elements – competences, meanings and materiality – and restructures the service encounter. Practice codification, transposition, adaptation and stabilization support organizational resiliency and brand evolution. We find that Starbucks' brand experience emphasis on the third place is reconceptualized from an in-person community-based retailscape to a platform-based strategy necessitating script recodification and practice adaptation. Our analysis of Starbucks' kiosks and coffeehouses illuminates how a distinctly branded service encounter is constituted by a system of practices that can be reconfigured and diffused anew in the face of disruption.

The conceptualization of practice innovation as systems reconfiguration establishes a novel approach to understanding innovation in service ecosystems. The COVID-19 pandemic is a unique context to study a sector-wide exogenous extended service disruption. We focus on a firm with an elaborate pre-pandemic service script and commitment to a third-place brand experience guiding its system of practices. We reveal unique insights on practice innovation within service ecosystems during exogenous prolonged disruptions in which brands evolve through the recodification of service scripts and sustained reconfiguration of systems of practice.

The purpose of this paper is to extend conceptually the context of service beyond service encounters and servicescapes by applying a service-ecosystem approach to context and experiential view on value.

We develop a conceptual framework of an extended service context that is based on an S-D logic, service-ecosystems view.

The service ecosystem approach proposed here contributes to the advancement of “services” marketing research by extending the context of service in two ways: its emphasis on service as the basis of all exchange allows the consideration of all instances of value-in-use, in-context, to be considered as a service experience; its conceptualization of context broadens the time/place dimensions that conventionally restrain research in service encounters and servicescapes beyond physical, social, symbolic and relational dimensions to consider the multiplicity of institutions across a wider socio-historic space.

This paper offers a broad conceptual framework for considering an extended view of service context. Future research is needed, both conceptual and empirical, to identify more specific components of service context and how they influence evaluations of experience.

Extending the scope of service context draws attention to the participation of customers and other actors in the co-creation of the service context, as well as the experience. This points toward the need to consider the competences and skills of customers as well as their socio-historic perspective in the design and development of a servicescape or more specific service encounter.

We offer a dynamic perspective of service context to help further the reach of services marketing research by extending the context of service across a variety of exchange encounters and pointing toward institutions as a central influence on phenomenological views of experience.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social and cultural aspects of the context that frames service exchange to better understand how value and experience are evaluated.

The authors apply a conceptual approach to develop and propose a framework for deepening the understanding of the context of market-related experiences. The authors integrate two growing streams of research – consumer culture theory and service-dominant logic – that focus on phenomenological and experiential views on value and extend the context of experience with a culturally rich, service-ecosystems view of markets.

The authors broaden the context of experience by applying a service-ecosystems perspective and identify four social and cultural factors that influence experience from this extended context – sign systems and service ecosystems; multiplicity of structure and institutions; value-in-cultural-context; and co-construction of context. Based on this, the authors point toward directions for future research.

The proposed framework points researchers and managers toward an extended context that is reproduced through the co-creation of value and influences evaluations of experience. Empirical research is needed to provide evidence of the proposed framework and further extend the understanding of dynamic social and cultural contexts.

The findings of this study provide a broader scope of context and identify additional social and cultural factors for managers to consider in their efforts to enhance customer experiences.

Traditional views of markets limit the context of experience to firm-customer encounters or consumer-centric practices and processes. This paper extends the context of experience to consider the practices and perspectives of multiple actors and various views on value.

This chapter explores the nature of the cultural context that frames value creation and provides insight to the way in which value is collaboratively created, or co-created, in markets.

We develop a conceptual framework and research propositions for studying the co-creation of value-in-cultural-context through the intersection of consumer culture theory (CCT) and service-dominant (S-D) logic and the integration of a practice-theoretic approach for value co-creation.

The integration of CCT, S-D logic, and practice theory provides a conceptual framework for studying the co-creation of value among multiple stakeholders and the (re)formation of markets.

Drawing on this framework, marketers can contribute to the co-creation of new markets by influencing changes in cultural contexts – practices, norms, meanings, and resources – that frame value co-creation and exchange.

This chapter explores the integration of CCT and S-D logic by focusing on value co-creation and applying a practice approach to further weave together these distinct research areas. In addition, the proposed framework elaborates the conceptualization of value-in-context to consider the cultural context that influences and is influenced by the co-creation of value.

Purpose – The purpose of this essay is to explore further the concept of value cocreation from a service-ecosystems view, by considering the importance of networks and the configuration of relationships and resources in markets.

Methodology/approach – We use a conceptual approach to extend a service-dominant (S-D) logic, ecosystems view of value cocreation by drawing on the literature regarding networks in marketing and related research.

Findings – A service-ecosystems approach to cocreating value-in-context is proposed, which points toward networks as mediating factors in value cocreation because they influence the ability to access, adapt, and integrate resources by establishing exchange relationships and shaping the social contexts through which value is experienced.

Research implications – This research suggests that value cocreation is a complex and multidimensional process that is best studied in the context of dynamic networks or ecosystems of service exchange.

Practical implications – This research suggests that networks mediate value cocreation, and thus, firms should consider the configurations of relationships and resources to develop more compelling value propositions.

Social implications – This research draws on the idea that exchange relationships are embedded within society and suggests that processes of value cocreation not only draw on but also contribute to the social contexts that frame market exchange.

Originality/value of essay – This research extends the value cocreation and S-D logic literature by exploring the role of networks in service ecosystems. In this framework, networks are mediators of value cocreation because they enable access to resources and help to (re)shape social contexts through which value is derived.