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The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the role of fit in the relationship between the design of working spaces and organizational culture.

The research is based on a set of two case studies compared on two levels of analysis (company and work group level). Empirical results are based on triangulated data involving observations, as well as interviews with the users, managers and designers of spaces in two organizations.

The results suggest that the overall “fit” of space and culture are not sufficient to engender positive outcomes (such as job performance and employee satisfaction). In particular, the results point to the moderating factors on the work group level of analysis (such as the type of job and employees’ personalities), as well as on the company level (implementation of the change management process), as crucial drivers of job satisfaction and productivity.

The authors demonstrate that a singular focus only on the fit between space and organizational culture leads to equivocal results in terms of cultural change outcomes. A more fine-grained analysis on the work group level considering the match between space, type of job, personality and seniority of the users of that space reconciles these differences.

This paper aims to explore gift personalization, i.e. the design of gifts by givers on mass-personalization platforms, from the perspective of the gift recipient.

Given the exploratory objectives of this study, the qualitative approach was deemed suitable. Two complementary qualitative studies (i.e. semi-structured interviews and critical incidents) have been conducted, and the narratives have been thematically analyzed.

Gift recipients value gift personalization because of the utility they derive from the product, as well as the ability of the personalized gift to express the giver. Recipients recognize the capacity of the personalized gift to communicate symbolically the giver; they appreciate not only the enhanced attributes of the end product but also the process that led to it, which is imagined as creative and risky. The inherent expressivity of the personalized gift makes it highly valuable in the recipient’s eyes, even when it fails to please him or her.

This research redefines the boundaries of personalization value based on the perceptions of consumers who are not involved in the design process; highlights implications of personalization for firms targeting givers as users of their mass-personalization platforms; and proposes a research agenda to further investigate personalization in marketing.

This paper shows how business suppliers set up processes allowing the translation of their competencies into value for the customers. As such, this paper seeks to complement the dominant view in which competencies are seen mainly as valuable for the firm owning the competencies but not for that firm's customers. In so doing, the paper seeks to contribute to two bodies of research: the notions of core competencies in strategic management and of value for customer in business marketing. These two bodies of research interact infrequently thus far, leaving the question of how value is transferred unanswered. This question is relevant because competencies are immaterial, tacit, and non-tradable assets. Hence, the research question underlying the present paper becomes: How can competencies translate into valuable outputs and be made accessible to the customer? To answer this question, a qualitative approach is used that involves a multiple-case study analysis aimed at exploring the competence-based process of value supplying in business markets. Specifically, this paper suggests the following propositions: (1) Competence-based value analysis, where suppliers anticipate customers’ competence needs, require an end-market orientation. (2) Competence-based value creation implies an accumulation of know-how that overlaps with customer competencies. (3) Competence-based value communication builds on live communication tools that allow customers to get an ongoing experience of the value potential of competencies. (4) Competence-based value delivery is based on bundles of suppliers’ competencies into tradable means and direct access to competence tools.

This first paper examines total benefits and total costs of product–service designs as antecedents to customer value assessment. It introduces the reader to all the papers in this volume. The first half of the paper offers a model of customer value assessment. This section describes research studies in industrial marketing contexts that illustrate the core propositions in the model. The second half of the paper provides brief introductions to the papers in this volume; these papers offer further evidence supporting the view that discontinuous innovations offer superior customer value but customers tend to eventually become increasingly comfortable with the status quo and move away from adopting superior proven technologies. This paper advocates being mindful of the marketplace dynamics affecting value. The volume serves to increase knowledge and understanding of the dynamic forces affecting changes in customer value.

This case aims to look at a small start‐up car maker called Loremo, Inc. in Marl, Germany, that hopes to thrive by challenging resource constraints with bold innovation.

The authors found Loremo as part of their five‐year long study looking at how innovation manages to flourish in firms despite resource scarcity.

The paper finds that Loremo engineers had no other choice but to make virtue of necessity, to develop their car with existing technology and affordable materials, but to reconsider the traditional principles of automobile engineering, which other companies take for granted.

The authors are doing research on companies that achieve bold innovation despite limited resources.

The Loremo engineers overcame the costly process that results from taking a “design stance,” a commitment to design parts to do a particular job.

Manufacturers in all the developed countries that are struggling with the need for radical innovation might take number of lessons from the tiny Loremo car company.