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Entrepreneurial ecosystems – the inter-related forces that promote and sustain regional entrepreneurship – are receiving intense academic, policymaker and practitioner attention. Prior research primarily focuses on mature entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) in large, urban areas. Scholars are slow to examine the functioning of EEs in small towns, which face unique challenges in spurring entrepreneurial activity. Most notably, small town EEs are dependent on a key stakeholder group – local customers – which receives almost no attention in prior research on ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework for understanding the role of customers in EEs.

This paper integrates work on the service-dominant logic and service ecosystems with entrepreneurship research to theorize about the influence of customers in small town EEs.

The proposed theory draws attention to the role of customers in evaluating the services provided by entrepreneurs and co-creating value in small town EEs. Theory is developed about the influence of three sets of customer characteristics on entrepreneurial activities: the local market potential (based on the number of local and transient customers), customers’ abilities to access the ecosystem (based on income levels) and customers’ preferences for services provided by the ecosystem’s entrepreneurs (based on preferences for innovativeness, local versus global brands and in- versus out-shopping).

Entrepreneurial ecosystems research has implicitly adopted a producer-dominant logic focusing on entrepreneurs and their ventures as the primary creators of value. The proposed theoretical framework applies the service-dominant logic to EEs and conceptualizes EEs as a unique type of service ecosystem. The theorizing generates implications for scholars and practitioners and suggests that more work is needed at the interface of entrepreneurship, marketing and regional economic development.

This study aims to characterize how ecosystem actors shape customer experience (CX). The study also proposes implications for managers and research regarding the customer ecosystem, its actors and actor constellations in the context of CXs.

A qualitative study is conducted among activity tracker users to identify how actors within their ecosystems shape CXs. Data include 28 in-depth interviews and ten self-reported diaries.

This study delineates six actor categories in the customer ecosystem shaping CX within and beyond the service. The number of actors and their importance to the focal customer in various actor constellations form individual-, brand- and socially driven ecosystems. These customer ecosystem types show how actors combine to drive CXs.

Researchers should shift their attention to experiences emerging in the customer’s lifeworld. A customer ecosystem highlights the customer-centered actor configuration emergent within the customer’s lifeworld. It is self-constructed based on the customer’s reference point.

Managers should aim to locate, monitor and join the customer’s lifeworld to gain more insight into how CXs emerge in the customer ecosystem based on customer logic.

Customers are not isolated actors simply experiencing service; rather, they construct idiosyncratic actor constellations that include various providers, social groups and peers.

This paper extends the theory on CXs by illustrating how the various actors and actor constellations forming the customer ecosystem shape CXs.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the resource integration processes that occur within service ecosystems affect both the well-being of the entire ecosystem and the well-being of specific focal actors (i.e. customers) in the ecosystem. Specifically, this paper considered cases in which customers’ well-being results from simultaneous participation in a multiplicity of service ecosystems.

An illustrative example, taken from the tourism context, was used to develop a conceptual framework (of which customers were the focal actors) to evaluate service ecosystem outcomes.

The results showed that the well-being of focal actors (i.e. customers) should be evaluated by considering the outcomes that arise in the interlocking service ecosystems in which the customers simultaneously participate. Further, in relation to these interlocking service ecosystems, high levels of well-being within a single ecosystem did not necessarily cause focal actors to experience high levels of well-being.

To ensure the creation of positive customer experiences, the co-creating actors (e.g. the service providers) must first identify each of the interlocking service ecosystems in which customers simultaneously participate and then establish interactions with other relevant actors.

By considering the complex relationships between the well-being of a service ecosystem as a whole and the well-being of specific focal actors (e.g. customers) in an ecosystem, this study advances knowledge about evaluations on the performance of service ecosystems.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth understanding of actor engagement (AE) on social media by proposing a holistic and integrative conceptual framework.

Based on a sample of 118 articles, the paper draws on the service-dominant logic (SDL)-based service ecosystem perspective combined with the tenets of relational dialectics as theoretical lenses to inform AE research in social media.

The paper proposes a framework of AE in social media called the TASC model, an acronym of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis-Conflict. TASC introduces the dialectical nature of AE and discusses the contexts and levels of AE in the social media ecosystem and their evolving processes.

Firms can apply the knowledge provided by TASC to gather marketing intelligence and develop marketing strategies to anticipate tensions, motivate the desired AE intensity and valence and reinforce value co-creation in the social media ecosystem.

TASC is a comprehensive framework that, for the first time, explains engagement at all levels of the social media ecosystem by combining the SDL-based service ecosystem view with the relational dialectics perspective.

Customer engagement (customers’ behavioral manifestations going beyond customer-firm purchase transactions) has been regarded as strategic imperatives for generating enhanced corporate performance. The plethora of new media has provided customers with different options to interact with firms and other customers. However, the primacy of value-laden interactive customer relationships and value co-creation raises challenges for firms and customers, especially in the context of broader business ecosystems such as brand partnership for extending value co-creation. This study aims to explore how customer engagement with well-designed choreograph of various new media’s channels can increase the value co-creation extent in the context of broader business ecosystems, resulting in higher levels service offerings, experiences and innovation.

This exploratory study presents a new framework of customer engagement that holistically integrates the elements of multiple new media and broader business ecosystem, stimulating a virtuous circle of realizing customer engagement toward superior results or innovations. The framework considers new media’s different information service and technologies (e.g. search engine, social recommender, social media) that can be properly choreographed to achieve a virtuous customer engagement circle.

This paper uses an exemplar framework's instantiation – an information technology enabled engagement platform (called iEngagement) – that can demonstrate how to empower the central companies together with their eco-stakeholders to holistically perform customer engagement utilizing new media toward fruitful customer engagement.

This exploratory study is among the first that addresses the theory and practice of customer engagement within multiple new media and broader business ecosystem. This paper presents a customer engagement framework and an exemplified engagement platform that holistically integrate the elements of multiple new media and broader business ecosystem, for stimulating a virtuous circle of realizing customer engagement toward superior results or innovations.

This study aims to integrate research on customer success (CS) management with the service ecosystems perspective of selling to enhance the understanding of the CS management function and the outcomes selling firms should expect based on implementation of CS management.

The authors apply the service ecosystems perspective of selling to describe how CS management is manifested in practice by offering relevant insights and practical industry examples.

Study findings identify relevant ecosystem actors, acting on behalf of the customer, required for the delivery of desirable customer outcomes. Study findings also link the orchestration efforts of CS managers to theory-based tenets for explanation of how CS management facilitates the attainment of competitive advantages via the thickening and thinning of ecosystem crossing points.

Given that the research is conceptual, additional research that empirically examines this framework and the insights presented would lend further credence to the recommendations the authors suggest.

From a practical perspective, the authors present a “Customer Relationship and Solution Innovation Matrix” which integrates necessary value-creating activities that CS managers perform and the coordination with internal actors that CS managers rely on to create value.

Although the practice of CS management is becoming increasingly common, theoretical approaches capable of explaining the function have been lacking. Similarly, while the service ecosystems perspective redefines selling to encompass a broader set of actors than traditionally examined, practical examinations of the theory are limited. The authors address these issues, integrating both research streams for an enhanced understanding of the CS management function through the service ecosystems perspective theoretical lens.

This paper aims to explore the dimensions that foster the accomplishment of goals of business ecosystems.

The paper reviews recent contributions to business ecosystems and identifies the key pillars that support the achievement of good results.

The paper suggests that entanglement with the customers, value sharing based on a holistic win-win approach, organizational entrepreneurship alignment and continuous smart learning are four dimensions of criticality for designing an effective business ecosystem. These four dimensions nurture the relationships between participants and external actors to make ecosystems successful. Entanglement with the customer is critical to the long-term relevance of the value proposition that reinforces companies’ relationships within the second pillar of value sharing in a win-win system. The development is structured in an organizational alignment where entrepreneurship is the engine, from the employees themselves to the largest corporations, and is enriched with continuous learning based on the exploitation of knowledge and big data.

The paper identifies a set of four pillars of business ecosystem design for further empirical analysis by ecosystem researchers.

The paper provides managers and professionals with strategies to develop effective growth within business ecosystems.

The authors contribute a fresh perspective to the business ecosystems literature by identifying four key pillars of success in the current business landscape.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how ecosystems and platforms have evolved to manage customer information and to identify the management, research and teaching implications of this evolution.

This paper is based on research and industrial experience of two of the co-authors in customer relationship management, further developed with other co-authors in the field of business models, the research and teaching experience of the university authors and cross-functional literature reviews in the areas of strategy, marketing, economics, organizational behaviour and information management.

This paper shows that digitalization, cloud computing and new information-based platforms are beginning to change how customer information is being managed, creating new opportunities for improving marketing, customer relationship management and business strategy.

The impact of platforms on the management of customer information needs to be confirmed by primary empirical research.

This paper identifies the need for senior marketing management to examine closely how internal and external/public customer information platforms may enhance their capability for managing customers and setting new strategic directions.

The emergence of giant multi-sided platforms has clear implications for data protection and privacy, which need to be explored more in research.

This paper highlights the move to customer information platforms and identifies how senior managers should consider them as an option for better customer information management and as a basis for new business strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to review customer experience formation (CXF) by first locating and analyzing how researchers approach CXF in the service literature and the theoretical underpinnings of these approaches, and then assessing which approaches are best suited for understanding, facilitating, and examining CXF in today’s service landscape.

This study systematically reviews 163 articles published between 1998 and 2015 in the service field.

This study illustrates how researchers approach CXF on the individual level by applying stimulus- interaction- or sense-making-based perspectives. These reflect researchers’ theoretical underpinnings for how individuals realize the customer experience within environmental, social, and temporal contexts through intermediation. Researchers further apply contextual lenses, including the dyadic and service- or customer-ecosystem lenses, which reflect their theoretical underpinnings for explaining how various actor constellations and contextual boundaries frame individual-level CXF. Finally, this study shows why the sense-making-based perspective, together with a service- or customer-ecosystem lens, is particularly suitable for approaching complex CXF in today’s service settings.

To advance theory, researchers should choose the approaches resonant with their research problem and worldview but also consider that today’s complex service landscape favors holistic and systemic approaches over atomistic and dyadic ones.

This study provides managers with recommendations for understanding, facilitating, and evaluating contemporary CXF.

This study advances the understanding of CXF by systematically reviewing its multiple layers, approaches, and dimensions and the opportunities and challenges of each approach.

This paper aims to determine how environmental sustainability (ES) can be integrated into the customer experience (CX). In order to accomplish this, the paper uses a customer journey (CJ) perspective. Speculatively, the paper analyses the experiential stakeholder ecosystem beyond the CJ to verify the obstacles to the implementation of ES.

This paper uses a qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders within the food delivery ecosystem. The multi-stakeholder analysis allows the authors to explore the problem not only from an operational point of view but also from a strategic point of view since in the delivery of a service the value for the end customer is the result of the efforts of several players.

The results shed light on the importance attributed to ES by the players that make up the food delivery ecosystem. The findings emphasise the importance of an ecosystemic view amongst stakeholders to achieve ES.

This research extends the scarce and embryonic literature on a sustainable CX by applying a CJ perspective, by revealing how and with which touchpoints it is possible to be environmentally sustainable in the design of the CX.