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The context of marketing and service research is rapidly changing as a result of advances in academic research and business practice. This has implications for our understanding of customer value. The purpose of this paper is to provide an update on customer value given today’s context (including recent advances such as technologies, human contact, collaborative consumption, service ecosystems and transformative service research); to revise Holbrook’s value typology; and to propose a research agenda.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service and marketing literature.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, this paper presents an evolved view on customer value which accounts for recent advances in academic research and business practice. Second, this paper updates Holbrook’s value typology by revising existing value types as well as identifying additional value types; and offers guidelines for measuring and modeling customer value. Third, this paper proposes a research agenda to guide and stimulate future value research.

This paper provides an update on customer value, which is one of the most fundamental concepts in service and marketing research. This updated perspective has been approved and applauded by Morris B. Holbrook, one of the founding fathers of value research.

The aim of this paper is to integrate insights from service, branding and communication research to present key principles of a successful transformative value positioning for service brands.

This paper uses a conceptual approach that is rooted in the service, branding and communication literature.

The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, this paper explains why positioning a service brand is different from positioning a product brand and why this is especially challenging in case of transformative value. Second, an organizing framework is used to theorize that a successful transformative value positioning is based on the organizational DNA; is consistently implemented in actions, communications, employee behavior, and servicescapes; and inspires customer engagement. Based on this framework, this paper formulates key principles of a successful transformative value positioning for service brands. Third, this paper provides a research agenda to guide and stimulate future research.

The key principles provide guidelines for managers striving for a transformative value positioning. Not adhering to these guidelines could have severe implications for service brands in terms of washing perceptions ultimately deteriorating the brand image.

This paper combines insights from service, branding and communication research to provide a comprehensive and balanced perspective on a successful transformative value positioning for service brands.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an illustrated step-by-step guideline of the partial least squares factorial structural equation modeling (PLS FAC-SEM) approach. This approach allows researchers to assess whether and how model relationships vary as a function of an underlying factorial design, both in terms of the design factors in isolation (i.e. main effects) as well as their joint impact (i.e. interaction effects).

After an introduction of its building blocks as well as a comparison with related methods (i.e. n-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multi-group analysis (MGA)), a step-by-step guideline of the PLS FAC-SEM approach is presented. Each of the steps involved in the PLS FAC-SEM approach is illustrated using data from a customer value study.

On a methodological level, the key result of this research is the presentation of a generally applicable step-by-step guideline of the PLS FAC-SEM approach. On a context-specific level, the findings demonstrate how the predictive ability of several key customer value measurement methods depends on the type of offering (feel-think), the level of customer involvement (low-high), and their interaction (feel-think offerings×low-high involvement).

This is a first attempt to apply the factorial structural equation models (FAC-SEM) approach in a PLS-SEM context. Consistent with the general differences between PLS-SEM and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM), the FAC-SEM approach, which was originally developed for CB-SEM, therefore becomes available for a larger amount of and different types of research situations.

Following a contingency approach, this paper aims to understand when service automation can enhance or destroy value for customers in the frontline by (1) providing a comprehensive overview of factors that influence the value co-creation/co-destruction potential of service automation and (2) zooming in on the combination of service contexts and service tasks to develop research propositions.

This paper uses a grounded theory approach based on qualitative data from multiple methods (i.e. a diary study with follow-up interviews, a consultation of academic experts and a storyboard study) as well as a systematic literature review to develop (1) a Framework of Automated Service Interactions (FASI) and (2) a contingency model for service tasks/contexts.

This paper presents a framework which gives an overview of factors influencing the value co-creation/co-destruction potential of service automation. The framework discerns between three types of factors: service design (i.e. controllable and manageable by the organization), static contingency (i.e. uncontrollable and fixed) and dynamic contingency (i.e. uncontrollable and flexible). Furthermore, the paper presents a contingency model based on the combination of service contexts and service tasks which results in seven research propositions.

This paper brings structure in the fragmented field of service automation. It integrates and summarizes insights regarding service automation and sheds more light on when service automation has the potential to create or destroy value in the organizational frontline.

The aim of this study is twofold: (1) to gain insight into the different perspectives on the relationship between patient and person centeredness and (2) to learn more about the differences between non-academic and academic stakeholders in the healthcare system.

This mixed-methods study includes a scoping review on person and patient centeredness and in-depth interviews with patients, caregivers, staff and management of healthcare organizations. The data were analyzed by following the six phases of Braun and Clarke.

The analysis of the data showed four different perspectives on patient versus person centeredness: (1) they are synonyms; (2) one term is favorite; (3) they should be in balance; and (4) person centeredness is the surplus on top of patient centeredness.

There are different perspectives on patient versus person centeredness. Perspectives differ between people and can change over time. Some people feel like a patient all the time, other people feel like a person all the time, and some feel like a patient at one point in time and as a person at another point in time.

These different perspectives can have important implications for the so-called moments of truth. In their role as patients, people value functional encounters and in their identity as people they value meaningful encounters with caregivers.

By unraveling these different perspectives, novel insights were found in the different perspectives people can take.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a typology of institutions enabling or constraining customer centricity and value co-creation in service ecosystems; illustrate the various types of institutions with examples from healthcare; and provide case study evidence on how pharmaceutical companies react to and induce institutional change.

First, a typology of institutions enabling or constraining customer centricity and value co-creation is proposed and illustrated with examples from healthcare. Next, to clarify how companies deal with these institutions by reacting to or inducing institutional change, two case companies from the pharmaceutical industry are described.

The research identifies and illustrates nine types of institutions (culture, structure, processes, metrics, language, practices, IP, legislation and general beliefs) grouped by three levels of analysis (micro, meso and macro). Furthermore, the findings of the two case studies indicate that companies react to, but also proactively induce, institutional change.

The investigation is limited to two case studies.

Organizations need to understand the micro-, meso- and macro-level institutions of their service ecosystem; react to institutional changes imposed by other actors; and proactively change institutions by breaking, making or maintaining them.

Pharmaceutical companies can improve patient well-being by inducing institutional change.

This research develops a mid-range theory of service ecosystem institutions by developing a typology. This typology is empirically examined in a healthcare context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether explicitly communicating the customer’s resource integrating role in value propositions improves or diminishes value proposition effectiveness.

Based on existing research on value propositions, three effectiveness criteria are used: role clarity, expected customer value, and purchase intention. Two experiments manipulating the presence of the customer’s resource integrating role in value propositions test the conceptual model in both an indirect interaction (Study 1, toothpaste, n=207) and a direct interaction context (Study 2, fitness program, n=228). Additionally, Study 2 includes the moderating role of resource availability.

Explicitly communicating the customer’s resource integrating role in value propositions increases customers’ role clarity, which in turn influences customer’s attitude toward the service and purchase intention through a service-related (i.e. expected benefits and expected efforts) and an ad-related (i.e. ad credibility and attitude toward the ad) route. However, these results only hold for customers high in resource availability.

This research provides initial empirical support for the often-stated claim that value propositions should include the (potential) value of the offering as well as the (resource integrating) role of the customer. Taking a broader perspective, this research provides initial empirical support for recent calls to develop marketing communication practices that facilitate value-in-use. This paper’s findings show that adopting service logic in marketing communications seems to improve value propositions’ effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to profile grocery retailers in terms of seven value types based on Holbrook’s value typology; to link these value types to three key outcomes (i.e. satisfaction, repurchase intention, and word-of-mouth); and to evaluate the impact of the retail format on performance and importance of the seven value types.

For each retail format, the authors administered a consumer survey, resulting in an aggregate sample of 392 respondents. The authors used partial least squares structural equations modeling to test the relationships between the value types and key outcomes (i.e. importance) and ANOVAs to examine cross-format differences between latent variable scores of the value types (i.e. performance).

The three retail formats included in the study perform differently on Holbrook’s value types (e.g. non-discounters excel in terms of aesthetic value and play, compared to hard and soft discounters). Furthermore, this study reveals that the strategic importance of each value type depends on the key outcome (e.g. whereas efficiency is the main source of satisfaction, play mainly drives the other two outcomes).

The authors randomly assigned respondents to one of the three retail formats irrespective of their personal preference or patronage. To conduct value-based segmentation, respondents should evaluate either their preferred format or all supermarkets.

This study offers positioning advice to retail managers, according to their format and strategic objectives.

Unlike previous research, this paper provides a cross-format comparison of retailers based on a three-dimensional value typology and its key outcomes.