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This paper aims to conceptualize and characterize service ecosystems, addressing calls for research on this important and under-researched topic.

The authors draw on four meta-theoretical foundations of S-D logic – resource integration, resource density, practices and institutions – providing a new integrated conceptual framework of ecosystem well-being. They then apply this conceptualization in the context of a complex healthcare setting, exploring the characteristics of ecosystem well-being at the meso level.

This study provides an integrated conceptual framework to explicate the nature and structure of well-being in a complex service ecosystem; identifies six key characteristics of ecosystem well-being; illustrates service ecosystem well-being in a specific healthcare context, zooming in on the meso level of the ecosystem and noting the importance of embedding a shared worldview; provides practical guidance for managers and policy makers about how to manage complex service ecosystems in their quest for improving service outcomes; and offers an insightful research agenda.

This research focuses on service ecosystems with an illustration in one healthcare context, suggesting additional studies that explore other industry contexts.

Practically, the study indicates the imperative for managing across mutually adapting levels of the ecosystem, identifying specific new practices that can improve service outcomes.

Examining well-being in the context of a complex service ecosystem is critical for policymakers charged with difficult decisions about balancing the demands of different levels and actors in a systemic world.

The study is the first to conceptualize and characterize well-being in a service ecosystem, providing unique insights and identifying six specific characteristics of well-being.

This paper aims to review the growth and development of the field of relationship marketing and, through a consideration of this body of work, identifies key research priorities for the future of relationship marketing. The paper also delineates the frequently confused associated concepts of customer relationship management and customer management and considers how they fit within the broader concept of relationship marketing.

This paper undertakes a review of the relationship marketing literature, supplemented by the authors’ on-going interactive research with managers.

The paper reviews alternative approaches to relationship marketing, reflects on the development of the field of relationship marketing and identifies three critical priorities for future research in relationship marketing.

The research priorities that are identified in this paper represent important priorities for scholars, managers, regulators and policy makers.

Although there is now a substantial body of research on relationship, marketing, much of this work focuses on the customer-firm dyad, with a smaller body of work focusing on a broader range of stakeholders. This paper argues for the broadening of the role of relationship marketing to consider ecosystems; the need for firms to shift from a value-in-exchange to a value-in-use perspective when addressing customer relationships; and the critical need to address “dark side” behaviour and dysfunctional processes in relationship marketing.

The purpose of this study is to examine how servicescapes impact well-being and satisfaction of both hospital customers (patients) and health care professional service providers.

The study investigates how a hospital servicescape impacts two critical outcomes – well-being and satisfaction – of both hospital patients (customers) and health care professionals, who are immersed in that environment.

The hospital servicescape had a greater impact on physical, psychological and existential well-being for professionals than for patients. However, the reverse was true for satisfaction. The new servicescape enhanced the satisfaction and physical and psychological well-being of professionals but only the satisfaction of customers.

The study implications for health care policy suggest that investment in health care-built environments should balance the needs of health care professionals with those of customers to benefit their collective well-being and satisfaction.

Based on the findings, the authors propose that servicescape investments should focus on satisfying the physical needs of patients while also placing emphasis on the psychological needs of professionals.

Health care spending on physical facilities should incorporate careful cost-benefit analysis, ensuring that beneficial features for both user groups are included in new hospital designs, omitting features that are less supportive of well-being.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to compare the impact of the same real-life servicescape on the satisfaction of both customers and service providers (professionals) and considers the critical health outcome of well-being.

This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework based on the identification and examination of the mechanisms (termed “viability mechanisms”) under which market-shaping activities yield the emergence of a viable market: one able to adapt to the changing environment over time while remaining stable enough for actors to benefit from it.

This paper uses extant literature to build a conceptual framework identifying viability mechanisms for market shaping and a case illustration examining how a viable market for Finnish timber high-rise buildings was created. The case exemplifies how the identified viability mechanisms are practically manifested through proactive market shaping.

The proposed conceptual framework incorporates four viability mechanisms identified in the extant literature: presence of dissipative structures, consonance among system elements, resonance among system elements and reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. It illustrates how these mechanisms are manifested in a contemporary case setting resulting in a viable market.

First, firms and other market-shaping organizations should look for, or themselves foster, viability mechanisms within their market-shaping strategies. Second, as failure rates in innovation are extremely high, managers should seek to identify or influence viability mechanisms to avoid premature commercialization of innovations.

This study identifies how these viability mechanisms permit markets to emerge and survive over time. Further, it illuminates the workings of the non-linear relationship between actor-level market-shaping actions and system-level market changes. As such, it provides a “missing link” to the scholarly and managerial discourse on market-shaping strategies. Unlike much extant market-shaping literature, this study draws substantively on the systems literature.

The hypothesis that broadly defined managerial functions can be subdivided on the basis of their members′ internal and external task orientations, and that the resulting subfunctions are, respectively, predominantly “adaptive” or “innovative” in terms of Kirton′s adaption‐innovation theory, was tested. Data from samples of British (N = 115), Australian (N = 123) and American (N = 131) mid‐career managers undertaking MBA programmes who completed the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI) and provided employment histories displayed the expected patterns of task orientation and cognitive style. Implications for adaption‐innovation theory and the management of organisational change are briefly discussed.

Managers are increasingly using external consultants for the provision of a wide range of professional management services. The article discusses the structure of the consulting industry, addresses the question of whether consultants “add value” for their clients, and describes how to identify, select and use relevant consultants.

Scholars identify the value proposition as representing the essence of strategy and the firm's single most important organizing principle. However, research suggests less than 10 per cent of companies formally develop value propositions. The purpose of this paper is to undertake case study research investigating the process by which leading companies develop their value propositions.

The research identifies that the financial services and telecommunications vertical markets are viewed as the highly sophisticated industry sectors in terms of customer management. These industry sectors are selected for investigation. The paper develops case studies of two companies’ approaches to developing value propositions in the business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) sectors within these vertical markets.

This paper contributes to the marketing literature by examining how two large and complex service enterprises have adopted structured processes for developing innovative value proposition within the B2B and B2C sectors. The authors argue that innovation in value proposition development represents a substantive opportunity for marketing to reassert its influence in the boardroom.

This case study research provides guidelines of the processes by which enterprises can successfully develop innovative value propositions.

This research is considered to be the first case-based academic exploration of the formal processes by which large organizations develop value propositions.

Research into the identification and development of value propositions has recently been identified as a key research priority by the Marketing Science Institute. The purpose of this article is to identify and develop a process for value proposition deconstruction that can help organizations transform their value propositions in order to gain an improvement in their competitive position.

A case study of an exemplar organization in the health care sector is used to develop an approach for value proposition deconstruction. Using the business system concept as a theoretical framework, the key value-adding elements that comprise this organization's value proposition are identified. A leading financial services firm is used to demonstrate how this learning approach can be successfully applied in developing a new and innovative value proposition.

Using the business system framework, a structured process for deconstructing value propositions is developed. This framework is extended to explicitly acknowledge the value-in-use that results from different encounters, to incorporate learning processes and to recognize its interactive and recursive nature.

The authors provide practitioners with insight into how to formulate new or improved value propositions.

This work addresses two important and previously unaddressed research questions: how can the process of deconstruction of an exemplar organization's value proposition provide a more comprehensive understanding of the elements that comprise a superior value offering; and how can this process be applied to other organizations seeking to improve their value proposition?

The value proposition concept and the stakeholder perspective have received relatively little attention within Service‐Dominant (S‐D) logic. This paper sets out to explore value propositions in the context of S‐D logic, within the multiple stakeholder domains that form part of a marketing system. Its purpose is to identify how use of the value proposition concept, in this broader context, provides new insight into value creation within a value network.

This paper explores the development of value propositions in key stakeholder market domains. A five‐step process is developed for identifying key stakeholders and co‐creating value propositions for them within a marketing system.

Value propositions have a key role in co‐creation of value between stakeholders. The development of value propositions in multiple stakeholder domains can provide an important mechanism for aligning value within a marketing system.

Stakeholder value propositions provide enhanced opportunities for value co‐creation and can assist managers in aligning value and stabilizing relationships within an organization's value network.

This paper considers a broader view of value through creation of value propositions for key stakeholders. An iterative framework is proposed that couples the stakeholder concept and value co‐creation.